BIX items on local board

Press, 26 April 1989, Page 46

BIX items on local board

A Christchurch bulletin board, the Guide 11, is offering selections from BIX in the United States at $5 an hour. BIX is the bulletin board system of the leading microcomputer magazine, “Byte.” The Communications Gateway Corporation, Ltd, of Christchurch, run by Steve Davis and a partner who wishes to be anonymous at present, is buying selections from the BIX features, “Microbytes Daily” and the “Best of BIX.” The bulletin is accessible by telephone, one user at a time — in the evenings. But the best way to get in is by the Telecom packet-switching .system, Pacnet. Using this, the board handles four callers at a time.

New callers are probably wise to phone in first (480360, evenings) and register. But then Pacnet is the easy road.

Users do not need to be Pacnet subscribers. They can call in collect by dialling Pacnet (Christchurch 08740 at 300 baud) and keying in the Communications Gateway number, 30000200, when the Pacnet logo comes up. This method reverses the packet-switching connect charge, which Communications Gateway will put on the caller’s account, plus 10 per cent.

Generally, this is still cheaper than being a Pacnet subscriber, unless you have other uses for packet switching, such as accessing overseas databases. Some of the well-known users of local bulletin boards are unhappy with the costs of using Guide 11. But $5 an hour is much cheaper than accessing BIX direct. The selection of items is much more limited, of course, so many users will still want to go into the American system. But the local service offers a reasonable compromise for enthusiasts who find accessing BIX too expensive. The Guide II roughly follows the conferencing system of BIX in sections other than the news sections. Users can add their views to items under discussion. But negotiating through the system is harder than navigating in BIX, which has a very logical structure and good documentation. Steve Davis and his partner believe the Pacnet access will give them members from about the country. Considerable interest has been expressed by individuals and companies. The hardware is a simple IBM compatible personal computer with a 60Mb hard disk.