After retreating to Boulder Creek following burnout at Atari, I was lonely, and I wanted to gather a new family of friends. I decided to build a BBS (a dialup computer bulletin board system).

I designed the system using an interface that (at the time) was innovative: a tree-structured, hierarchical database of messages, with a secondary structure that was time-sorted, including features that allowed the users to access the information along multiple paths.

The original system, which was called Stuart II, became wildly popular -- the single phone line was in use around the clock. Many "copy cat" systems sprang up all around the US, using similar interfaces, written independently by other programmers on many different platforms.

I got my wish for a new family. Monthly pot luck parties for the "Stuartites" became a tradition, and many new friendships were formed.

I went to New York for a couple of weeks, to share some of the principles of the interface with programmers at a financial firm, for their in-house email system.

I formed a company, Terra Nova Communications, with a monthly journal, the Terra Nova Letter. We gathered some investments from loyal members and bought some new hardware, a multitasking computer from Cromemco. We built a multi-line version of the BBS, with interactive chat and dynamic load-balancing. Those were exciting days.

Unfortunately for Terra Nova, I was inexperienced at business and I made some bad decisions after receiving some bad advice. The company folded, and I moved on to other interests.

How the world has changed in a dozen years!

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