This was originally published on August 12,1995.

I have no idea why or how this interview happened, and I don't even really remember doing it. Michael Part is still kicking around and in the middle of writing a sequel to the movie. The movie is actually very well done.

This was originally published on June 17, 1995. 

Telix is one of the older terminal programs available on the market. Once only known to hobbyists, it has burst onto the commercial software scene with strong sales of its Windows version.

Jeff Woods has been Mr. Telix for as long as I have noticed. In addition to his Mr. Telix hat, he is also a person with a strong vision of the telecommunication marketplace and how it relates to real people.

Enjoy the interview!

PG: You have been a long time Telix supporter. How did the situation where you could buy Telix come about? What kind of financing did you need to secure?

JW: For the entire time I worked for Colin Sampaleanu at Exis, Inc., I was the sole employee.  I did everything but write the program (and toward the end, I did that, too, for Telix for Windows).  For the amount of sales we had and the number of customers we had, I knew that we needed to expand, but Colin was (and is) a programmer at heart and not a business person.  I'm a fifth-generation entrepreneur, and only a half-hearted programmer, so it was really a match made in heaven.  Wehn Exis decided that we would not exhibit nor attend the first BBSCON in Denver in 1992, I went on my own, during my vacation time.  I paid for my own trip, lodging, and attendance.  When I came back, I left a carefully written report on Colin's desk for him to read over Labor Day weekend, about what I'd seen and what I felt he needed to do to compete. When he came back from his vacation to Europe, he read the report, and the crucial line which was to the effect that if he didn't adopt the Windows platform, hire more staff, and grow the company, that he may as well close up shop.  I was QUITE surprised when he decided to do exactly that, claiming he'd worked on Telix for six years, and was ready to move on to something else.  While he felt he'd done as much as he wanted to with Telix, I felt it had much more life left in it, and I wasn't ready to call it quits.  I don't really feel the need to discuss the financing of the buyout, other than to say that it would be a fair statement that both parties came out ahead and got what they wanted in the agreement.

PG: Telix is a great product, but what else deltaComm do to generate revenue?

JW: I don't want to tip our hand too greatly, but there are an awful lot of modems out there that don't get used due to fear of cyberspace.  Its estimated that eighty percent of modems are "shelf-ware" and we're working on a concept to bring these people online.

PG: No one can just "do computers" all the time. Do you hit the golf course? Play a little ping pong? What?

JW: I'm an avid whitewater rafter, taking four or five trips each season on the big waters of the Upper Gauley (WV), the Upper Yough (MD), and the Russell Fork (VA/KY) to name a few of my recent trips.  I also like to travel, and am a "concert junkie", seeing numerous shows in many different cities.  I saw maybe 40 concerts in 1994, in places ranging from my hometown of Raleigh (Eagles, Pink Floyd) to Las Vegas, Atlanta (Elton John and Billy Joel), Washington, DC, and as far away as London, England for my favorite band, Marillion.

PG: Do the words Pearl Jam mean anything to you? What type of music are you in to?

JW: Looks like I got a little ahead of you there. <grin>  The music I listen to has been described by some as "neo-progressive".  The artists range from those you'd recognize, like pre-Collins' Genesis, Yes, ELP, and Tori Amos, to those you probably wouldn't, like Marillion, Iluvatar, Castanarc, Pendragon, Il Trono Dei Ricordi, and the new sound out of San Francisco, Enchant.

PG: How did you get involved with PCs? What about your first modem?

JW: I sincerely hope he's reading this, because I've never really told this story in print.  I was a TRS-80 person, one of the original owners of the Model 1 in 1977.  It had a 300 bps acoustic coupler, and I wrote my own BBS program for it in 1983, without really knowing what I was doing. It was crash-prone, interpretted BASIC, but it worked. My first IBM-clone was a Tandy laptop with an internal 1200 bps modem.  I was living in San Diego at the time, and was just starting to discover the online world when a sysop there named John Dwulet, who ran San Diego PCBoard, cut me up hard on an echo when he claimed something to the effect of "I couldn't tell a UART from a CPU to save my life", which was most likely true at the time.  I felt the guy was arrogant and full of hate after I heard that he'd come into the Radio Shack where I worked at the time, to check out who I was and such, without telling me who I was. He pretended to be interested in a computer, and grilled me pretty hard, and later related the incident on his BBS putting me in a very bad light.  I then decided that I was going to learn as much as I could about this subject, so that this couldn't happen again.  I guess it worked, as the last time I looked at a San Diego BBS list, his board was down, and I was now the author and owner of Telix.  I don't know what ever became of John, but he was the catalyst, and probably never knew it.

