In the midst of the perpetual upheaval, tucked in an upstairs room, is a collection of what Katie Hamilton describes as “ugly little boxes”: four computers, seven modems, a high-speed leased telephone line, a universal power supply. Then there’s the latest addition to the Hamiltons’ nest of electronics – a network router, which is their door to the global Internet.
The Hamiltons are the sysops (system operators, or hosts) on HouseNet, a BBS (bulletin-board system) that focuses on home repair. For home renovators looking for tips, building specs or simply someone to commiserate with at any time of the day or night, HouseNet is the place to go. Topics on HouseNet range from leaky faucets to split staircase spindles to lead paint. Log on to HouseNet and you are likely to find another do-it-yourselfer who has struggled with the same problem of squaring up a doorjamb or leveling a floor. More than just online advice, the BBS contains thousands of software programs that, say, estimate materials or help design a new deck.
Experts themselves at home repair (this is their 14th renovation), the Hamiltons write books and newspaper columns on the subject. They started HouseNet four years ago with a laptop computer, a modem and one telephone line. Their hopes were high. But with the exception of somelocal high-school kids who hung up assoon as they saw that the BBS had no games, no one logged on for weeks. Gradually, however, word of their unique offering spread, and HouseNet now has some 4,700 regular callers.
Traditionally something of a backwater in the computer world, BBSes are coming into their own. Jack Rickard, editor of Boardwatch Magazine, estimates there are 60,000 BBSes in operation in the United States, catering to some 18 million people – “from punk rockers to Jewish grandmothers and everyone in between.” BBSes are dedicated to every topic imaginable, from paganism to guns to Sherlock Holmes. But the majority are repositories for thousands upon thousands of shareware programs (low-cost software that users can download and try out before buying): desktop organizers, personal schedulers, accounting systems, word-processing programs and simple utilities that make PCs easier to use.
Some who roam around inside BBSes are the junkyard dogs of cyberspace. They spend hours on end rummaging for software to download, then store programs by the hundreds. “People will get thisstuff and put it on their hard disc and never use it,” says John Heath, who runs a small BBS in Mission Viejo, Calif., called The Safety Net. “It’s the idea that they’re getting all these free files that appeals to them.”
BBSes have been around since the 1970s, and started out as an online version of ham radio. “When we started Boardwatch in 1987, people who did BBSes were viewed as people who met every Tuesday night to exchange toothbrushes,” says Rickard. “Now they’re much more mainstream.” The glue for a BBS is software that makes the host system look like a fairly sophisticated online service. In reality, most BBSes are run from spare bedrooms and consist of little more than ordinary home computers attached to modems or bank of modems. There are no ringing phones. Instead, the modems emit a discreet click as they take and release calls.
Much of the growth derives from the overall explosion in modem sales and interest in the online world. “There’s such a general awakening as to how to use a modem, everybody’s starting to do it now,” says Bob Mahoney, who runs Exec-PC in Milwaukee, which, with 30,000 users and a collection of 400,000 software files, is the largest BBS in the world.
Why would people bother calling a BBS in the first place, when they can log on to one of the big online services such as America Online or Prodigy? The most obvious answer is cost. The large commercial services charge as much as $4.80 per hour, while many BBSes are free. Also, says Katie Hamilton, dialing a local BBS is one of the first things many people do when they buy a modem. “We don’t get the crazy, techie net-surfers,” says Hamilton. “We get someone looking for something to do with the modem they just bought.” Notall BBS habitues are novices.Conference-based systems like ECHO in New York City and the WELL in Sausalito, Calif., feel like university towns – intimate yet sophisticated. ECHO, operated out of a Greenwich Village apartment, dresses in virtual black and is noted for its discussions of art, women’s issues and multimedia publishing. The WELL has the world’s most strident Grateful Dead conference, but also has active telecommunications and media conferences.
Nearly all BBSes are started as a hobby. And, in keeping with most hobbies, BBSes demand time and money. “It’s like being a boat owner,” says Heath. “The BBS is this big hole you pour money into.”
The financial rewards are few. BBSes bring in revenue by offering enhanced services to those who pay a fee. HouseNet, for example, has nearly 500 users who pay $35 a year for unlimited downloads and a high-speed connection. Few sysops manage to turn their BBSes into profitable ventures. “You have to have just the right touch, and be at the right place at the right time,” says Tess Heder, who runs Channel 1 in Cambridge, Mass., with her husband. Those in metropolitan areas tend to do better because there are more potential customers making local calls.
And it doesn’t hurt to offer a little smut. Many sysops lament that they have little choice but to carry “adult” files. These range from people posing in lingerie to hard-core pornography. They have little choice, say the sysops, partly because the porn helps generate calls and partly because users insist on it. “I tried removing all adult files in 1990 because it didn’t seem in keeping with our professional orientation,” says Exec-PC’s Mahoney. But after an outcry from users, he reinstated them.
All of which makes BBSes like HouseNet unique. Adult files on HouseNet are unthinkable. And whereas most BBSes act mainly as a place to retrieve software or carry on an online chat, HouseNet is dedicated to its theme. “We’d like to become a clearinghouse for all information on home repair,” says Hamilton. It’s precisely the commitment to specific content that has given HouseNet its loyal following. “HouseNet basically kept me sane while I was going through the trialsand tribulations of living in a construction zone,” says Paul York, a video technician who recently renovated a large house in Fair Lawn, N.J.
Many BBSes are now hooking up to the Internet at large. Such a link, which requires an expensive, dedicated high-speed phone line, can help a BBS cross the line to profitability. HouseNet got a boost last October, when Owens-Corning, which manufactures buildinginsulation, set the Hamiltons up with an Internet connection. This gave HouseNet regulars an inexpensive port to the Internet, and brought Internet users to HouseNet. HouseNet has yet to turn a profit, but the Internet connection has helped double the number of paying subscribers. And by the summer, the Hamiltons plan to have their own World Wide Web home page as well, another trend among BBSes.
But a bridge to the Internet raises the cost of starting up a system. And when one BBS in town gets an Internet connection, competing systems may lose business. This may spell difficult times for the sysops running tiny shoestring outfits. They could be in danger of ending up as they started – in a spare bedroom with a computer, a modem and an idle line.
