💾 Archived View for gemini.spam.works › mirrors › textfiles › bbs › bio captured on 2022-04-29 at 11:46:14.
⬅️ Previous capture (2020-10-31)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ? The Invention Factory BBS will soon celebrate it's eleventh year ? ? on-line. I thought that some of our BBS members might be interested ? ? in how we began and what motivated Michael and I to start our BBS. ? ? ? ? In 1981 I was a single mother living in Long Beach, Long Island and ? ? working as a waitress to support myself and my nine year old daughter ? ? Sarah. I met Michael at a party given by a friend of mine and ? ? instantly knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. ? ? The psychic part of myself recognized him on an intuitive level. ? ? Unfortunately he left the party before I could tell him that we were ? ? destined to be together. Several months went by before I could work ? ? up the courage to track him down and call him. I had never called a ? ? man before but I talked myself into it by asking myself, " What are ? ? the worst things that could happen? " One is that he won't remember ? ? me and two is that he'll ask me what my intentions are. So I called ? ? him, and of course he didn't know who I was, he had no recollection of ? ? ever having met me and asked me what my intentions were in calling him. ? ? However, we did have a great phone conversation and talked for hours. ? ? Just before I hung up the phone I asked him if he would like to get ? ? together sometime and he said, "No, but I'll call you sometime." We ? ? spoke on the phone for months before arranging a date. After that ? ? first date we saw each other every weekend. Our first New Years Eve ? ? together that I didn't have to work and had child care for my daughter ? ? arranged I drove into Manhattan early in the day to be with Michael. ? ? Michael met me outside and asked me to drive him uptown to a friends ? ? house. On the way he explained that his friend had agreed to lend him ? ? a terminal for a couple of days. This was not a computer but a dumb ? ? terminal and Michael was instantly obsessed. He sat in front of the ? ? terminal all evening and I sat on the couch watching Dick Clarks Rock ? ? N Roll New Years party by myself. As I watched the ball drop on Times ? ? Square I decided I had to see what the attraction was to this thing in ? ? the other room. I found Michael seated in front of the terminal with a ? ? glazed expression trying to type nonsense on the screen. When I sat ? ? down to take a turn Michael was extremely impressed that I could type. ? ? But I still didn't get what he was so fascinated by. Michael explained ? ? to me that if you took this terminal and plugged it into a phone and ? ? called an information service you could find any information about any ? ? topic any time of the day or night. You have no idea what those words ? ? meant to me. I've been an information junkie my whole life. I had the ? ? Dewey Decimal System memorized by age twelve. I will read anything ? ? about anything. I am also one of the most gullible people in the whole ? ? world cause I believed him when he told me we just needed to get a few ? ? more things to be able to do this really simply. The next few months ? ? were devoted to research and development; which computer to buy and ? ? learning to type. By July of 1983 we had an IBM PC, a Hayes 1200 baud ? ? modem and a subscription to Dialog which came with a 750 page manual. ? ? I'm just like every one else. I refused to read the manual. Michael ? ? said that what we now needed was software so he started to call some ? ? BBS's and one of the first programs he downloaded turned out to be one ? ? a public domain bulletin board program, RBBS. He said he thought he ? ? should install it and then he could really learn a lot about computer ? ? telecommunications, and get all sorts of software for free. We set up ? ? the BBS, put our name on some BBS lists ( which were a lot smaller in ? ? those days ) and waited for the modem to ring. Whenever we heard ? ? someone connecting to the board we'd run to the computer to see who ? ? was on-line and usually start typing to them. We became a busy little ? ? board and when Michael started adding more memory, more phone lines ? ? and more modems at an alarming rate I gave him my ultimatum, "Either ? ? make this thing support itself or give it up." We had a core group of ? ? members who said that they would be willing to pay us for membership ? ? if we could guarantee no busy signals. So that's how it all began. ? ? I guess it could be a great story if I could say that we've taken our ? ? hobby and turned it into a business and become rich and famous. The ? ? truth is , we struggle along like most small businesses in America. We ? ? continue to grow but not as quickly as I would like. Our family has ? ? grown to include two more children and I can't think of many other Mom ? ? and Pop operations that allow us the flexibility to work when we want ? ? and spend time with our children as we want. I can't imagine going out ? ? to a job and not seeing my kids for nine hours a day. Every time I ? ? pick them up from school, or go on class trips, or volunteer in their ? ? classrooms I feel pretty rich and extremely lucky. ? ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????