I  confess to being hooked on data-comms from the very first day I ever
    tried it.  There was something almost mystical about  actually  getting
    computers  talking  to  each-other.   Indeed many people who make their
    living from others ignorance often do  their  best  to  perpetuate  the
    myth,  and  make data-comms look more like a black art than a method of
    communications.

    Of course it has it's pitfalls, but too many people feel threatened  by
    all  the  jargon  and  new  kit needed to communicate.  Over the years,
    Compulink has always had some sort of on-line database for its members.
    We  feel our experience in this field is matched by very few in the UK,
    possibly the world.

    One of the most difficult things in setting off up  the  path  to  data
    comms, is choosing a modem.  The modem is the 'black box' that actually
    translates the computers data into  a  stream  of  sound  that  can  be
    transmitted  over  the telephone, and can be understood by the modem at
    the other end of the telephone line.

    Compulink has stood solidly behind the Miracle  Technology  WS4000  for
    about  9  months  now  as  being  the best modem under 200 pounds.  The
    WS4000 offers pretty much unrivalled price/performance.  It  will  work
    at 300/300 baud (characters per second) and 1200/75 - The latter is the
    more difficult of the two speeds to acheive on an IBM-PC or  clone,  as
    the  PC  will  not  actually operate at split speeds.  ie 1200/75.  The
    WS4000 was designed to get around this problem, and  it  does  the  job
    admirably.

    Now  you've  got your modem - what are you going to do with it?  If you
    are using your PC in  a  corporate  environment,  then  you  will  have
    probably  been  told  already what the modem is to be used for.  If you
    have no corporate fairy-godmother to guide you, then  unless  you  have
    previously  gotten  friendly with the local hacker community, you're on
    your own.  It's a catch 22 situation - you  want  to  communicate,  but
    don't know how to.  If you could only get this thing to talk to another
    computer then all your troubles wil be over.

    One of the main reasons we are  so  keen  to  get  you  on-line  is  to
    show-off  CIX  -  the  Compulink  Information  eXchange.   We have been
    talking about this for so long, it seems hardly worth  going  over  old
    ground,  but  there may be a few that haven't heard about our plans, so
    this next bit is just for you....

    Ever since I started the first Compulink bulletin board,  I  was  faced
    with  a  problem.   I had just one phone line into the computer, I used
    the same line for outgoing calls too, but I soon got tired of this  and
    got another phone line fitted.

    It's  a  funny thing running a bulletin board, when the board is quiet,
    ie.  no-one is using it, you sit there waiting for  a  call.   Then  as
    soon  as you get a call, you feel almost cheated because there might be
    someone else trying to get into your number, but can't.  On a  PC  this
    is  normally  something you have to live with.  The PC is a single-user
    machine - only one person can use it at the same time.

    It was a real revelation to find out that there was a piece of software
    out  there  that  would enable me to run the bulletin board at the same
    time as I was using it.  The trouble was it costed 500 dollars, and was
    only  available  in  the  USA.   Luckily  I came across another program
    called MULTIJOB which appeared to do the  same  sort  of  thing.   True
    enough  it  worked  !   After  carefiully  installing  MJ I now had two
    computers.

    It wasn't quite as simple as that, and there were still some things  to
    look  out for as the whole thing would suddenly lock up for no apparent
    reason.  Now I had two computers, I could do  something  really  clever
    and  run  the bulletin board as a background task.  Amazingly enough it
    worked, what a buzz, I could use the  computer  at  the  same  time  as
    someone  else.   I  now  had  a multi-user machine, but only one person
    could use the bulletin board at the same time.  I had another telephone
    line,  and  if  I  could make MJ work with two partitions maybe I could
    make it work with three partitions and run another  bulletin  board  on
    the  my  other  telephone  line.   This  I did, and two years ago I was
    running the first multi-user  BBS  in  England,  and  one  of  the  few
    multi-user BBS's in the world.

    The  BBS  got very busy on occasions, and I had lots of complaints from
    members not being able to get into the BBS for  days  at  a  time.   In
    November 1985 Compulink was getting a bit too much to handle as well as
    a full time day-job, so I quit to work on the user group full time.  We
    had  already  turned  over one of our bedrooms to Compulink, but it was
    gradually overflowing into all the other rooms  in  the  house.   So  I
    started  looking  around  for  an office.  We located one in Guildford,
    just 150 square feet, but at least it got Compulink out of  our  house.
    It  also  gave  us  room for expansion as it wasn't possible to fit any
    more telephone lines into our house.

    I didn't want to be put  in  the  same  situation  again  with  callers
    wanting  to get through but getting an engaged signal.  So we installed
    SIX data-lines.  It looked like we would have  had  enough  lines.   We
    didn't  really  expect more than six lines to be busy at the same time.
    As usual - we were wrong, luckily it took  about  six  months  for  the
    system  to  pickup to full capacity, and it was only in late 86 that we
    started getting all six lines busy on a regular basis.  By this time we
    had  experienced  some  hardware  failures, and all was not rosy in the
    Compulink camp.  We had to decide if it was worth  spending  more  time
    and  money on our AT based system, or to go for something that was more
    up to the job.

    By  this  time  FIDO  was  hosted  on  a  complicated  'pseudo-network'
    comprising a Compaq Deskpro 286, a Sperry IT (kindly loaned from Sperry
    UK after the demise of the aforementioned AT), and another AT clone.  I
    refer to a 'pseudo-network' because that's how it must have appeared to
    our users.