PG: Ok. Just like everyone asks a car reviewer or mechanic what kind of car they drive, what is the configuration and type of your primary PC?

JW: Its likely to change shortly.  Right now its a 486-66 with 16 MB of RAM, a Diamond Viper VLB, and a Creative Labs Discovery Multimedia pack (4x CD, Sound Blaster 16).  The modems are a PPI v.34 and a USR Courier v.32bis Dual Standard, and the hard drive is 340 MB.  I'm about to upgrade for the first time in a long time, to a Pentium 120, 32 MB of RAM, and an STB Powergraph 64 video card, but the rest will stay the same.

PG: Define the Information Superhighway in your own words.

JW: Its really too broad to define in just a few sentences, and it means many different things to many different people.  I think its probably misnamed by the trade press as a "superhighway".  I see it more as the next logical extension of the telephone system.  Almost every home in America and perhaps the world is interconnected by what the telcos rightly call their "networks", and the interface to that is the telephone.  The so-called "Information Superhighway" is the interconnecting of the computers of the world so that they can share information in much the same way, only faster and electronically.  I don't think the idea has really taken its final form, nor will we see its true benefits until it is as pervasive as the telephone is today, perhaps in about 10-20 years.

PG: Why did you choose PCBoard as BBS software? What are the pitfalls you see with it? What are the benefits?

JW: I started with PCBoard when I was student sysop at Arizona State University.  That was the BBS they had in place, and as part of my drive to learn, I volunteered to run their PCBoard BBS, which was languishing unattended.  That was PCBoard 11.0, serial number below 100, one of the first purchased commercially.  I'll leave a direct comparison of the BBS products to their respective authors, as I'm really not an unbiased person when it comes to most of their author-companies.

PG: What's your favorite joke?

JW: It's called the smushed dead frog on a leash, and it's unprintable in this article.  Ask me privately sometime.

PG: If the Presidential election were held tomorrow and President Clinton was running against Senator Dole, which would you vote for and why?

JW: Patrick, trust me, you don't want to get me started here on politics. You'll never shut me up (ask any of my employees).  Lets just leave it with the notion that I named my dog "Dittohead" shall we?  ;-)

This interview was first published on June 10, 1995.

This week we talk with Robert Vostreys. Never heard of him? That's ok. He is the reason that QWK based networks exist in the PCBoard world. With his program RNET, more than a thousand PCBoard sysops can share messages among themselves without worry of bugs, dupes or crashes.

Robert also runs a very successful BBS, Father Than Light, and has brought some neat ideas on sysoping to the tables!

PG:  No one can just "do computers" all the time. Do you hit the golf course? Play a little ping pong? What?

RV: Actually, I do "do computers" all the time.  Ok, I do go out to the movies occasionally, I read science fiction when I make the time, and about once a month I drive a long haul truck route.  I have a nice telescope, but haven't used it in years (sigh).  I'm kinda like Scotty from Star Trek -- for a vacation I read technical manuals.

PG: What other shareware products do you offer? Commercial programs?

RV: While 90% of what I've put out for Sysops is in the public domain, there are two shareware programs (two that I ask for registrations for): RNET and TXT2MSG.

As for commercial software, I have a number of serious utilities for PCBoard/Sysops including: UUFTL File Decoder, Email MX processor, Ping/Finger/Telnet/etc (TCP/IP service doors), NNTP Poller, WWW/FTP Server, AutoFTP, and SLIP/PPP doors.  As you can see, the direction lately has been toward Internet TCP/IP and Usenet based packages.

In the non-BBSing realm, I write commercial database applications (usually for mailorder and inventory systems) and finance company accounting/database software.  Accounting software was the primary focus for several years but has given way to running the BBS full time for the past two years.

PG: Do the words Pearl Jam mean anything to you? What type of music are you in to?

RV: Er, is that anything like Grape Jam?  I don't think grinding up pearls would be very tasty.  Based on your second question, I'll assume it's a music group of some type.

I like Classic Rock and usually loud when driving.  Cream, Floyd, Zepplin, etc. I also like classical and folk music.  I don't like anything with a 3/4 beat.

PG: How is RNET selling? Well enough to live off of? If not, what do you do for a living?

RV: It has been dropping off (as expected).  It is a VERY limited market product -- only used by PCBoard/Prodoor Sysops who want to be part of a QWK based echo network.  While it has many useful features beyond its echo abilities, nobody but that small market has any excuse to look at it.

