The history of UNCENSORED!

We've always been the little digital haven that we are now - never have been a commercial site, never will. Just a bunch of folks playin' around.

Some spare hardware and a desire to have fun

This whole thing began back in October of 1987, when I got my very own Unix box to tinker with -- an Altos 586. This machine was intensely cool. It had a whopping 40 megs of disk and FIVE serial ports! I slapped an ADDS Viewpoint 60 terminal to it and started hacking away to my heart's content. I'd been a big fan of Citadel-CP/M and Citadel-86 for quite a while, and was thinking about doing a Unix port of the code. It didn't take long to figure out that a rewrite would be easier, so I started writing a Citadel implementation for Unix (which, for a while, bore the name "UNIXrooms").

There was a need for a new Citadel system to be established in the 914 area code. The only really good Citadel in the area had been OSUNY, and it had closed down already. What we were left with were boards with really restrictive policies, where you'd get both your posts and your account deleted if you said something the sysop didn't agree with. That kind of fascist environment was no place for the local BBS callers to enjoy themselves -- what was needed was a place where you could post about whatever you want, using your own words and your own opinions, without fear of reprisal. What was needed, was a BBS dedicated to free speech online.

Cash was a bit scarce for setting up my own BBS at the time, so I split the startup costs with my (then) cosysop, Brian Richardson (aka Ted Kaplan or also aka "Ice Pick"). Ted stayed online for a good two years or so, then left the BBS scene in favour of other non computer related pursuits. After an agonizingly long wait for the telephone company to get our line installed (a recurring theme, as we would later find out), UNCENSORED! BBS opened its doors to the dialup community on March 10, 1988.

The BBS quickly became a success. The concept of a free speech BBS was very attractive, and this was many years before the CDA caused a widespread fight to keep online communications uncensored. One good aspect of the tradition that developed on UNCENSORED! was that although you could always post your opinions, however unpopular, it was generally frowned upon by everyone to be rude, profane, or otherwise unacceptable. This was truly in the spirit of the First Amendment. Local users from other Citadel systems in the area eagerly logged on, and found our relaxed, easy-going environment quite enjoyable. Some suggested that we go commercial (another recurring theme) but this whole thing was just a hobby -- just something to have fun with. In retrospect I'm glad we've kept it that way, and chances are we always will.

Technology blessings

Things nearly came to an abrupt end when a hardware failure forced the system down in August of 1989. Fortunately, I was able to get my hands on a smaller Altos, which we squeezed by on until January 1990, at which point I bought a 286-based PC and installed Microport UNIX. UNCENSORED! would continue to live.

And live it did! It became the most popular BBS in its geographical area, attracting 30 to 40 calls per day. This trend went on for several years. Many users came and went, and many have stayed with us through the years. It's been a veritable "digital pub" of sorts, always casual, always relaxed, and always a fun place to hang out.

Hardware and software upgrades, of course, continued to surround our operation. There have been four or five different computers, and a couple of different flaviours of Unix.  And in January of 1995, I decided it was time to take the plunge, and start running UNCENSORED! on the Linux operating system. It was the best move I ever made! Linux is a great host to the Citadel software.

Challenges and life experiences

Around this time, though, there was this annoying little juggernaut that was slowly sucking users away from dialup BBS's: the obscene amount of hype surrounding the World Wide Web. Calling started to dwindle. It never stopped entirely, but I noticed that it was nearly impossible to start a new BBS and get any callers. We were living on our years-long reputation at this point. We continued to get occasional new users, but the heyday of dialup was apparently over. We still had fun though... 

UNCENSORED! users have always had a healthy, almost maniacal enthusiasm for our little online 'cyberhaven'. The summer of 1996 saw this trend peak in a big way. Although the major influx of new users had become a thing of the past, we still got a few every now and then, but the best part about the way things panned out is that a really close-knit online community came into existence. Through our weekly diner meets and other events, a lot of us ended up creating a good offline social scene as well.

At the end of the summer of 1996, a wonderful and much-anticipated milestone was reached: a connection to the Internet. The first thing that happened, of course, was the re-emergence of lots of old friends who had moved away - with long distance modem calls no longer an obstacle, they jumped right back into the BBS and again became regular callers. From then until now, we've gained quite a few new users as well. And in addition, the addition of a web-based front end has attracted and retained a number of people who would have otherwise passed right over a text-based BBS. Although it's still operated as a hobby and paid for as an out-of-pocket expense, UNCENSORED! is now truly a globally-accessed online community -- and we're now more active than ever. It's not unusual to have 10 or 20 people logged in at the same time these days.

BBS's are not dead!

Anyone who says that BBS's are the dead online scene of yesteryear is lying! The small, hobbyist-operated BBS is still the best place to meet interesting people online, away from the deafening roar of the mainstream information superhighway. The BBS crowd is far more 'folksy' than on the huge and relatively content-free sites operated by the likes of Microsoft and America Online. I've written another essay devoted to this subject.

If you're logging into UNCENSORED! for the first time, you are coordially invited to become a part of the legend. Log on, have fun, learn, make friends, and most importantly: feel free to be yourself and contribute to the salad-bowl of users that makes up our online community.