The History AND FUTURE Of Deep Space Nine BBS
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Last Updated................. May 8, 1999

I. The System Operator's History

The System operator of Deep Space Nine is Jay Fuller. He is currently twenty-one years old, and was the first teen aged system operator in Cullman County, Alabama when he started this BBS system back in May, 1994. He first started using computers when he was about ten years old, operating a Commodore 64 Personal Computer. [uses 128K ram system, and ran off a 5 1/4 disk drive with "664 bytes free"]. He used this system and started word processing using a system known as GEOS [Graphical Environment Operating System]. Eventually, on November 25,1992, the night before Thanksgiving, he upgraded to an IBM 386/40 DX system in which Deep Space Nine originally ran on.

II. System information

Since Deep Space Nine currently operates on a 486/DX4 , 100 Mhz system with
16 meg of Random Access Memory, or RAM. It is noted that other applications
might be running in the background during your on-line session, this made possible due to an aspect called MULTI-TASKING. This simply means using a computer to do more then one "task" at a time. It is very useful in running a Bulletin Board! The BBS runs on one dedicated computer as of the summer of 1996, and multitasks under the desQview operating system.

III. How Deep Space Nine got started

I've been BBSing since I started with the 2400 baud modem that came with my computer in November,1992. I called every system that I could locally call and got really active on these systems. The software I used to call these systems, Qmodem, had a "host mode" built in that included chat, download and upload, and some other fun things. I decided to take that host, and design real ANSI graphics for it. This is when I decided to name that Qmodem host. The name I decided upon was Deep Space Nine, because it was the name of a new Television show that was supposed to premiere in about a week and a half. Qmodem Host was the software for Deep Space Nine for over three months until a good friend of mine, Tony Teem, decided to download a Bulletin Board software. He volunteered to put the software on disk if I would help him set it up over the phone. By this time, Deep Space Nine Qmodem Host, or Deep Space Nine BBS / Host as it was commonly called, had over 200 files, and I kind of wanted to divide those files into file directories.

Tony gave me two 3 1/2 disks with Ultra BBS Version 2.09 zipped on the disks. I took them home, and played around with it for about an hour. Within 24 hours I had Deep Space Nine converted to run under Ultra BBS. Since then, the Bulletin Board slowly moved from having no bulletins, no doors, and about 5 file areas to having over 30 conferences, bulletins, information, over 30 door games, and offline mail reading support. Since then, we've upgraded to a 14,400 baud modem, and added a CD-ROM to the system.

Jay Fuller finally decided that the system had sat around to long to not be online. He made preparations to begin converting the system from not only a "play" bbs, but to a real life Bulletin Board System. He made the different access levels required, and installed and setup Front Door, version 2.02. [Front door is how you get most of your mail every day, it's an automated program that gets mail from other Bulletin
Board systems.] Eventually, he went ahead and setup a few private "access" nodes, or areas where he can access the Bulletin Board without having to use the caller's node/line.

From this point, the present Bulletin Board you see today began. Deep Space Nine Bulletin Board went online on Memorial Day, 1994. Upon opening, Deep Space Nine has some minor bugs, but we finally grew to where we had around 20-25 calls a day, with few crashes. This is hard to accomplish on a new system like Deep Space Nine was. Later that opening year, as Jay got a better job at WXXR radio and started earning some additional money, The 130 megabyte hard drive Deep Space Nine ran from was to small for the system, thus causing MANY mail problems, so on November 9, 1994, Deep Space Nine was upgraded to a total of 1.2 gigabytes of hard drive space [approx. 1,200 megabytes].

As Deep Space Nine entered 1995, Deep Space Nine BBS became a support and distribution site for UltraBBS Software as well as Geoworks Software. Later on in that same year, Deep Space Nine once again upgraded it's equipment.

As of Wednesday, August 9, 1995, Deep Space Nine added an external Us Robotics 28,800 baud Sportster Modem. This is in addition to the currently running 14,400 baud modem which used to run Deep Space Nine. This modem will hopefully be used to add node 2 to Deep Space Nine by mid September.

