Page 167 - DLIS408_INFORMATION_TECHNOLOGY-APPLICATIONSL SCIENCES

Information Technology and Application

Notes The use of these custom character sets was generally incompatible between manufacturers. Unless
a caller was using terminal emulation software written for, and running on, the same type of
system as the BBS, the session would simply fall back to simple ASCII output. For example, a
Commodore 64 user calling an Atari BBS would use ASCII rather than the machine’s native
character set. As time progressed, most terminal programs began using the ANSI standard, but
could use their native character set if it was available.
COCONET, a BBS system made by Coconut Computing, Inc., was released in 1988 and only
supported a GUI interface (no text interface was available), and worked in EGA/VGA graphics
mode, which made it stand out from the text-based BBS systems. COCONET’s bitmap and vector
graphics and support for multiple type fonts were inspired by the PLATO system, and the graphics
capabilities were based on what was available in the Borland BGI graphics library. A number of
companies wanted to license the COCONET GUI but Coconut Computing chose not to, and as a
result, a competing approach called Remote Imaging Protocol (RIP) emerged and was promoted
by Telegrafix in the early to mid 1990s but it never became widespread. A similar technology
called NAPLPS was also considered, and although it became the underlying graphics technology
behind the Prodigy service, it never gained popularity in the BBS market. There were several GUI-
based BBS’s on the Apple Macintosh platform, including TeleFinder and FirstClass, but these
remained widely used only in the Mac market.
In the UK, the BBC Micro based OBBS software, available from Pace for use with their modems,
optionally allowed for colour and graphics using the Teletext based graphics mode available on that
platform. Other systems used the Viewdata protocols made popular in the UK by British Telecom’s
Prestel service, and the on-line magazine Micronet 800 whom were busy giving away modems with
their subscriptions.

Task State briefly how bulletin board system helps to user.
The most popular form of online graphics was ANSI art, which combined the IBM Extended ASCII
character set’s blocks and symbols with ANSI escape sequences to allow changing colors on demand,
provide cursor control and screen formatting, and even basic musical tones. During the late 1980s
and early 1990s, most BBSes used ANSI to make elaborate welcome screens, and colorized menus,
and thus, ANSI support was a sought-after feature in terminal client programs. The development of
ANSI art became so popular that it spawned an entire BBS “artscene” subculture devoted to it.
Amiga program Skyline BBS was the first in 1987 featuring a script markup language communication
protocol called Skypix which was capable to give the user a complete graphical interface, featuring
rich graphic content, changeable fonts, mouse-controlled actions, animations and sound.
Today, most BBS software that is still actively supported, such as WorldGroup, Wildcat! BBS and
Citadel/UX, is Web-enabled, and the traditional text interface has been replaced (or operates
concurrently) with a Web-based user interface. For those more nostalgic for the true BBS experience,
one can use Net Serial (Windows) or DOSBox (Windows/*nix) to redirect DOS COM port software
to telnet, allowing them to connect to Telnet BBSes using 1980s and 1990s era modem terminal
emulation software, like Telix, Terminate, Qmodem and Procomm Plus. Modern 32-bit terminal
emulators such as mTelnet and SyncTerm include native telnet support.

Content and Access

Since early BBS’ were frequently run by computer hobbyists, they were typically technical in nature
with user communities revolving around hardware and software discussions. Many SysOps were
transplants of the amateur radio community and thus amateur and packet radio were often popular
topics.
As the BBS phenomenon grew, so did the popularity of special interest boards. Bulletin Board
Systems could be found for almost every hobby and interest. Popular interests included politics,

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