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family I know that moved here to Albuquerque<br />
from Philadelphia not long ago, longs to make<br />
more phone calls back home than they can<br />
justify. Since they and many of their friends<br />
own personal computers, PC Pursuit would let<br />
them and their teenagers communicate with<br />
family and old friends there without guilt or<br />
big phone bills. And I know lots of folks on<br />
the commercial networks who spend hour after<br />
hour chatting with Significant Others on the<br />
real-time Citizens' Band radio simulators that<br />
most networks offer. Each of them pays the<br />
network's hourly connect fee to do so. Even if<br />
that's only $4 or $5 an hour each, they must<br />
spend a small fortune talking with each other<br />
over a period of time. Provided one of them<br />
lives in a PC Pursuit major market, they could<br />
do the exact same thing for $25 a month since<br />
only the caller needs to join PC Pursuit.<br />
COMMERCIAL NETWORKS<br />
Speaking of commercial networks, if you sign<br />
onto one through Telenet now, it might be to<br />
your advantage to find out (1) if their<br />
computer(s) are situated in a city served by PC<br />
Pursuit, and (2) what their connect fees are to<br />
members who call in from that area code. If<br />
you simply dial through Telenet normally, it<br />
costs an extra $2 an hour to use The Well, for<br />
instance, a network in the San Francisco'area<br />
(415/664-2811 by modem). But by joining PC<br />
Pursuit, you can call into San Franciso through<br />
Telenet using the special PC Pursuit procedure<br />
and THEN sign onto The Well for $3 rather<br />
than $5 an hour. The upshot is that if you log<br />
onto The Well or any other similarly accessed<br />
network for more than 12 hours a month PC<br />
Pursuit will pay for itself and you can'call<br />
bulletin boards and friends all over the<br />
country free! Just remember that any<br />
computer you call (the one that will answer)<br />
must be located in one of the major markets<br />
served by PC Pursuit as established by its<br />
telephone area code.<br />
For more information about PC Pursuit call<br />
(voice) 800/368-4215 from 8AM to 5PM eastern<br />
time, or use your modem to sign onto their<br />
free 24-hour information and sign-up BBS at<br />
800/835-3001 (300 or 1200 Baud, seven data<br />
bits, no parity, 1 stop bit - 7N1 in jargon)<br />
Download the text files of detailed infomation<br />
you'll find online there, including instructions<br />
60<br />
i annum inn u<br />
on how to join and use the service. And in<br />
case you do decide to join (there's a $25 sign<br />
up fee and you must have a credit card) here<br />
are some Amiga and C64/128 bulletin boards<br />
in the 14 markets served by PC Pursuit now.<br />
Realize that while I have listed boards that<br />
were functional at the time this article was<br />
written, that's no guarantee that they will be<br />
online by the time you read it. They do tend<br />
to come and go. Lists of boards across the<br />
country are available on many commercial<br />
networks and most boards offer compilations<br />
of others in their area. Another way of<br />
finding them is to leave a message or see if the<br />
SYSOP on the system you're connected with is<br />
available for live chat and ask for his or her<br />
recommendations. There are hundreds (maybe<br />
even thousands) of bulletins boards in these 14<br />
cities _ alone and most of them arc freely<br />
accessible to anyone with an appropriately<br />
equipped computer. And now with PC<br />
PURSUIT, reaching them, whether they're<br />
devoted to computers, matchmaking or some<br />
topic in between, is no longer prohibitively<br />
expensive.<br />
(Editor's note: An excellent and frequentlyupdated<br />
list of public BBS systems also appears<br />
in every issue of Computer Shopper.]<br />
BBS Tips and Etiquette<br />
from Miss Peggy<br />
If you have call waiting service, contact your<br />
local telephone company for a way to<br />
temporarily disable it while you're online. The<br />
tone generated by incoming calls will instantly<br />
disconnect you from another computer.<br />
Bulletin boards can handle only one caller at<br />
a time since the host computer (usually a<br />
C64/128, Amiga, Apple, IBM-PC or TRS-80) is<br />
connected to someone's private telephone line,<br />
which is also why some of them operate only<br />
at night. As far as telecommunicating with<br />
text is concerned (as opposed to programs) all<br />
brands of computers are compatible. In other<br />
words, your computer can talk to any other<br />
computer online.<br />
Expect limited access to most boards on your<br />
first call and go in at 300 Baud if you aren't<br />
sure what the system will accomodatc. Most<br />
SYSOPs verify that you're sufficiently sincere
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