THE ARRIVAL:

It arrived! The new Gateway 2000 486 DX2/66V!! Oh man I pulled that baby out 
of the box and immediately set it up. Wow the speed was incredible! With my 
4x CD-Rom, I could see a pretty jagged view of a live video feed! :) But 
then I noticed the modem. Wow, I had never seen it before. So I started to 
play... and eventually got word of a program called Qmodem Pro for windows 
that enabled you to call other users. My buddy Martin had a copy so I copied 
it and started that puppy up. One day at school, a friend of mine Jeff 
(who's now at Harvard! Jezze!) was braggin' about how much use his BBS got 
the previous night. I wondered what the hell was a BBS? Then I learned.. I 
got his phone number from a friend and called it up. The Lightning Bolt
flashed across my screen. Holy shit! It was text being sent to my screen. I 
had never seen anything like it! So I started to ask questions.. wondered 
how in the hell he programmed all of that stuff.. Then I saw the "BBS 
Utils/Apps" directory .. Alas! It was an already pre-compiled system! Many 
thoughts went thru my head.. but nothing was acted upon so far..
 

THE USER:

I was a regular user for the first, oh half-year or so.. Then the word came 
around of the "Elite" Access..  WOW .. could this be legal? It was true! 
Anything that was not too big was just a download away..  many thoughts came to my head now!
 

THE SYSOP:

Renegade was released and I grabbed a copy... I printed the 20 thousand-page manual too! Heh. So I read.. and read... By this time, Strawberry Fields and NO CARRIER were already up in full force.. There were also a few others that were the top in the area.. so I was up against some pretty stiff competition! So I started my BBS, with pretty much NO modifications from the original setup so it sucked, yes! The name came from watching the sunset in my computer room.. Thus the name HORIZONS.. I stuck to the BBS.. And trying to use a stupid ANSI drawer was impossible for me. I don't remember now where I got a few of my first screens, but this shit was so cool! I felt in control.. And eventually got a new Hard drive.. 3 GIG! About 3-4 years ago, that was huge..

I found some awesome users.. and I had the leechers.. I had my list up to 
300 at one time.. And I was getting a pretty good flow of Elite..  Hey why 
not get it uploaded to me instead of going to get it? And yes, I got ripped 
on because I did not have any cool artwork from those neat-o-groups! (I 
didn't care!) .. but to me, my board was busy from 2:30pm to 4am, M-F and 
full on weekends.. I loved it!

This went on for months, and more and more the popularity became better, I 
got some cool ansi's drawn for me, and I started modifying the board. A 
while later, the NO CARRIER went down, and a few other big boards.. So A lot 
of traffic headed my way.. A second phone line was in order and definitely 2 
new modems. A SWEET USR Courier V.Everything external was bought along with a 28.8 USR internal.. I still use the Courier today, as it is ROM Flash 
Programmable! All the way up to X2! A very nice investment! Then a bud of 
mine Jason (Mouse) and I were talking in our blow off Auditorium Tech class 
about my BBS. He offered to help, so I said "HELL YEAH!". Away he went, 
modifying the BBS.. And I figured out a way to come up with a arrow key 
movable menu. The first in the whole area to do that.. It was impressive!! 
The BBS took off, crushing any competition in the area.. But not many people 
knew that I was the one running it! Then the day came that I was offered 
something that I still to this day never regret accepting... The 888 lines..
 

THE BOARD NEVER RESTED:

As for the real story.. here it goes.. To not incriminate myself, I had no 
knowledge of the 888 lines being turned on.. (:)) So they "just magically 
were turned on". The board was huge.. I had huge suppliers sending tons of 
Elite everyday.. It was impossible to connect.. The lines were always busy.. 
I would wake up at 5am and they would still be busy.. It was incredible.. 
Everywhere from Hawaii to Alaska. Unreal!! So this went on for about 4 
months, and getting accepted to the University of Michigan was also 
something special. Then the dreaded phone call came. "Mr. A, would you 
please call us concerning the AT&T Bill?" What happens next is something to
tell your grandchildren!
 

THE ANGRY MOM:

"GOD DAMNIT! TURN THAT COMPUTER OFF" , were the screams from the kitchen.. 
So you could say that immediately Horizons was terminated. Well, how much 
was the phone bill? 23,000 DOLLARS.. At first we tried to defend ourselves, 
but after that failed, we had to get a lawyer.. The lawyer settled it in one 
quick phone call. Since no evidence could be produced by AT&T, the charge 
was dropped.. Yeah, we got several court notices, but never opened them 
since our residence was not called "Horizons" :) .. Thank god the charges 
were dropped..  If they weren't, then you bet your balls I would not be in 
UofM right now, and Mouse would not be a happy camper either :).

Those were the good days.. Now FTP sites are in, but they just aren't as fun 
as BBSes. All those online doors!! BRE, Magic 8Ball, bowling, ect..  For 
those of you still running a BBS, keep it up!

* StoSys