Koala Country BBS
 | |
| Formation | 1989 |
|---|---|
| Extinction | 1996 |
| Legal status | Offline |
| Location | |
Official language | English, Australian |
Origin | Sydney, New South Wales, Australia |
Platforms | GT Power BBS |
Founders | Warren Leadbeatter |
Koala Country BBS was a popular and financially successful Bulletin Board System (BBS). It was founded on October 16th, 1989, by Warren Leadbeatter, who was an electronics technician at the time with an interest in computers and communications.[1][2]
Koala Country BBS offered online forums, online games, public domain software, and shareware, as well as images for paying and non-paying members to download. Membership cost $35.00 AUD per year and would allow users more time and other benefits. The BBS was very popular for its online games, and many people paid for membership just so they could have more time to play the online games.[3]
Koala Country was part of the worldwide GT-Power Network with Net/Node number 302/016; 302 broken down to 3 meaning Australia, 02 meaning New South Wales, and 016 the 16th BBS in the net NSW.[4]
The BBS was a dedicated personal computer, running GT Power BBS software, connected to a dedicated telephone line using a dial-up modem. This computer started out as an IBM Personal Computer XT 4.77 MHz with a 100-megabyte hard disk drive (HDD) and later was upgraded to an IBM PC clone Intel 386DX 25 MHz with around 1 gigabyte of HDD, a VGA monitor, and a 28.8K US Robotics modem. In its time, it was state-of-the-art technology and was also a part of a LANtastic Local Area Network (LAN), which were also in their infancy in 1989.
Using a terminal program like Crosstalk, Telix, Telnet, or Windows HyperTerminal, users could dial in and log on using a username and password. The screens were made from ANSI graphics. Once logged on, the user had access to e-mail, network e-mail, echomail (online forums). Users also had access to file areas where they could download or upload public domain software, freeware and shareware, latest online games like Wolfenstein, Doom, and Commander Keen, Microsoft Windows software and utilities and drivers, etc.
For free access members, i.e., those who didn't pay, they could download files from the system for free, but in return, they had to upload some files as well. They had to keep a ratio of 20:1 downloads:uploads; otherwise, their download privileges would be revoked until they uploaded some acceptable files to correct their ratio. This encouraged users to share software they found on other BBS systems, but it had to be shareware or freeware and not something the BBS already had available. Uploading copyrighted and commercial software was discouraged and was frowned upon, as many BBS operators or "SysOps" were also software developers. Paying members did not have to keep the ratio and could download as much as they liked, but uploading was always encouraged.
Another popular part of the BBS system was the DOORS. Doors were external programs that the user could enter from the BBS. The most popular of these were the online games like Yahtzee, Online Quiz, Bay Street Bulls Online Stockmarket, and Card Guppies. Other Doors were utility programs for downloading mail and to see who's been online today, etc.
The BBS community were basically computer nerds or people who simply liked computers as a hobby, and they would meet online and sometimes in person. The BBS operators were called "SysOps," and the people who dialled in were called "Users"; this also started and spawned into Sysop groups and user groups.[5]
In early 1996, Koala Country BBS was closed due to a number of reasons, i.e., the internet gaining in popularity and a general loss of interest.[6]
References
External links
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