It was originally written to get around the problems with the only other existing tosser at the time.  The author was very unresponsive to getting things fixed so I had to write something.  Roger Sligar also had the same problems with his board so I gave it to him.  He convinced me to put it out as shareware to provide Sysops with a solution to the problems they were facing.  I expected to get maybe a dozen or so registrations in a year.  However, it had a dozen registrations in the first week and went from there.

All the registrations have gone directly into the board and its expansion.  It was due mostly to RNET that the board remained a free access system for seven years.

What do I do for a living?  I "do computers" <heh>.  I do contract programming / consulting, sell hardware, and drive the occasional long haul truck route to get away from it all.

However, things are changing.  I and several others are in the middle of putting together a corporation to act as an Internet Service Provider and software development company.  And you can be assured that it'll be very "Sysop Friendly" since I, being a Sysop, have a good idea what pains Sysops have to go through.

PG: Ok. Just like everyone asks a car reviewer or mechanic what kind of car they drive, what is the configuration and type of your primary PC?

RV: My personal machine is a 386/40, 8mb RAM, 260mb HD, SVGA.

If you are asking what the BBS runs on, it varies from a 286/12 that just won't die up to a pair of 486/100's running OS2 Warp.  It drives some folks crasy that I have mostly 486's here and yet still use a 386/40 that doesn't even have a power switch (it has never been turned off since being put together).

PG: Are you afraid that Clark Development will incorporate the functionality of RNET into PCB at any time? They have done that with Fido technology.

RV: Nope, not at all.  If PCBoard (or another product) did what RNET does, then RNET wouldn't be needed anymore.  I didn't write it to sell, and I don't keep writing it to make anything.  It continues to exist and expand soley for the benefit of the Sysops who need it.  If it wasn't for habit and my liking to know folks are still getting use of it, it would be freeware.

Clark Development has implemented many of RNET's features specifically because of RNET Sysops asking for them.  A perfect example is the PCBPACK /THreashold command.

PG: Your also a pretty insightful sysop, define the Information Superhighway in your own words.

RV: It's a toll road that leads into a hay stack looking for a needle.

RV: The problem is that there is no intelligent filtering of the vast amounts of information available.  Information overload.  The next big step in software technology will be the software ability to search, analyze, and filter information of any and all types to find what someone is looking for without swamping them.

As binary indexed databases made a difference, followed by GUI interfaces and applications generators, the next leap will be filter technology.  All this information is just great -- but it takes forever on to impossible to find the best answers to your questions.  You may find an answer somewhere (manually searching), but is that the best answer?  Is there a better, more complete, more up to date answer somewhere else you haven't looked?  Software search and filtering technology will be required before the true value of the "Information Superhighway" is seen.

I believe that with the development of the software technology to search and filter the information available, the "Information Superhighway" will change definition to mean those tools themselves.

PG: The QWK format has undergone very little changes over the years. Do you think it is ready for an overhaul? If so, in what areas? If not, why not?

RV: QWK not changing isn't for the lack of need.  The only real reason QWK hasn't changed is due to the originator of the QWK format (which is simply the PCBoard 12 message base format with a few extra fields) dragging his heels and being unresponsive to suggested changes.

QWK needs to die.  It no longer suit the needs of Sysops nor of Users. However, it has mass and momentum.  Various other formats and systems have come out, but none have taken hold as well as QWK.  It's advantage was it's timing on the market.  The BBS community (that which was not on Fido technology already) was ready for echonetworks.  It provided the means of accomplishing that.  That's where it stopped. While better mouse traps (including RNET) have come along, they're still mouse traps.

As for reader technology, QWK is in even worse shape than network wise.

PG: I'm a sysop of a BBS. What are the top five things I can do to attract paying callers?

RV: I've run a free (donation) system for the last 8 years so I don't really know the answer to that one.  I'll make some common sense guesses:

1. Support your customers (users).  Use voice support lines, be professional, answer all questions in a timely manner.  Listen very carefully to what your customers tell you.

2. Know your market.  You need to know what the users in your area are in need/want of and try to provide it.  If your users are mostly into games, provide games.  If your users are mostly into files, get lots of files.

3. Advertize.  Doesn't matter if you have the best system in the world if nobody knows about it.

4. Have a style or a primary purpose.  A "general, do everything" system is undefined and just like any other.  Have a unique system style or focus without losing compatibility with the general marketplace.

5. Price your services well.  Pricing too low or too high will discourage users.  If your system was $1/year, folks will not feel there is anything worthwhile or you are not serious.  If you price at $500/year, you'll have very little in the way of customers and/or have a very limited nitch market.

This interview appeared on May 21, 1995 during the time that Doom was sweeping the world. 

