608 Area Code BBSes Through History (80's Version)

MAP OF THE 608 AREA CODE
608-221-3226
MADISON, WI
Starlight Express
(1989)
608-222-8842
MADISON, WI
Powerboard, PowerBoard
(1987-1997)
Sarah Thaler
608-233-0286
MADISON, WI
Madison PC User Group, Madison PCUG
(1986-1997)
Marty Shannon, C. ZenchenkoPCBoard
608-233-1111
MADISON, WI
RTPM Madison
(1984-1985)
608-233-4828
Madison, WI
Bee Line
(1986-1996)
BeeHoneycomb
"Madison's first chat line. For the first five years, The Bee Line ran on an Apple II+ using custom 'Honeycomb' software written in 6502 assembly. It grew from five 300 baud modems to eleven 2400 baud modems (thanks to 4-port serial cards handmade by Raist, founder of Sonic Foundry). The last five years, the Bee Line ran on a DOS PC with a 17 ports, message boards, etc. It still used custom software (a mix of C and assembly), including several multiplayer ANSI action games. It was a real challenge convincing the phone company that a 17-line hunt group deserved residential rates. Bee Line was a subscription service. Non-paying users could chat for a bit, but were generally at the mercy of the paying users. It was a very social system and the user population was mixed and varied over the years. There was no emphasis on tech, and many users only learned enough skills to be able to type "ATDT2334828" on the surplus dumbterms from the local university. One unique aspect was that chat attracted women. At one point I calculated that even though women were only 15% of the user population, they represented about 30% of the minutes online. Memorabilia and reunion info at http://beeline.org" - Bee
608-233-8449
Madison, WI
FIDO #90 MidNet UW, MidNet
(1984-1986)
Mike MansfieldFidoNet
608-249-0275
MADISON, WI
1st Circle, Madison Area
(1987-1988)
John Galvin
608-249-5657
MADISON, WI
M.O.O.S.I.E.
(1988)
608-251-3494
MADISON, WI
Power Board
(1985)
Maurice Thaler, Carl Williamson, Peter Daly
608-251-4755
MADISON, WI
Disaster Area HST, Int'l Archives
(1988-1990)
Ted Tang
608-251-8538
MADISON, WI
AMIS Magic Lantern
(1982-1983)
608-255-2755
Madison, WI
BITS, Bits BBS, Bits II
(1983-1997)
PondScum (Brian Goldsworthy)
"BITS was run under the auspices of the Madison Apple User's Group, and continued to run even after the user group suffered the loss of all of the Macintosh users, and even outlasted the user's group itself." - Brian Goldsworthy
608-255-5227
MADISON, WI
INDRANET BBS
(1987)
608-256-6227
MADISON, WI
Mad Mac BBS
(1988)
Red Ryder Host
608-256-8088
MADISON, WI
Madison PCUG
(1987-1989)
Gary London
608-258-9723
MADISON, WI
1st Circle, Madison Area
(1986)
John Galvin
608-262-1434
MADISON, WI
Mersenne
(1987-1988)
Jim Lattis
608-262-4469
MADISON, WI
FIDO #324 UW-Hat, UW Hat
(1985)
Michael Mansfield
608-262-4939
MADISON, WI
BBS IBM PC Madison, RBBS IBM PC Madison
(1983-1985)
608-263-6057
MADISON, WI
MIC BBS at MACC
(1988-1997)
PCBoard
608-266-3014
MADISON, WI
DILHR PCBoad, DILHR PCBoard, DILHR PCBoard PCB
(1989-1992)
Marty ShannonPCBoard
608-271-0687
MADISON, WI
1st Circle, Madison Area
(1989-1990)
John Galvin
608-271-3685
Madison, WI
Cooper Works, Cooper Works - fonts, CooperWorks, Cooperworks , Cooperworks PCB Laserfonts, Jamestown (K. Flee), Jamestown Sftw, Jamestown Software, Jamestown Software BBS
(1986-1997)
Ken Flee, Chuck Cooper, Flee & CooperSearchlight , PCBoard
608-273-2123
MADISON, WI
Madison PC User's Group BBS, Madison PCUG, MadisonPCUG
(1989-1994)
William Thousand, Bill ThousandPCBoard
608-273-5037
MADISON, WI
NICBUL BBS
(1985)
Mike Brown
608-274-0321
MADISON, WI
AE LINE: UTOPIA
(1984)
608-274-1904
Madison, WI
NineJackNine
(1988-1991)
Ed AlmasyOpus
"I started NineJackNine (9J9), 608-274-1904, in 1988 as an antidote to all of the techie-oriented BBSes that were in operation at that time. It carried nothing but non-technical Fidonet conferences, plus a game or two (a modified version of Pyroto Mountain was the most popular). 9J9 also had a strong bent toward material of more interest to women, who I believed were very under-represented in the online world at that point. In 1991, after attending Fidocon in Colorado and hearing the Gospel According to Jack Rickard and Phil Becker, I moved 9J9 over to TBBS (and to 608-256-5697), bumped it up from two incoming lines to four incoming lines, and added a dedicated Internet connection that allowed people to use telnet, gopher, and to (eventually) browse the web using Lynx. I believe 9J9 was the first BBS in the area to offer live Internet connectivity." - Ed Almasy