On August 1, 1995, Deep Space Nine joined an effort of the Cullman Area Bulletin Boards known as the United Sysops Organization. This organization will help improve systems in the local area, and it is simply the local system operators of the more powerful bulletin board systems in Cullman working together and exchanging ideas to better improve the Cullman BBS community as a whole. Jay Fuller is proud to announce Deep Space Nine BBS as one of the many founding members, as
Deep Space Nine is also a home base for the local Cullman Pc Users Computer Club organization.

As of August 14, 1995, Deep Space Nine has also upgraded to a new 486/DX4 / 100 Mhz computer, and added 4 meg of Ram, to equal 8 meg. This, in combination with the new 28.8K modem, Deep Space Nine hopes to continue its service which it has provided now for over a year.

On September 8, 1995, Deep Space Nine opened a 2nd line to it's callers as the system operator turned 18. This line is primarily for Internet usage, and when the system operator is not dialed into the internet, this line is available for calls. The new
number is (205) 734-0763. 

As of December, 1995, Deep Space Nine added another 8 megs of RAM to assist in the operation of Windows 95 software.

During the summer of 1996, Jay Fuller made a leap into the future by getting Deep Space Nine its own dedicated machine. With assistance from Alabama Computer Associates, Deep Space Nine combined it's original 545 megabyte hard drive and it's two existing modems, and added a new CPU, case, and power supply.
The BBS system was now independent of Jay Fuller's personal computer system.

Unfortunately, this upgrade caused some parts to not work properly. We experienced several systems failures over the summer of 1996 - including 3-4 major system crashes [with a backup made in mid April, 1996, only 2-3 months of data were lost], and finally, a complete system crash in early September, 1996. The system was down for 2-3 days because a new hard drive had to be purchased. When the system finally came back up, over half of it's large filebase was gone. Over months of restoring files via the Internet, Deep Space Nine eventually gained 90 percent of it's filebase back.

From late September, 1996 through December 1996, the system functioned quite well with two lines, on a 486 Dx/4 / 100 mhz machine, with 16 megabytes of RAM.

On December 26, 1996, the BBS system moved to Shawn Woodard's residence, and it remains there as Jay Fuller prepares to move to the University of South Alabama. The BBS system has been largely supported by it's callers, with a special thanks and recognition to one caller in particular, who paid over half of Deep Space Nine's phone bills in 1997 alone. Without this caller, and the numerous donations of callers from 1996-1997, the BBS system surely would not have survived.

Also on December 26, 1996, Deep Space Nine BBS dropped its second line because the BBS was no longer at Jay Fuller's residence, therefore, the second line was no longer needed since it was added primarily for Jay's personal Internet access.

Jay Fuller departs relatively quickly for the University of South Alabama, and will keep up with daily activity on Deep Space Nine about once a week via electronic Email. As long as there are funds to continue running Deep Space Nine, the
system will continue to serve the public interest of Cullman, and the online BBS community. 

As of September, 1997 - Deep Space Nine is still one of the most active systems in the Cullman area. We are currently the _ONLY_ system to carry fidonet - a network of message areas. We also provide the fidonet "Filebone" to our callers....new and updated files on a daily basis.

Deep Space Nine has also actively participated in the beta testing process of UltraBBS, and is proud to be carrying the UltraBBS Software for the southeast. Unfortunately, as of early 1997, UltraBBS has seen little work done towards
development of new software.

In early 1998, Deep Space Nine was closed for around two months due to legal problems, but soon reopened on July 1, 1998 to continue providing the services which were very few and far between by that time. The biggest addition to the system at the end of 1998 was the advent of internet e-mail for all callers , free of charge.

IV. Where Deep Space Nine will end up in a few years

Effective December 26, 1996 - Shawn Woodard maintains the system out of his home. Jay Fuller will remain the primary system operator, with Shawn Woodard still the remote system operator. Any references to a "system operator" will be handled by EITHER Shawn or Jay.

Early in 1999, it was discovered the UltraBBS software was not year 2000 compatible (as was the announcement of the end of Deep Space Nine - the television series) -- ironic isn't it?  The staff, at last report, was working to resolve this issue.   If a software patch is not made available by January 1, 2000, the system will most likely shut down on that date. The system still operates at (256) 734-0818.