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  • The Birth of HobbyNet

    From Mike Dippel@954:895/1 to All on Sat Jan 3 08:29:58 2026
    Back in the late 80's, I had a subscription to Prodigy. When it expired, I did some
    research and purchased the DOS version of Mustang's BBS software and ran 4 phone
    lines into my house.

    My wife loved to write in Prodigy's Cross-Stitch echo, so I decided to make my own
    Prodigy and devote it to hobbies.

    I lived in Broward county Florida and found various other dialup systems that were
    willing to
    carry my feeds. The feed went as far as south Dade county and as far north as Palm
    Beach county.

    I even included a conference area devoted to Business Advertisers because I found that
    I could charge the Businesses to advertise, knowing that their ad would touch 3 nearby
    counties.

    I also found that I could charge my dial up users and give the paid ones a card that
    would give them a discount at any of the paid advertisers that I had on my system. I
    called it the HobbyNet Discount Card.

    Back then, BBS users expected everything to be free, and it was. But the paid members
    got the discount bonus feature with my business advertisers.

    That's my trip down memory lane. I'm sure everyone has a great story that you could
    share.

    Mike Dippel

    --- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v7.0
    * Origin: The Hobby Line! BBS - hobbylinebbs.com (954:895/1)
  • From Mortar@954:200/53 to Mike Dippel on Sat Jan 3 11:46:45 2026
    Re: The Birth of HobbyNet
    By: Mike Dippel to All on Sat Jan 03 2026 08:29:58

    ...purchased the DOS version of Mustang's BBS software

    That would be Wildcat.

    ...I decided to make my own Prodigy and devote it to hobbies.

    I assume you mean "Prodigy-inspired" since Wildcat didn't support Prodigy's graphic UI, and I doubt IBM or Sears (Prodigy's owners) would approve the use of the name.

    I was with Prodigy for awhile, but since I only had a 1200-baud connection, the UE was on the sluggish side, plus AIR, they had a lot nit-picky rules that I didn't care for so I bailed after about three-four months. I did like the look, however. I'd love to have access to that style of graphics for my own.
    --- SBBSecho 3.31-Linux
    * Origin: End Of The Line BBS - endofthelinebbs.com (954:200/53)