Before the web: the bulletin boards on Mishawaka numbers

1984 – 2000 · THE FIRST ONLINE PUBLIC

The registry is the document: Mishawaka was online before the web existed — by telephone, one caller at a time — and the proof is the surviving registry of the 219 area code's bulletin-board systems (Mishawaka was 219 country until the 574 split of 2002), which seats seventeen entries on Mishawaka numbers, with operators and years. The earliest is also the strangest: in 1984 a Mishawaka number, 219-255-8803, carried a board calling itself RBBS IBM PC South Bend — a board named for the other city, seated in this one, in the registry's plain showing that the scene never respected the municipal boundary. No operator is named for it, and none is invented here. Greg Crouch's Forum Five ran 1986 to 1988. Craig McCourt's City Gate II and a board listed as ADN COMPUTRE SYSTEMS — the registry's own spelling, printed as it stands — on Wildcat software both appear in 1988. Tom Atwood's PC-Factory, also on Wildcat!, ran 1989 to 1991. Tammi Hohulin's Our House BBS appears in 1990; Damian Sobieralski's E.T.F.L. HQ ran 1990 to 1991; Jerry Bentley's FREEDOM! ran 1991 to 1992; a private board, Radio Daze BBS Private, ran 1991 to 1994 with no operator named.

The coordinator sat here: The entry that gives the Mishawaka scene its regional weight is Larry Snyder's board on 219-258-0286, listed under a stack of names — Michiana Net, Michiana Techline, Michiana Technical, Midwestern EchoSTAR, N-Ind/SW-Mich Net, Software Dist — and under a title: Reg 11 EchoCoord. From 1987 to 1991, the FidoNet echo coordinator for the region — the volunteer node through which the area's boards exchanged their message networks with the wider BBS world — ran on a Mishawaka number. John Herod's Indiana Data Manager, on PCBoard, is the second cross-boundary case: the registry seats it in South Bend from 1987 to 1991 and on the Mishawaka number 219-258-5866 from 1989 to 1994, one operator's system straddling the line for seven years. Stan Spencer's Centernet ran on two Mishawaka numbers across 1994 to 1998. Gary Barnard's Gary's Olde Towne BBS, on TriBBS software, ran 1995 to 1999, with a second listing as Garys Olde Towne in 1995–1996. Todd Machowiak's TDS BBS, also TriBBS, ran 1995 to 1999. Joe Burkowski's Jammin' Joe's ran 1996 to 1998. Kevin Blume's Dark Rituals, also listed as The Dark Ritual BBS, ran on the Mishawaka number 219-254-0130 from 1996 to 2000 — the last Mishawaka board in the registry still standing at the century's turn, with a same-named South Bend number of Blume's also in the registry for 1997. One further entry the registry seats jointly — Doomnet / Gamenet BBS, 1993 to 1997, operators given as Mac / Dee, Bob, Butthead, etc. — is listed as "South Bend / Mishawaka," and is printed at exactly that joint strength.

What the scene was: These were businesses only in embryo — hobbies with phone bills, run out of houses — but they were the city's first online public, a decade before the first browser reached a Mishawaka home, and the registry is the document that proves they existed. When the web arrived, it arrived in a city that already had sysops. The scene's ending is in the same document, and it is this section's bust record in miniature: Centernet ends in 1998, Jammin' Joe's in 1998, Gary's Olde Towne and TDS in 1999, Dark Rituals in 2000 — the dial-up world on Mishawaka numbers closing down on almost exactly the national schedule, as the commercial internet the next article cannot name absorbed its public.

Sources:

1. The 219 area-code BBS registry (textfiles.com archive), Mishawaka-seated entries read entire: RBBS IBM PC South Bend (1984, 219-255-8803); Forum Five (1986–1988, Greg Crouch); Michiana Net and its aliases with the Reg 11 EchoCoord title (1987–1991, Larry Snyder); City Gate II (1988, Craig McCourt); ADN COMPUTRE SYSTEMS (1988, Wildcat); PC-Factory (1989–1991, Tom Atwood, Wildcat!); Indiana Data Manager (Mishawaka number 1989–1994, John Herod, PCBoard; South Bend number 1987–1991); Our House BBS (1990, Tammi Hohulin); E.T.F.L. HQ (1990–1991, Damian Sobieralski); FREEDOM! (1991–1992, Jerry Bentley); Radio Daze BBS Private (1991–1994); Doomnet / Gamenet BBS (1993–1997, seated "South Bend / Mishawaka"); Centernet (1994–1998, Stan Spencer, two numbers); Gary's Olde Towne BBS (1995–1999, TriBBS) and Garys Olde Towne (1995–1996, Gary Barnard); TDS BBS (1995–1999, Todd Machowiak, TriBBS); Jammin' Joe's (1996–1998, Joe Burkowski); Dark Rituals / The Dark Ritual BBS (1996–2000, Kevin Blume).