[PCWorld]

Post your comments for 25 Years Ago: Free, Easy, Software Begins here

[pizzaman]

While I have no complaint about your discussion of Fluegelman and PC-Talk, many PC users aren't old enough to remember the days before the IBM-PC and there is an unspoken implication in your column that computer communications began with PC-Talk.
Actually, in 1977 Ward Christensen wrote a modem program for CP/M and also created the XModem protocol. By the time the IBM-PC came along there were BBS's (Bulletin Board Systems) all over the country and most of them were RCP/M's (Remote CP/M) running Bye, a program which allowed callers limited access to the CP/M command processor. (There were no menus and I still remember how awkward I felt when I first accessed the Boston Computer Club's PC BBS, which was menu driven.)
In the early PC days, users commonly posted on CP/M BBS's and many of these RCP/M's set up directories for PC users to post and download files.