CIX (originally ''Compulink Information eXchange'') is an online conferencing service developed by CIX Online Ltd. Founded in 1983 as a

FidoNet __ / \ /, oo \ (_, /_) _`@/_ \ _ , , \ \\ , (*) , \ )) ______ , __U__, / \// / FI ...

bulletin board system A bulletin board system (BBS), also called a computer bulletin board service (CBBS), is a computer server running list of BBS software, software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user perfor ...

, it is one of the oldest

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

Internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides a myriad of services related to accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, no ...

History

Origins

Founded in 1983 by Frank and Sylvia Thornley, it began as a

FidoNet __ / \ /, oo \ (_, /_) _`@/_ \ _ , , \ \\ , (*) , \ )) ______ , __U__, / \// / FI ...

but was relaunched commercially as CIX in 1987. At the core of the service were thousands of "conferences" — groups created by users to discuss specific topics. These were conceptually similar to

newsgroups A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are not only discussion groups or conversations, but also a repository to publish articles, start ...

but limited to CIX subscribers, who sometimes refer to themselves as "Cixen". These conferences still exist today, although the CIX service has since expanded to include many additional features. The service is funded through a monthly subscription fee rather than advertising. In 1988, CIX provided the first commercial internet

email Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...

and

Usenet Usenet (), a portmanteau of User's Network, is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose UUCP, Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Elli ...

access in the UK. The service grew rapidly, reaching a peak of over 16,000 users in 1994, before starting to lose customers to newly established internet service providers that offered free access to the mass market using 0845 dial-up. These included providers such as

Demon A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in folklore, mythology, religion, occultism, and literature; these beliefs are reflected in Media (communication), media including f ...

(founded by Cixen Cliff Stanford, whose CIX nickname was "Demon"),

Pipex Pipex ( ) was the United Kingdom's first commercial Internet service provider (ISP). It was formed in 1990 and helped to develop the ISP market in the UK. In 1992 it began operating a 64k transatlantic leased line and built a connection to the U ...

AOL AOL (formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City, and a brand marketed by Yahoo! Inc. The service traces its history to an online ...

, and

Freeserve Freeserve was a British Internet service provider, which was founded in 1998. At its height, the company became a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index, before merging into the Wanadoo group in 2001. It then became a subsidiary of France Telecom, ...

. By 2011, CIX still had nearly 9,000 users. In its heyday, CIX was one of the UK's premier online platforms for both technical and social interaction. It hosted several official online support areas for companies such as

Borland Borland Software Corporation was a computing technology company founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad, and Philippe Kahn. Its main business was developing and selling software development and software deployment products. B ...

and

Novell Novell, Inc. () was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as NetWare. Novell technolog ...

and counted many of the UK's technology journalists among its subscribers (some of whom were provided with free accounts), ensuring regular mentions in the computing press. The Liberal Democrats have used CIX as a conferencing system, with a branded version of the offline reader Ameol provided for their use.

Later company history

In 1996, the Thornleys decided to expand CIX's services to include full 0845 dial-up internet access, branded as CIX Internet. However, uptake was limited, possibly due to its above-average cost, despite being technically rated for many years as one of the best internet providers in the UK. In March 1998, a management buy-in backed by Legal & General Ventures was successfully completed. The buy-in team, none of whom had previously worked at CIX, included Doug Birtley as Managing Director, Niels Gotfredsen as Finance Director, Graham Davies as Sales and Marketing Director, and Lisa Pennington. Frank and Sylvia Thornley agreed to remain with the company for a minimum of three years. In 2000, CIX was sold to

Telenor Telenor ASA ( or ) is a Norwegian majority state-owned multinational telecommunications company headquartered at Fornebu in Bærum, close to Oslo. It is one of the world's largest mobile telecommunications companies with operations worldwi ...

, a Norwegian telecommunications company. It was rebranded and merged with XTML of Manchester and

Norsk Data Norsk Data was a minicomputer manufacturer located in Oslo, Norway. Existing from 1967 to 1998, it had its most active period from the early 1970s to the late 1980s. At the company's peak in 1987, it was the second largest company in Norway and em ...

of Newbury to form the UK arm of Nextra, Telenor's internet subsidiary in the UK. In June 2002, Telenor outsourced the CIX service to Parkglobe, a company established specifically for this purpose by several long-term CIX staff and directors, including Graham Davies, Charlie Brook, and Mat Sims. In July 2002, Telenor sold the business to GX Networks, also known as PIPEX. In February 2001, CIX WCS (Web Conferencing System) was released as a private beta to a select group, followed by a public beta in May 2001. In 2004, CIX Conferencing was made accessible via a new service, CIX Online, by CIX Online Ltd, providing a web interface as an alternative to the text interface. However, customer acceptance of the web interface was limited compared to the OLRs (Offline Readers — which allowed the upload and download of new messages with message editing performed offline) that most Cixen used. In April 2007, the first prototype of the CIX Forums website was launched by CIX Online Ltd. This new online method of accessing content was designed to attract more users. In September 2008, Graham Davies of CIX Online Ltd announced that the API behind CIX Forums would be made available in October 2008, allowing interested parties to create additional user add-ons. On 25 May 2011, CIX Online Ltd was purchased by ICUK, an ISP, hosting, and telecoms provider formed in November 2001 by a former employee of Compulink Information eXchange Ltd. In its press release, ICUK stated its intention to grow and expand CIX Conferencing for both new and existing users of the two companies. In April 2012, version 2 of CIX Forums was released. This version included numerous bug fixes, enhancements, speed optimisations, and an improved user interface. In July 2012, version 3 of CIX Forums was released, featuring further design improvements and a new notification system that allowed users to receive instant replies to messages posted.

Technical information

CIX Conferencing is based on the

CoSy CoSy, short for Conferencing System, was an early computer conferencing system developed at the University of Guelph. The CoS software grew out of an interest in group computer mediated communication systems in 1981 by Dick Mason and John Black. ...

Conferencing System, although it has been heavily modified by generations of staff to add new features. The CoSy conferencing system used by CIX was initially run on a

UNIX Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

server. (This was the same

codebase on which BIX, the US-centric Byte Information eXchange, was based.) At first, users read the text-based (ISO 8859-1) CIX messages online, but the UK's practice of charging per minute for telephone calls led to the development of offline readers (OLRs). The first CIX OLR was TelePathy (DOS-based), which later developed into the first Windows OLR, WigWam (now an open-source project under the name Virtual Access). The first official Windows OLR for CIX was called Ameol, which stood for ''A Most Excellent Off-Line Reader''. It handled email, CIX conferencing, and Usenet, and is still freely available. It was independently written by Steve Palmer in 1994. The official desktop client is now CIXReader, which runs on Windows 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11, as well as macOS, and is freely available to all subscribers. Many other OLRs, written by CIX users, are also available for other operating systems, such as Nicola for the

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...

and Polar for Psion PDAs. Augur is an open-source OLR designed for CIX. In 1996, it was decided to port the system to Sun hardware and upgrade the bank of modems. ISDN dial-up access and the ability to use the internet to blink (a term used to collect messages) were also introduced.

References

Disembodied Fellowship & Real-Time Ribs by Davey Winder

Need to Know, Blinking rules

External links