608-274-4045
MADISON, WI
WCSI Info Xchg
(1987-1988)
Bill Thousand
608-274-5476
Madison, WI
Lunar Software, Selene
(1987-1990)
Ed Almasy, Jim Roberts, Pat SplinterOpus
"Selene, 608-274-5476, was started in 1987 while I was working at Lunar Corporation, as a BBS focused on the profession and practice of Software Engineering. Initially it offered file areas with C and assembly language source code for an array of MS-DOS and Unix software packages. In late 1987 I ran across John Galvin's 1st Circle BBS, which was the first Fidonet hub in the Madison area. John was also part of the group working on UFGate, the first software package that allowed BBS sysops to carry Usenet newsgroups and RFC-822 e-mail traffic on their Fidonet system. UFGate caught my interest and I added various Fidonet programming-related conferences and Usenet newsgroups to Selene over the next two years, and further expanded the collection of source code and programming utilities. In late 1989 I was hired away from Lunar by Persoft (makers of SmartTerm), to build a new product that was intended to be a ProComm-killer. Since Selene was running (unofficially) on a computer and phone line owned by Lunar, I had to move Selene to a computer and phone line in my home (608-273-1406). After I left Lunar, Jim Roberts and Pat Splinter ran the "Lunar Software BBS" on the same phone line and computer that I had used for Selene. After relocating Selene to my home, I switched it from Opus 1.03c to Maximus, and then in 1992 Selene was subsumed into another, larger BBS that I was running, NineJackNine (608-256-5697)." - Ed Almasy
608-274-6377
MADISON, WI
Bill1000Jr, FIDO #38 Madison
(1984)
Bill Thousand, Jr.FidoNet
608-274-8190
MADISON, WI
W.S.E.U.
(1988)
Wildcat
608-274-8435
MADISON, WI
NABT/FISCHER
(1989-1992)
608-274-9763
MADISON, WI
JW-PC DataFlex.OS2, JWPC Dataflex
(1989-1996)
Jim WargulaRBBS
608-274-9785
MADISON, WI
Jw-PC DataFlex, JW-PC DataFlex OS2, JW-PC DataFlex.OS2, Madison Area, Madison NEC, Madison PC Users Group, MPCUG WebBBS
(1989-2002)
Jim WargulaWildcat
608-365-2302
BELOIT, WI
Connecting Line BBS
(1989-1999)
Dave and Lynette LongMajorBBS
608-655-4012
MARSHALL, WI
Romany RBBS, Syform
(1989-1996)
Mark Simmons, K.& M. SimmonsRBBS
608-752-7840
JANESVILLE, WI
J.A.D.E.
(1982-1996)
Dennis Adams, Peter Melan, David WendtTBBS
"J.A.D.E., 608-752-7840, was started in November of 1982, by myself (Dennis Adams) and Peter Melan on a Model I TRS-80. We wrote the software ourselves in BASIC. We had to optimize the heck out of the word-wrap algorithm, which we thought was really needed back then with the wide disparity in display widths (VIC-20 @ 22, many various computers @ 40, TRS-80 @ 64, serial terminal @ 80). The final optimization ran in real-time even on the new *fast* modem we bought (a USRobtics 1200 baud ). It initially used 5 1/4" drives and the messages were stored on an 8" driver we modified to work with the TRS-80. Later, we bought the very first version of Phil Becker's "TBBS" (from a handwritten ad!) and then later added a hard-disk. We "beta tested" TBBS through many versions. It only every had a single phone line when we ran it, and got hit by lighting twice. It was Pete's computer. I came up with the name "JADE" -- it stands for Janesville Area Data Exchange. When Pete moved out of town, I took over JADE, where it languished on a PC XT clone until Dave Wendt took it over when I went to college, and grew it even larger, with multiple lines and internet access." - Dennis Adams
608-757-3009
JANESVILLE, WI
JADE, Jade BBS
(1982-1999)
David L Wendt
608-836-9473
MIDDLETON, WI
Audio Project 222-8842, Audio Projects, AudioProj, AudioProj
(1987-1997)
Maurice Thaler
608-837-4862
SUN PRAIRIE, WI
Syform
(1989-1994)
608-873-0703
Stoughton, WI
The Buzzard Bait BBS, The Buzzards Bait BBS
(1987-1995)
Paul BratlandOpus
608-873-4700
STOUGHTON, WI
Daily Planet
(1988)
608-884-3207
Edgerton, WI
Blackshoe BBS
(1989-2004)
Dr Deshi, Tormentortag, synchronet, Worldgroup 3.30
30 Sysops currently listed.
43 BBSes Listed.