- DDial Internet Project Details -
What is exactly happening here?
About 20 years ago, I created an enormous hodgepodge of retro computing to bring back the DiversiDial Apple II based chat software back online so people could access it across the internet. It was a major headache, but a lot of fun in the process. Eventually I canned the project, moved, family events took over, and it was pretty low on the totem pole. After revisiting what’s been going on with the scene and stumbling upon some writeups and references from people across the past 20 years, I found that a lot has changed and there was some new opportunities to participate in the scene without the huge overhead of equipment that I needed 20 years ago. So, all these years later, it’s even more retro, and I wanted to at least connect back to an old chat system that meant a lot to my technology influences back in the 1980s.
What’s different this time around?
Well, I ran across software that was developed that can run on a Linux shell that replicates the original DiversiDial experience at an authentic level. The software is called RetroDial and more detail on that project can be found at www.carriersync.com! The one gap in all of this, is I still have a lot of retro gear and I’d like to perhaps bring my old configuration back online one day. We’ll see how that goes over time. I had some people reach out for equipment over the years and I never really parted with it, as I always thought there would be a time I would revisit all of this. Perhaps it will end up as a hybrid. Regardless, enjoy the system, check it out, and ping me if you have any questions.
Why does site look like 2005? Have you no shame?
Honestly, I lost track I still had this website out there. I last modified in in 2005. I was doing web development for years and this certainly was no reflection of that output…this was essentially ‘MS Word Creates a Webpage in 30 minutes”. Perhaps I’ll update things – but it kind of fits the purpose for now. Plus, I find it humorous that something hasn’t come along to just render this thing unreadable completely…it looks just as awful as it did in 2005.
For those of you interested in the original project, here’s all the old ramblings I had up on the site in 2003 or so, to give you a sense of what was going on back then, with the original setup:
Why would you ever want to do such a thing?
I thought it would be fun to take something from another era of computers...something that made absolutely no sense to bring online for any current-day purpose, and attach it to the world via the internet. In 20 years, we've come a long way...maybe this is a museum, maybe it's well-channeled idle time on my part, maybe it's poorly spent idle time. I had fun pulling it together, so enjoy! If you go online and chat with someone for a bit, great. If you sit there by yourself, that's fine too. That's how it went, even back in 1980 when everyone didn't have 'the web' to lounge around in or billions of potential people that might jump in the chat lounge..it was a closer knit group. Many times, it was a pretty diverse group...meaning, anyone could be in there. It wasn't just fans of American Idol, age 16, who lived in NW Chicago and go to so and so High School. The local DDial system might be THE only chat place you could reach for free...so you got to know a lot of folks from many walks of life. Just like nowadays on TV, you have 1000 channels to choose from...and everyone's picky about what they watch/listen to/etc. Back in the good 'ol days, you got a few channels, and for some reason - folks were still happy and getting along ok. On that note, I have to make sure my satellite bill is paid...:)
Why bring an old BBS online? Why not just build a web site with your vacation pictures like everyone else?
I already did the vacation pictures thing...actually, my wife is VP of Vacation Pictures now. When I was first digging into computer systems, though....back in the early 80s, the system that really got me hooked into technology was my Apple IIe. I had worked with Commodore PETs, Texas Instruments TI/99s, Apple II+'s, and a few others, but what really got me hooked was those summer evenings hacking away at the Apple with that amazingly fast internal 1200 baud Prometheus ProModem, dialing around to Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) until 3am. I mean, my parents weren't the type to let their 11 year old run around until 3am lighting things on fire. But with a computer and modem, you could pretty much do anything you wanted. And surprisingly, while other parents were yelling at their kids and making them play Atari or go outside because they didn't want them playing on the computer and tying up the home phone line with the modem calls.... I just used the system at night, became really comfortable with computers and today work in IT full time, love technology, and get to figure out why folks' email gets blocked because of spam filtering for half the day! :) Go figure.
Why put DiversiDial online, of all the BBS software out there?
#1 - It ran on an Apple. That was my system of choice...
#2 - One of the first systems I frequented in my early BBSing days was the DiversiDial #1 system run by the creator of DiversiDial, Bill Basham, who ran his company, Diversified Software Research (DSR), in nearby Farmington Hills, Michigan. The DiversiDial system was unique - it wasn't like any other systems, most of which had a single phone line connection and only one person could be on at a time. You would leave a few messages to everyone, hangup....then hope that whoever you wrote the messages to would dial in sometime that day (and get through the busy signal) and respond. Conversations were immediate, and it wasn't such a waiting game.
You could connect to a DiversiDial system 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and chat with people all over the area - for essentially the price of a local phone call. The system wasn't used for a business during the day - it was 100% for conferencing. For a kid without a drivers license yet, this was like the ticket to freedom. I mean, here's an opportunity to meet people all over the place! Now, a lot of folks got heavily into DDialing, I mean, 24/7 they were on there. I had friends that really got heavy into chat systems, not just DDial, as later it became IRC, etc... it's addicting. Plus, it took like 30 times longer to type to each other than a normal conversation (like messenger does today), so everything just went on...and on...and time just sort of rolled by. I had a friend who got a little addicted to CompuServe (a national system that was around at the same time as DDial, and cost $6 an hour) until the $300+ bill arrived and he got grounded. His parents curbed his computer interests... I think he works in the film industry now. Go figure again.
Big deal - online chat. It's just like IRC or messenger, but slow.
