On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, Robert Trifts wrote: > Third Omission: Roboboard. Roboboard was BBS software designed in > 1992 and was around until 1995/96,. It was originally written by Seth > Hamilton, a 17 yr old kid from Alberta Canada (who later moved to > Ottawa Canada - he still lives nearby in Aylmer Quebec, as far as I > know). Seth later hired other programmers to assist in coding Robo's > successor software. > > Robobard was important as it was the first BBS software on the DOS > platform to implement Windows style graphics into its design. In an > age where its competitors were operating in ANSI, Robo was designed to > be displayed in SVGA, with all the graphics, buttons, sliders and > other GUI features users were beginning to expect from Windows 3.xx. > Unlike RIP, Robo had a decidedly Windows look and feel. > > Robo had great page design software and was implemented by permanently > saving graphical data on the user's local hard drive so it only had to > be downloaded once. It could send identifying tags which sat on the > users hard drive and alerted the BBS software as to who you were and > what access you had on the page (and so it was that the "cookie" was > born). > > Even at 2400 baud, after the graphics were initially downloaded for > the first time, users could click/navigate their way through BBS > "pages" in a flash. Without doubt, Robo was on to something and it > was financially successful almost overnight, transforming Seth > Hamilton from a geeky kid to a BBS software mogul. > > In 1994, Robo began a transformation into a professional Windows based > BBS suite, marketed towards business and not hobby BBS operators. > Robo was full featured and could do everything that NCSA Mosaic > ultimately could do (and a little more). Bu that of course, was the > problem. The Web had the non-proprietary strengths of RIP and it had > the no long distance barriers of an X10 system by using IP. > > And so Robo died. > > Nevertheless, Robo had some great ideas. Its caching of .gif files on > the user's hard drive lead to one of the key design concepts behind > HTML and permitted users of Robo to have a reasonably fast BBS > experience even at 2400 baud. Robo's design software for its "pages" > was premised upon a desktop publishing software model. In design, > display quality and ease of use, Robo was superior to HTML for years > after Mosaic became Netscape. > > Robo was the way it should look and work. RIP and its non-proprietary > language approach - independent of screen resolution on the user end - > was the way to do it. > > All you had to do was layer both concepts on top of Gopher, remove > long distance barriers via IP and the Web was born "overnight". > > When you stop and think about it - you realize that Mosaic's only real > innovation was that it created a graphical front end to existing > gopher systems, such that it had an installed "user base" from the get > go. Other than that, Mosaic was - simply put - in the cards. i Seth > Hamilton, told me that upon release of NCSA mosaic, his business died > instantly. His customers - which included Real Estate companies > looking to market their products using online services - were already > early adopters of the promise of online communications to the masses. > > When those same clients saw that Robo's power could be added to a > world without long distance barriers or proprietary telecommunications > software - they dropped him like a rock.