    We were using the MULTILINK and  LANLINK  software  packages  from  the
    Software  Link  -  distributed  in the UK by ICCT of London.  Multilink
    allows the host AT to multi-task, and LANLINK is a local  area  network
    that  operates over RS232 cables.  Both ML and LL worked well enough in
    a simple network, but our system  required  not  only  that  all  three
    machines  to  be  multi-tasking,  but that they be networked too.  Each
    machine was running up to five 'tasks', apart from  the  obvious  speed
    problem,  the  main  problem we had was interupt clashes.  There simply
    aren't enough spare interupts in the AT's to cope with such a demanding
    network.   The  AT and PC range of computers can only communicate using
    COM1 or COM2, in other words you have to do some clever tricks to  make
    the AT address nore than the standard two comms ports.

    The  answer was to use a computer more suited to multi-tasking than the
    IBM-PC based machines.  This is where a number of ideas merged into one
    and the resultant system was CIX.  We had been talking to Byte Magazine
    about their BIX system for about a year by this time (November 86)  and
    had  made  a  few  useful  contacts.   The  BIX/CIX software as written
    originally by the University of Guelph  in  Ontario  Canada.   Guelph's
    system  is  called  'COSY' an acronym for COnferencing SYstem.  We read
    the reviews of BIX and decided that CoSy was the system for  Compulink.
    All  we had to do now was select a computer to host CIX - and of course
    finance the purchase.  We sent out several mailshots to the  membership
    with  cut-price  offers, and eventually raised the 15,000 pounds needed
    to put a deposit on the hardware, and pay for the software.

    The machine arrived in late November, and I went over to Canada to  buy
    the  CoSy  software  in early January.  Within a week we had CIX up and
    running in beta test.  There were a few problems, and we had to  do  an
    extensive re-write of some of the CoSy modules.

    As  it  stands  right  now,  it costs us in the region of 5000 pounds a
    month to provide the CIX service.  Compulink cannot  afford  to  absorb
    the  cost of running CIX as we had previously done with the FIDO system
    so we decided to make a charge for the  service.   It  wasn't  an  easy
    decision,  but  it  was  the  only  way that we could afford to pay the
    lease.  Predictably our newly announced  charging  policy  was  greeted
    with  mixed reactions.  Some users simply refused to use the system and
    accused Compulink of a 'sellout'.  There was a very  heated  conference
    about the whole issue of charging, and another about the user agreement
    that we 'borrowed' from  BIX.   The  conference  (cixadmin/billing)  is
    still going strong.

    Then  a  strange  thing  happened.   The  users  that  were complaining
    realised that the system they were complaining  about  was  actually  a
    versatile and useful tool - now many of them are CIX addicts.

    There  are already over 30 conferences on-line, most of which have been
    started by members and subscribers.  There is one  group  co-writing  a
    multi-user  game  in one of the conferences, and we already have a good
    spread of  'non-computer'  topics,  such  as  'property',  'books'  and
    'films'.  And they're growing all the time.

    I'd  like you all to know that we had your best intentions in mind when
    we set CIX up, and I'm sorry that we have to  make  a  charge  for  the
    service.  There's simply no other way we could get CIX on-line.

    I  truly believe that the small cost is worthwhile - if you were to use
    the similar BIX service you would be looking at between  20  and  fifty
    times the cost of our system.

    Many members have never used any of our on-line services.  I don't know
    why this is, perhaps it's because they don't  own  a  modem.   We  have
    endorsed  and  sold  the  WS4000  modem  for  close to a year, and have
    observed a gradual increase in the number of members on-line.  We  feel
    that  any  member  who is not using a modem is missing out on wonderful
    new phenomena.  CIX was recently described by Ralph Bancroft - features
    editor of PC Business World as "electrifying"

    You  can  find  the  full  review  in  this Magazette under the heading
    "Review of CIX" - judge for yourself what an independant third party is
    saying  about  CIX.   Ask  yourself  if  you're  not  missing something
    important.

    If the answer is YES, then we have a special  offer  to  those  of  you
    wanting  to  use  CIX,  but are presently without a modem.  We have put
    together another one of our very special members-only offers.

    I'm sure you are all familiar with the COMMUNIKIT, well now we've  gone
    one better, the COMMUNIKIT PLUS.  The COMMUNIKIT PLUS comprises :-

    1) A miracle Technology WS 4000 modem
    2) A copy of PROCOMM - the best user supported comms program.
    3) A cable to connect your modem to your PC.
    4) A quickstart communications guide - how to get your modem online to
    CIX within 5 minutes.
    *5* Registration on CIX.
    *6* A CIX user manual (70 pages)
    *7* A CIX quick reference guide.
    *8* Your first month on CIX is free.

    ** 159.95 ** 159.95 ** 159.95 ** 159.95 ** 159.95 ** 159.95 ** 159.95 *

    Subsequent months are billed at the minimum monthly for online time not
    exceeding 5 pounds.

    Considering the recent price WS4000  price  increases,  the  COMMUNIKIT
    PLUS  must  be  the  best  value in England.  If you would like to take
    advantage of this special offer fill in the CIX registration  form  and
    write on the bottom COMMUNIKIT PLUS offer.  The price of the COMMUNIKIT
    PLUS is just 159.95 pounds plus VAT.

    Of  course  if  you  already  have  a modem - you can still use the CIX
    registration form just to register for CIX.