OK, I know most of you have become hooked at one time or another on Doom! Admit it. That is the first step to becoming cured!

You have probably run to the Doom FAQ for help or highlights on getting through the various levels. Were you aware the FAQ is pretty much considered the bible of Doom? In that case the high priest must be Hank Leukart.

Hank Who? Look at the author of your Doom guidebook you just bought at the store. That Hank!

As close as an expert as one can get without actually have written the game, Hank's involvement with Doom has been skyward since the beginning. Here's our chat with him . . .

PG: Do the words Pearl Jam mean anything to you? What type of music are you in to?

HL: Yes, I have heard Pearl Jam, but I don't listen to them to often.  I enjoy music like Sting, Boyz II Men, Liz Phair, and Hoodi and the Blowfish, as well as come classical; in other words, a pretty big variety.  I don't care what kind of music it is, as long as it sounds good!

PG: Ok. Just like everyone asks a car reviewer or mechanic what kind of car they drive, what is the configuration and type of your primary PC?

HL: I recently purchased (in January) a Micron Pentium 90 with 16mb of RAM, a 1gb hard drive, a 17" monitor, a 2mb Diamond Stealth video card, a Sound Blaster AWE32 (and I use a Gravis Ultrasound sometimes as well), and 4x CD-ROM drive.  I connect to the Internet using a 28.8k GVX Maxtech FAX Modem (alas, I don't have a T1 connection), use a mouse for DOOM and a Gravis Gamepad for One Must Fall.  I run Windows NT in addition to DOS.

PG: Define the Information Superhighway in your own words.

HL: The Information Superhighway is an annoying phrase that the public and media have picked up to describe the Internet.  It is overhyped and overused.  The Internet is very cool when people know how to use it. The REAL Information Superhighway (the one Gore talks about) has not been (and may never be) built yet.

PG: When did your involvement with PCs begin? How?

HL: Our family had their first computer when I was about 2 years old: an Apple II+.  I remember playing Olympic Decathalon day in and day out with my sisters.  I first started using a modem about four years ago and came on the Internet about two years ago.

PG: In this text medium its hard to visualize a person. Describe yourself so we get a good picture of your physical presence.

HL: I'm a white, 16-year old male with curly brown hair, blue eyes, six feet tall, and a longish face.  Of course, you can check out my picture at my home page (http://www.portal.com/~hleukart).

PG: We know you have written one book. How is it doing? What have you blown the money on?

HL: The book is doing quite well and is already in its second reprint. With the additional amount of publicity that will appear in the upcoming months, the book should do very well!  All of the E-mail I have gotten about the book is ALL positive, which is rare considering that most people prefer to complain about things then to complement people on them! I bought my new Pentium with a small portion of the advance and have thrown everything else in the bank to gain interest.

PG: Any future plans for a book? Any more Doom merchandising involvement?

HL: I don't have any more plans for "DOOM merchandising," but I do hope to write more books!  No definite plans as yet.

PG: Why do you think Doom became as popular as it is? Explain . . .

HL: I'm asked this question a lot by interviewers.  Here are the four major reasons why DOOM is so incredibly popular:

(1) The violence.  The public is attracted to sex and violence, and DOOM definitely has violence.  Blood is thrown everywhere and living things explode all over the place! (2) The realism.  People are fascinated by the reproduction of reality on a computer screen.  The game seems so real and so life-like. (3) The ability to edit.  After you've played the standard DOOM levels, you're not done with the game.  People love making their own enemies, maps, and sounds to actually CUSTOMIZE and already great game. (4) Multiplayer ability.  After you've beaten the computer 100 times over, computer games tend to be a little boring. DOOM changes all that by allowing you to compete with other human players anytime you wish by allowing modem and network support.

PG: Has ID Software ever formally contacted you concerning your involvement as a FAQ and book author? What was it like?

HL: I have E-mailed id on many occasions discussing the FAQ and the like.  What was it like?  On the Internet, everyone is behind a computer screen--it was no different E-mailing id than it was E-mailing a stranger. ;)

PG: Where do think games on the PC are going? Describe your perfect game

HL: There are so many types of different PC games that it is hard to make a generalization about where they "are going."  Definitely, we're going to see a lot more realistic games in the future with better graphics, sounds, and gameplay.  Hopefully, virtual virtual reality will become mainstream.  The best type of games are definitely what the kind of games that id strives to create: games with "complete immersion" capabilities.
 

This interview was first published on May 14, 1995.

