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FUN WITH PC PURSUIT
by Peggy Herrington
You can expand your computing and social
horizons into The Big Time with a modem and
a terminal program. This equipment connects
your computer to a telephone, and that's your
means of participating in The Information
Age. It enables you to log onto electronic
Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) and commercial
networks, and connect your computer to others
one-to-one. While I agree that that label for
our society's stage of development — The
Information Age — is accurate enough, I find
the term itself so dry and non-descriptive that
I think you'll be astounded if you take my
advice and give telecommunicating a try.
You'll discover a world of ideas and fellowship
that you never dreamt existed. Nothing
worthwhile is free, of course, and if you want
to ride the commercial network wires often
you'll need a fair piece of disposable income.
But unlike the networks, BBSs rarely charge
access fees. BBSs owners, or SYStcm OPerators
(SYSOPs), devote unbelievable time and energy
to the maintenance of their boards in a true
labor of love, and some of them arc real gems.
Until about a year ago, however, we were all
faced with long distance telephone charges to
reach boards outside our local calling area, and
despite the fact that most major population
centers have hundreds of boards that are
available for free, there wasn't a great deal of
intercity communication. That is not the
situation anymore because PC Pursuit, a service
of GTE Telenet, has dramatically lowered the
cost of long distance communication by
computer.
NO LONG DISTANCE
Telenet is a packet-switching service that
provides telephone links from smaller cities
into bigger ones across the United States.
Telenet lines carry digitized data rather than
voice signals, and most American cities have
local access nodes; there are something like
18,000 of them now. These nodes arc nothing
more or less than local telephone numbers that
allow computer users across the country to
exchange information with other computers in
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14 major metropolitan areas without incurring
long distance telephone charges. The
metropolitan centers you can presently call into
are:
Atlanta Denver Newark Seattle
Boston Detroit New York Washington DC
Chicago Houston Philadelphia
Dallas Los Angeles San Francisco
Eleven more major markets are scheduled to
be added to Telenet's list before the end of
1986. They wouldn't tell me which ones by
name, although they pretty much go by the
greatest population. But once these cities arc
online, that will mean a total of 25 that PC
Pursuit members can access, or call into, from
all over the country.
$25 A MONTH
Telenet was initially established as a service
for professionals and during business times
they charge up to $14 an hour to use their data
lines. But about a year ago, Telenet decided to
make these lines available at a much reduced
cost during non-business hours (6PM to 7AM
weekdays and 24 hours a day on weekends and
holidays), and they introduced PC Pursuit for
that express purpose.
For a flat $25 a month, PC Pursuit
subscribers can make unlimited calls with their
computers into these 14 (soon to be 25) major
markets during non-business hours. No strings.
And no long distance charges unless you live
in the boondocks and must call into a nearby
city with a Telenet access number. For $25 a
month, PC Pursuit members can connect with
any computer that will answer the phone in
any of these cities for as long as they wish
(well, on weekdays until 7AM at the end that
initiated the call). There's no limit to the
number of calls or the amount of connect or
online time used.
I know lots of people who could save
themselves a bundle with PC Pursuit. First
off, there's my friend who likes to call bulletin
boards on Sunday afternoons, read the
messages that were posted since the week
before and download public domain programs
for his user group's library — a worthy cause,
of course, but since he prefers boards in other
(larger) cities, these Sunday outings cost him a
couple of hundred bucks a month, and his
wife, shall we say, is anything but pleased. A