Hi,

It's been awhile since I got this message and kept forgetting to respond.
Lots of questions.

I grew up in Oakland, California.  In East Oakland to be specific.

I got into computers by getting a home computer first.  It was TI 99/4a in
1982.  Then in October, 1983, I got the Commodore 64 when it went down in
price.  I kept working with the C=64 for quite a while.  Sometime in 1984, I
bought a 300 baud vicmodem.  A neighbor of mine had one also and we chatted
on a telecommunications program.  He told me a few BBS numbers which were
mostly IBM in the area I was in.

I'm still involved with computers today.  It's very different now as I work
for a software company that specializes in Application Integration for
Internet applications to interface with existing applications using a hub
architecture.

With the shift to the Internet, I believe that nothing was lost, but just
changed in the way things are done.  Instead of logging onto a BBS, you now
log onto an Internet Service Provider where you pay (or not pay if you join
one of the free ones like Juno, NetZero, BlueLight, Alta Vista, etc.
Instead of downloading files from the BBS, you can download from web pages.
Instead of posting to a message board, you post to a newsgroup.  Actually,
the only thing that was lost was that one person can't set it all up himself
like it used to be.  Now you have to be connected to somewhere and have some
arrangement in place for your connection.

I started developing the C=64 AABBS in June 1985.  Most of the first version
of the C128 code was based on the C=64 version so it was also started at the
same time.  I didn't really start on the specific C128 version until late
1986 I think.

I was 24 when I started on the C=64 version of the AABBS.

I'd say the AABBS was very successful and one of the top three BBS's for the
C=64 and C=128 computers.  It might have been the most successful for the
C=128.  The top three were C-Net, Color 64 and the AABBS.  I don't know
which was really the top and sold the most, but the AABBS was definitely in
the top three.  All of the others didn't come close to those in volume of
use.

My ability to type fast was the most contributing factor in the development
of the BBS.  Back then, when you communicated, it was all done through
typing.  Anyone that couldn't type fast, back then, really had a bad time.
Now, even in the information industry, there are a lot of professionals that
don't know how to type very fast.  Some even use two fingers.  Another thing
that assists me today is understanding how computers really work with
assembly language.  The details of how the instructions are done assists in
knowing how it's done as apposed to memorizing all of the steps involved in
doing something.

I was a long ranger on the AABBS up until about the end of 1988 or beginning
of 1989.  There was a guy from Virginia Beach, I don't remember his name,
that assisted in the code.  He developed another version of Empire and some
other online games.

The 6487 was really just a quick put-together BBS.  I'm the same one.

To "go color" seemed like the next step in the evolution.  Once the base
development was done with multi-file transfers, message board, etc., it
seemed that the next thing to do was keep adding to the features of the BBS
which was to use the capabilities of the computer.

I think the most important thing that made the BBS used in a lot of places
around the world was the ability to have the most in a BBS while easy to set
up.  All it did was ask questions about how to configure it and I think this
made it easy to set up and experiment with while seeing what it could do.

The ASCII upload feature allowed someone to send a text message of some sort
to the Sysop.  If a person had a long message that they wrote offline, the
person could type it all in and use that upload feature.  Or if they didn't
want to use the normal upload option, they could use this one to transfer it
while seeing it transferred up.  It was the opposite of a data capture in a
terminal program.  Instead of turning on the data capture in a terminal
program to capture the text being sent down, they could turn on the data
capture on the BBS side and type or send text quickly using their terminal's
keyboard send feature.

I made an Amiga version but at that time, I was busy working and didn't
spend a lot of time on it.  The Amiga version was written in the 'C'
language and there were a few people using it, but since the Amiga lost
ground, I went to Windows early on at about the time when Windows was at
3.0.  I was going to write a BBS for Windows, but never got around to doing
it.  Since there were other BBS's for the PC, I figured they'd be going to
Windows and they did like the Wildcat BBS which became famous.

If I were to do it all over again, I'd write all of the communications
routines in assembly.  I had some of them in compiled basic.  I would also
have done it so that it could be run in basic and this would allow people to
write their own online games and share with others.  The way I had it done
in compiled basic wouldn't allow sysop's to write their own games and share
them like they did with Color 64 and the C-Net BBS.  Originally, I had it
run in BASIC, but compiled it and found it to be much faster.  I also
figured out a lot of other things with the Blitz compiler so went that way.

The name "All American BBS" became that name because I was in the 82nd
Airborne Division at Ft. Bragg when I started on it.  I had to come up with
a name and saw the 82nd patch on a shirt that I had and it said "All
American" on it.  I figured that was a good name for it.  That's how it got
the name.  I don't think anyone knew of this.  :)


Nick.





-----Original Message-----
From: Bo Zimmerman [mailto:bo@zimmers.net]
Sent: Sunday, April 23, 2000 7:49 PM
To: Ironman
Subject: Re: Hi, heard you wanted to contact me


   Hello Mr. Smith,

   I am very interested in your years developing All American BBS for the
C64 and C128.  I hope you will tolerate a few million questions I have.
Please answer them entirely at your leisure.  It is my intention to put
your answers as a link from my page, so any answers you don't want
included, please let me know.  And yes, there are interested people.  I
have a 100+ megabyte web site dedicated to Commodore computers, yet my BBS
pages have consistantly generated the most mail.

   First, I'm curious about your background:

   Where are you from/grew up?

   How did you get into computers?

   How you got into BBSs?

   Are you still involved with them, or if not, do you miss them?

   Do you think, with the "shift" to the internet, that anything has been
lost over the old BBS scene?

   What was the development life span of AABBS 64 and 128; i.e. what year
did you start each, stop developing each, etc?

   How old were you when you started?

   How successful was AABBS in your estimation?

   What role do you think this played in your current career?

   Were you a lone ranger on the project?  Did you have beta testers, or
other programmers that helped you?

   What "influences" were brought to AABBS 64?  Did the 648X line play a
part?

   Are you the same Nick Smith who wrote/modified 6487 BBS?

   It seems your program was among the first to "go color", yet the early
versions were ASCII-only like their peers.  What tipped you in that (very
cool) direction?

   Your BBS program, no matter where in the country you looked, was
EXTREMELY prolific.  To what do you attribute this?  Did the numerous
unregistered pirate copies anger you as much as we've heard?

   AABBS supported something called an "ASCII" upload.  Was this a raw
transfer?  What was its intended use? (Yours was the only program with that
feature, and I never could quite figure it out).

   Did you make an Amiga or PC version (I heard that you had, but had never
seen it)?

   In the design, is there anything you would have done differently if you
could go back and do it again?

   Was the name "All American" a simple patriotic statement, or was there
something more to the name?  Did ithe program ever have any other names?

   Your program seemed the only one to openly admit the piratical nature of
Commodore gamers and BBS users during the 80's (I'm referring to the Warez
option). Did you ever fear any legal repercussions?

   The fellow who referred me to you mentioned that you knew some other BBS
program authors during that time.  Who did you know, and what was your
relationship?

   Well, thats probably enough to overwhelm you.  Thanks for your time.

   - Bo Zimmerman