The ASP is probably the most influential organizations in the consumer computer world today? Don't know what ASP stands for? Try Association of Shareware Professionals. This organization, sporting thousands of members, is banded together to promote shareware as a viable distribution method. Don't know what shareware is? Basically, the way you purchase the software is to try it before you buy it.

Rich Harper has been president of the organization during the most turbulent time the organization has faced. Through this his patient, guiding hand has lead to greater growth and expansion. Here is what he has to say . . .

PG: No one can just "do computers" all the time. Do you hit the golf course? Play a little ping pong? What?

RH: My "real job" is working as a paramedic for a rural ambulance service. When I find time between that and my Presidential duties, I bicycle and canoe.

PG: Do the words Pearl Jam mean anything to you? What type of music are you in to?

RH: Pearl Jam - isn't that what happens when you drop your wife's necklace into the garbage disposal? :-) I tend to listen to mostly 70's and 80's rock, with emphasis on groups like Genesis and Electric Light Orchestra, and just enough recent music thrown in to keep it from getting stale.

PG: Ok. Just like everyone asks a car reviewer or mechanic what kind of car they drive, what is the configuration and type of your primary PC?

RH: My bread and butter system is a 486SX2/66 with eight megs of RAM, SVGA and a 15" monitor, double speed CD-ROM, SoundMan WAVE card, 850 megs of HD space, tape backup, internal 28.8 modem, and a lovely cordless mouse. I also have a 486DLC-40 with 4 megs RAM, SVGA and a 14" monitor, single speed CD-ROM drive and a ProAudio16 sound card - but my son has dibs on that one.

PG: Define the Information Superhighway in your own words.

RH: Avoiding all the marketing hype and allowing for the fact that some people wouldn't recognize it if they ran into it - it seems to me that whatever path you can find from your computer to the information you need qualifies.

The Dummies Series of Books has taken the world by storm. You can now get Dummies Tips of the Day sent to you via e-mail.

We asked IDG Books, the creators of Dummies, to participate in an interview and here are the results:

DJ: The whole Dummies series has been very successful. Can you give a brief history on how it started?
IDG: In 1987, over dinner with a friend, IDG Books Worldwide CEO and co-founder John Kilcullen was kicking around some new ideas for computer books. He kept coming back to a remark made by a customer in a Software Etc. store who requested a book in the DOS operating system. He said that he needed a simple, basic book because he didn't know anything about computers. "Something," he suggested, "like DOS for dummies."

Marc is a syndicated game columnist and technology correspondent for CNN. He has assembled a great CD full of the best in games for PalmOS. We chat with Marc concerning his release and thoughts on PDAs.

DJ: Why did you decide to compile a collection of games for the PDA market?
MS: Truthfully? I'm a hardcore Palm gamer, but found that 9 out of 10 games I downloaded off the Net weren't worth the time and effort. As a journalist (and CNN 'technology expert') I travel every week so I need some good games to keep me entertained on those long flights. I figured I knew at least a couple hundred great ones and decided to package them together for others.

If you have a DSL line or cable modem and have never heard of Broadband Reports (formerly DSLreports) you are missing a great resource. We interviewed Justin Beech the creator and webmaster about his site and his vision of the future.

DJ: Can you give a brief history of DSLreports?
JB: I started it mid 1999 during the y2k development freeze that left me too much time on my hands in my position as developer for an investment bank. DSL was a "hot thing" back then and covad and northpoint were gearing up. The few sites on the web that concentrated on ISP directories did not seem to offer much information for those who wanted broadband.

Go Daddy has quickly become one of the largest domain registrars in the world. With a unique blend of offerings at rock bottom prices, it has attracted many customers. Go Daddy always seems to be defining new markets for domain registrars and their Domains by Proxy idea looks to be another step forward. Bob Parsons in the President of Go Daddy and the driving force behind the success.

DJ: What is the history behind Go Daddy?
BP: What is now Go Daddy initially began business about five years ago under the name Jomax Technologies. However, prior to launching our first software application, a Web site building tool, we decided that the name Jomax Technologies was too easily forgotten, so we decided to come up with something that would be both fun and easier to remember. Somehow we came up with the name Go Daddy. We chose Go Daddy mostly because both the trademark and the domain name were available. Beyond that the name has no special meaning.

Remember the good old days of BBSing? Wish you could throw terms like FidoNet, ZMODEM and BPS around again? Jason Scott is heading up a project to document the BBS world as it existed. He's looking for your help! Read the interview and learn about this fantastic project!

DJ: The BBS Documentary project is all encompassing. What are your main goals and why?
JS: My purposes are twofold. First of all, there has never been a documentary about BBSes, that really mentioned them in anything but a passing way, and I think that's something that needs to be documented.