FirstClass BBS software has an intuitive graphical-user interface, quickness, and clean design that's attracting many users (including Senator Ted Kennedy, whose home office runs a FirstClass BBS in Massachusetts). Among the hobbyists who use FirstClass software is a fellow by the name of Scott Converse (left). In the fall of '92, when Converse received a FirstClass upgrade that had the ability to connect conferences, messages and files between other FirstClass BBSs, he invited other sysops to become a network, called OneNet.
The response was enthusiastic - the Mac-based OneNet began garnering affiliates at the rate of five a week, and the system currently comprises more than 250 separate BBSes, as far-flung as London, Hong Kong, Berlin, Tokyo, Sydney, Toronto, and Barcelona. Converse estimates that OneNet now has 300,000 users. Some OneNet boards are free, others offer an average of 20 minutes of free logon time per day - and charge a subscriber's fee for additional access time.
"It is sometimes easy to forget that the OneNet is little more than a year old," says Bernard Aboba, author of The Online User's Encyclopedia and a BMUG (Berkeley Macintosh User's Group) administrator. According to Aboba, "OneNet will become the largest Macintosh-oriented bulletin board network. At its current rate of growth, sometime in 1995 it will become the fifth largest store and forward network in terms of membership, behind FidoNet, UUCP, WWIVNet, and BITNET. By then it will probably also be among the top networks in terms of conference traffic." And as a global conferencing environment, its numbers will stack up well against established systems like America Online, CompuServe, and Prodigy.
FirstClass client software is available via ftp from info-mac-request@sumex-aim.stanford.edu in the info-mac/comm directory. OneNet: +1 (415) 948 4775. SoftArc (makers of FirstClass): +1 (416) 299 4723.
ELECTRIC WORD
Telegeography The Balance of Global Telecommunications
The Interactive Electric Sumo Scream Show
Credit Card Abuse Made Even Simpler
OneNet