You're right - I mean, it's completely commonplace now - I can walk around and instant message my dog from a beach in California while on vacation, but remember - this system was out in the mid 1980s! Most people were afraid of computers, much less telecommunications and modems....WarGames just came out, so if you had a modem, immediately it was like you were part of some underground secret hacking society.
We're talking about a time when CompuServe was a nationwide online service, which had a very popular multi user chat system....but the off-peak rates (6pm-6am EST, I believe) was $6.66 an hour or something. That means, if you logged in and chatted for 15 minutes each day, you would have a $50 bill showing up each month. You could log in and not type a word...just log in and watch people chat for those 15 minutes...$50. Think of how much instant messaging you do each day...and for those out there that log in at work and sit on AIM or MSN Messenger all day long...imagine how long that would go on for when AOL started sending $1000 bills each month. DiversiDial #1 was $10 a month. $10, and you could log in to one of their 12 lines (they had two Apple computers with 6 phone lines each, linked together so all 12 could talk at a time) and chat with people, and most importantly, not get logged off the system after 10 minutes because you were a "twit" (user without an account). At night, the Diversidial systems could be linked together with systems in other areas...sometimes by the PCPursuit system that allowed you to call other areas during evenings and weekends for a fixed price each month. Once you linked one DDial system with another, then another, then another...you soon found yourself chatting with folks all over the country for that $10. It wasn't cheap for the person who ran the system, either. They had the software to purchase, the computer to dedicate, they had to buy all the modems, the 7 individual phone line bills, it all added up! If you were putting one together, you weren't just running down to the corner store and buying some parts and putting your system on the net by Noon...it pretty much took a business plan!
What's the background of the DiversiDial software and how did you get tied into it?
DiversiDial was created around 1983 by Bill Basham of Diversified Software Research (DSR) of Farmington Hills, Michigan. His company also created other titles such as DiveriTune, Diversi-, etc. The system ran on Apple IIe Computers (Older/Newer systems wouldn't keep the time properly), using Hayes Micromodem IIe 300 baud modems, Novation Apple-Cat 300 modems, or I believe a couple others - Transend, etc which were compatible with the Micromodem IIe.
I was lucky enough to live a few miles away from Bill back in the 1980s, and even visited the original DDial #1 station that he ran out of his basement. Nowadays you’d probably just email/text and that would be the end of it. In the 1980s, it was pretty common to meet up with fellow computer geeks to trade software and talk shop in person, as it was so extremely slow to do over modems, which were just coming into mainstream. My mom and I drove over there, I think I had my $10 for monthly membership dues for a DDial #1 account, and Bill gave us a tour and even demo’ed the software he was working on for the ‘new’ Apple IIs, called Diversi-Tune. He had a synth hooked up via Midi and it was pretty remarkable what it could do. Having an Apple and being a musician myself, I was amazed at seeing these two pieces working together and hearing a demo of what sounded like a live musician on the keyboard.
After that visit, I was ready to get a DiversiTune setup, but the wheels started turning to setup a DDial… I researched exactly how I could get 7 ‘land line’ telephones wired up to the house and another Apple, 7 modems, etc. Lets just say, that never materialized for a variety of reasons.
The software was $475 for up to 7 phone lines, $100 for each additional computer connected to the ddial system, and $50 for each line you added past the original 7. When you linked two computers, you needed to tie up a phone line to exchange the information. Eventually there was a serial interface that could be connected between the systems to avoid having to pay for a phone line to be connected all the time between the two systems.
I never got DDial going, but ended up running Bulletin Board Systems (BBS’s) on a variety of systems around that time… I loved trying new gear, so I was constantly changing hardware and software: Atari 1040 ST, Atari Mega, Apple IIe, Apple IIgs, Mac SE, IBM Compatible…hard drives, no hard drives…Apple Sider 5MB hard drves that weighed a ton…a CD-ROM drive with 750MB of software that I put online that was like the monster of all monsters for that day. It was a revolving door of technology, and the people calling the BBS never knew what was going on, but it was a great scene. My last system was a networked ProLine software written by Morgan Davis for the Apple II that was like using a unix shell. It was super powerful but it wasn’t for the faint of heart, when it came to user interfaces. The system would autodial other systems at night to exchange message and update forum messages – which was like an amazing thing at the time. Eventually it wrapped when I headed out to college and that was the wrapup of the initial BBS era for me. Ironicaly, years later, I heard some scuffle over email or on an old forum about someone saying they thought I had given my ProLine software to someone or whatever…and there was some mini uproar that I found out about a year after it all died down. There was always some drama in the BBS scene…but to this day I still have no idea what that was about. I still have my original ProLine disc because I remember buying that software for a small fortune…$250 or something.
Anyhow, back to DDial - The DDIAL systems were around until about 1992, when most were phased out and the internet really stepped in, along with other Bulletin Board Systems with faster connection speeds and other offerings. Ironically, most people couldn't even type at 300 baud, so there wasn't a real benefit to having faster connection speeds, except for the fact that you could see the chains of comments pop on the screen faster, and avoid a lag in messages scrolling one by one at 300bps.
Some areas had DDial parties, outings, etc...where all the folks that called into that system routinely would get together. The DDial #1 group had a bit of that, not as much as other systems around the country, I don't think. I was never all that interested in trying to spend half my day trying to find a way to get across town to stand around chatting with people who were all online and chatting already, but some areas really had a lot of getogethers outside of the system. I eventually went onto other things, started a single line BBS on my own and that became my focus, as well as other non-computer stuff/sports/etc, then got swamped with High School and off to college....
Comments/Questions? Drop me a note!
Last Updated – Dec 2025