Memorabilia Info
date 1991
description Quick history which could be viewed when one first logged in.
size 2784
filename Bee Line Brief History.txt
handle Kiddo
Content-Type text/plain
category email/messages
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                  ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
                  ³         System Information/History         ³
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     The Bee Line has been in operation since September, 1986, when it went
up on a 48k Apple II+ with five ports at 300 baud. Some notable dates in the
history:

     12/86 - Expansion to 7 ports at a lightning fast 300 bps.
      7/87 - Conversion to 1200 bps modems.
     ??/87 - System beefed up to a whoppin' 64k! 12k is used for E-mail!
      6/89 - Expansion to 11 ports, and 2400 bps. Life in the fast lane!
      7/90 - Drop down to 9 ports (hardware failure).
      1/91 - Move from the trusty Apple to an DOS clone; 12 ports, 2400bps.
      6/91 - Expansion to 15 ports, including a few faster 2400 ports.
     10/91 - 5th birthday celebrated, 17 ports!

     Over the years, the Bee Line has seen hundreds of users, over 500,000
calls. Many romances, friendships, conflicts, and venerable legends have
taken root in the community here.   This "community" is not the Bee Line, but
the people who call it. Other BBS's are just as much home to all this as the
Bee Line is! (Warlords is a famous defunct one).

                  ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
                  ³            Bee Line Techie Info            ³
                  ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ

     The original Apple II software, Honeycomb, was written entirely in 6502
assembly language by the sysop, Bee. The userlog, E-mail, and everything was
stored in RAM (a whoppin' 64k of it). Curiously, space limitations were
seldom a problem!
     With help from hardware hackers like Raist and Vector Space, the Bee
Line was able to push the Apple to 11 ports at 2400! It was truely a work of
geek art.
     Honeycomb PC (being used now), is written mostly in Turbo C 2.0, with
some assembly language for the screen VT100 emulation. All the interrupt
level communication routines are 100% Turbo C code. If you're interested in
the software, drop the sysop a line.
   
     A 20MHz 386sx in a mini tower is the horsepower now. It's got a
Digiboard PC/16 multiport board with 16550 UART's, a 40Mb Maxtor IDE drive,
and a SVGA monitor hooked up. The system is able to handle the load very
well!   The modem fleet includes 9 Maxon 2400's, 3 Cardinal 2400MNP5's, and
4 Zoom V.42bis modems, and a Supra 2400.

     Some people ask, "Why not use TBBS, Galacticomm, or other multiuser BBS
software?"  Quite simply, they cost too much!  $1000+ for BBS software!?
jeez! I'll pay off my Visa bill before I buy something like that!  And many
users prefer the homebrew atmosphere. I certainly do! Reminds me of the good
ol' days when every other BBS running was written by the Sysop.

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