Subj : Commercial Synchronet
To   : HusTler
From : Digital Man
Date : Wed Sep 21 2022 10:54:26

  Re: Commercial Synchronet
  By: HusTler to Digital Man on Wed Sep 21 2022 07:39 am

 >  Re: Commercial Synchronet
 >  By: Digital Man to HusTler on Tue Sep 20 2022 09:41 pm
 >
 >  > PC Magazine was out of my budget, but yeah, we advertised in:
 >  > - Boardwatch
 >  > - BBS Callers Digest (I think it was AKA BBS Magazine at one point)
 >  > - Online Access
 >  > - Sysop News and World Report
 >  > - and maybe one or two other even smaller mags I'm forgetting
 >
 >   And if I called the support line I would have spoken to you?

Possibly. I did have employees 1993-95 that usually answered the phone and Allen (King Drafus) handled most of the voice support questions in the later years (so I could work on getting the damned OS/2 version released).

 > I remember
 > talking to the guy from Searchlight. When I had trouble setting up Fidonet
 > he would tell me he didn't support it but for a $100 fee he would.

Ah, I recall Frank being a really nice guy when I met it at ONE BBSCON.

 > Then the guys from Fidonet wanted money.

Yup, I remember paying $5 a month I think it was, for "cost recovery" (FidoNet Zone 1, net 103). And then I paid Planet Connect for a KU-band satellite feed (don't remember how much, but more).

 > Geez when I think back I was really taken
 > for a ride. I'm wondering if that's why stores didn't carry a lot of BBS
 > software. They didn't want the headache of people returning the software
 > they couldn't get to work??

I imagine that there were quite a few copies of PCBoard, Wildcat, TBBS, etc. sold in retail stores. A lot of those copies probably just sat on shelves too. But running a BBS fully (e.g. FidoNet-working, door games, CD-ROMs, etc.) required some passion and dedication, which is often in short-supply among the software-buying public. :-)
-- 
                                            digital man (rob)

Sling Blade quote #26:
Karl: kaiser blade, ax handle with long blade on it shaped kinda like a banana.
Norco, CA WX: 71.4øF, 58.0% humidity, 3 mph E wind, 0.00 inches rain/24hrs
--- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
 * Origin: Vertrauen - [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net (1:103/705)

.