ExecPC is an

online service provider An online service provider (OSP) can, for example, be an Internet service provider, an email provider, a news provider (press), an entertainment provider (music, movies), a search engine, an e-commerce site, an online banking site, a health site, ...

started in 1983 by owner Bob Mahoney as the Exec-PC BBS. It quickly grew to be one of the world's largest

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 ...

s in the 1980s and throughout the 1990s, competing with the likes of

Compuserve CompuServe, Inc. (CompuServe Information Service, Inc., also known by its initialism CIS or later CSi) was an American Internet company that provided the first major commercial online service provider, online service. It opened in 1969 as a times ...

and

Prodigy Prodigy, Prodigies or The Prodigy may refer to: * Child prodigy, a child who produces meaningful output to the level of an adult expert performer ** Chess prodigy, a child who can beat experienced adult players at chess Arts, entertainment, and m ...

. ExecPC began offering

Internet access Internet access is a facility or service that provides connectivity for a computer, a computer network, or other network device to the Internet, and for individuals or organizations to access or use applications such as email and the World Wide ...

in 1994 as ExecPC Internet, and being based in

New Berlin, Wisconsin New Berlin () is a city in eastern Waukesha County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 40,451 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is part of the Milwaukee metropolitan area. Pronunciation Area residents put the accent on ...

, quickly grew to be the largest

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 ...

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

. The company was sold in 1998 to Voyager.net of

East Lansing, Michigan East Lansing is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. Most of the city lies within Ingham County, although a small portion extends north into Clinton County. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 47,741. The city is located immediate ...

. After a lengthy series of acquisitions, the assets are now held by LocalNet of

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is a Administrative divisions of New York (state), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and county seat of Erie County, New York, Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of ...

History

The Exec-PC BBS

The Exec-PC BBS launched on November 28, 1983, in the den of owner Bob Mahoney and his wife Tracey. This was in the earliest days of BBSing, and in contrast to most systems that used one of the many shareware BBS systems, ExecPC was a custom system written in the

Clipper A clipper was a type of mid-19th-century merchant sailing vessel, designed for speed. The term was also retrospectively applied to the Baltimore clipper, which originated in the late 18th century. Clippers were generally narrow for their len ...

database system In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and anal ...

. This allowed them to add new features to the system throughout its lifetime. Known primarily for its extensive

shareware Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer. ...

software archives, the BBS also offered

E-mail 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 ...

, message forums, and

BBS door In a bulletin board system (BBS), a door is an interface between the BBS software and an external application. The term is also used to refer to the external application, a computer program that runs outside of the main bulletin board program. Som ...

games to paying subscribers.

Jason Scott Sadofsky Jason Scott Sadofsky (born September 13, 1970) is an American archivist, historian of technology, filmmaker Filmmaking or film production is the process by which a Film, motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex an ...

(July 2001 – December 2004), BBS: The Documentary (3 DVDs) As the file archives grew in size, Mahoney created the Hyperscan feature, allowing members to quickly search for files by keyword—a common feature today, but rare at the time. Mahoney became one of the earliest BBS operators to begin charging a fee for access to a BBS. The Exec-PC BBS grew to over 250 lines, with over 300 GB of file storage at its peak in the mid-90s. Callers could connect to the Exec-PC BBS via long distance at no additional charge, or connect to any

CompuServe CompuServe, Inc. (CompuServe Information Service, Inc., also known by its initialism CIS or later CSi) was an American Internet company that provided the first major commercial online service provider, online service. It opened in 1969 as a times ...

local access number for a per-minute fee. In 1996, the file collection of the Exec-PC BBS was placed on the

world-wide web The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...

through the Filepile.com web site. Filepile.com was officially abandoned in 1999 having been made obsolete by other Internet services.

Exec-PC Chat

One of the major missing features of the Exec-PC BBS was the ability to speak with other members of the service in

chat rooms The term chat room, or chatroom (and sometimes group chat; abbreviated as GC), is primarily used to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing. The term can thus mean any technology, ranging from ...

. Instead of building chat functionality into the BBS, Mahoney created a separate system, Exec-PC Chat, which ran alongside the Exec-PC BBS. This system was a

Major BBS The Major BBS (sometimes MajorBBS or MBBS) was a 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 ...

-based system with 48 lines. While popular, the chat system did not prove to be profitable, and Mahoney divested himself of the system. The former Exec-PC Chat ran under the name Over the Edge until shutting down in 1996.

ExecPC Internet

Sensing the promise of the Internet, Mahoney built Internet functionality into the Exec-PC BBS in 1994. When calling into certain numbers known as "gold nodes," the BBS member was connected to an Internet

shell account A shell account is a user account on a remote server, typically running under Unix or Linux operating systems. The account gives access to a text-based command-line interface in a shell, via a terminal emulator. The user typically communicates w ...

on servers run by

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

's VNET division. This solution quickly proved to be slow and confusing to members, so Mahoney set up a separate division of the company that same year to provide dialup access via both

s and

Point-to-Point Protocol In computer networking, Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) is a data link layer (layer 2) communication protocol between two routers directly without any host or any other networking in between. It can provide loop detection, authentication, transmissio ...

(PPP). Unlike the BBS, ExecPC Internet provided service exclusively to individuals in

and northern

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

. ExecPC Internet proved to be tremendously popular, and grew from its first paying subscribers in 1994 to just over 80,000 subscribers in 1998. As it grew, the company added business-class access services such as

ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a set of communication standards for simultaneous digital transmission of voice, video, data, and other network services over the digitalised circuits of the public switched telephone network. ...

and T1 lines, as well as

web hosting service A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that hosts websites for clients, i.e. it offers the facilities required for them to create and maintain a site and makes it accessible on the World Wide Web. Companies providing web h ...

Mergers and acquisitions

In September, 1998, Mahoney sold ExecPC to

–based Voyager.net. Voyager.net was purchased by CoreComm Ltd. in October, 2000, who then, through other acquisitions, became ATX Communications in 2004. In December, 2005, ATX Communications sold the remaining ExecPC assets and customer base to LocalNet of

, the current operators.

LocalNet

LocalNet Internet Services, Inc. begun in

, sells

dial-up Internet access Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to establish a connection to an Internet service provider (ISP) by dialing a telephone number on a conventional telepho ...

s and

Digital subscriber line Digital subscriber line (DSL; originally digital subscriber loop) is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric dig ...

Internet access.

References

External links

Current home page for ExecPC Internet subscribers

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article
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