Ronald J. Wilson is the webmaster extraordinaire of Outspan, an historical initiative focusing its attentions on the awakening of the African continent. From his home in Spokane, Washington Ron oversees the development of Chivamba's Kraal (winner of the Internet Brothers Gold Plaque for Helpware Excellence, and a History Television Approved Site), a tribute to the late 19th century author and adventurer Stanley Portal Hyatt. A celebrated writer and lecturer in his own right, Ron has a lot to share with us about the importance of the written word on our web sites.

Don't let the greying hair fool you. Many of those leading the charge of community on the World Wide Web are middle-aged technophiles who had their roots in the PC revolution of the mid-eighties. Such is the case with Ron Wilson, who could be found manning an early writer's Bulletin Board System in Denver, Colorado a decade ago. Internet Brothers invited Ron to talk to us about life as a veteran net junkie, and to offer his astute observations about writing for this online media.

[Internet Brothers] Ron, please tell us about the latest Outspan projects.

[Ron Wilson] For me the Internet's truly great potential has always been to make available resources that may not exist elsewhere or if they do exist, are not readily accessible. Out of print books is a good example. I had this in mind when I created Outspan and offered free the full text of a book that has been out of print for over seventy-five years. While the book is a personal favorite of mine, my mail indicates that the effort has been of value to others as well. Like you, I view the World Wide Web as a community — one that can easily be enriched by the contributions, both great and small, of individual members. If nothing else, I hope Outspan will serve as such an example. Future Outspan projects will invariably include making available more materials of historical interest, quite probably some of the more obscure. To continue my African interest, I'd like to do something on Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza or Frederick Selous. I'll leave presenting the famous authors to Project Gutenberg.

[IB] For our guests who may be just cutting their teeth on the Internet and World Wide Web of the late 90s, share with us what the pioneers were doing in the rough-and-tumble world of the BBS that now seems eons ago.

[RW] The days of the computer bulletin board do seem like the Stone Age compared with today. Many were run from early CP/M Osborne or Kaypro computers, 64 kilobytes of memory, no graphics, and monochrome screens. The early bulletin boards were essentially a text-sharing interface that allowed users to connect one-at-a-time over a telephone line to a PC on the other end. From there users could read and post messages, upload or download files, plus share the latest scoop with other computer enthusiasts. Modems typically were Hayes Smartmodem 300/1200 baud externals in an aluminum box. Since there were no graphics to load, 1200 baud didn't seem all that slow. I remember buying my first Hayes 300/1200 for $450 — so relieved that the price had dropped from $750. Most BBS's required registration and a password to post messages, so if you misbehaved while online the Sysop (System Operator) had only to delete your password from the appropriate file and you were locked out. I remember one of the big no-nos at the time was "dropping carrier," which meant you gave the command to your modem to simply hang up without first formally signing off from the host computer. A first blush at "netiquette," I suppose.

[IB] How do you compare those early experiences with the fast paced multimedia world of online community today? Do you find it challenging being as much as twenty years older than the majority of today's web developers?

[RW] There really is no comparison. I constantly marvel at how much easier it is to make your way around today's computers. In 1983 when I bought my first computer (to the tune of $1800!), you'd switch it on and the only thing that would happen is a little flashing green cursor would appear in the upper left hand corner of the otherwise blank screen. If you didn't know where to go from there, everything you tried would produce a cryptic error message of some kind. The ones announcing themselves as "fatal errors" were doubly intimidating. Eventually, when you learned enough to run programs, you discovered to your dismay that every piece of software you acquired had its own command set, that is, what keys you had to push in combination with other keys to make the program function. You always needed little cards or cheat sheets handy to make your way through different programs because there was no way you could remember everything you needed to know to make each one work.

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"For me the Internet's truly great potential has always been to make available resources that may not exist elsewhere or if they do exist, are not readily accessible."

"The early bulletin boards were essentially a text-sharing interface that allowed users to connect one-at-a-time over a telephone line to a PC on the other end."