78:. It grew over the next few years to become one of the first really large BBS systems, which allowed its users to carry on conversations with thousands of local residents. At the time the average BBS system was run on a single 300 or 1200 baud modem and had extremely limited storage space for messages or files (
132:, which PCBoard did not support very well, at least in large multi-machine installations. In late 1994, CRS introduced a Windows-based Internet access service called Frontier that incorporated standard Internet functions including email, news and gopher, as well as access to its large file library.
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CRS's file area remained its major draw, with a library hosted on a number of networked servers that no small BBS could hope to match. Through the late 1980s and into the 1990s they added considerable amounts of storage and greatly improved modem speeds. In 1992 they could claim to be the largest
124:. A group of private investors then purchased the system and restarted the company. By 1991 Jud had left the company. He was briefly involved with the formation of Toronto Free-Net before eventually leaving the industry. In 1992, CRS changed its name to
105:(or RIME), but this was supported by PCBoard only and thus had a much smaller amount of traffic than the platform independent Fido. For some time CRS offered RelayNet hub service known as NAnet to other PCBoard operators throughout
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upset this balance somewhat. Now a user could call into their local free BBS system and have conversations with users from all over the world—although practically this was limited to
158:. It appears their interest was primarily in CRS's customers, which it quickly absorbed into its standard Internet access offerings. CRS itself quickly disappeared.
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PCBoard system in the world with over 250 lines and about 10,000 paid members. Throughout this period their main competitor was another
Toronto PCBoard based system,
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to serve as the foundation of
Delrina's push into the services market. However, within months of this acquisition, Delrina was itself acquired by
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However their aggressive growth was also expensive, and forced the company into receivership in August 1990, with a sizable debt primarily owed to
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offered thousands of files and messages, but at a fairly high per-hour cost. CRS offered a practical "middle ground" between the expensive
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in order to increase the user base, going so far as to offer a 1-800 number for these BBSes to call in on.
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when Newell decided to make the growing system a full-time job in 1985, moving to the then top-of-the-line
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systems and the local BBS, both in terms of pricing and features.
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area. It was one of the earliest commercial systems outside the "
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were not yet common). At the other end of the scale, larger
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In
January 1996 CRS Online was purchased by a growing
101:. PCBoard did support a Fido-like system known as
117:, but Rose remained smaller at about 50 lines.
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50:CRS was founded by Jud Newell in 1979 as
93:During the late 1980s the growth of the
128:and added another BBS system aimed at
54:, a small one-line system running on
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135:In March 1995, CRS was acquired by
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183:Commodore C64 / C128 File Library
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203:Companies based in Toronto
168:Original Receipt from 1988
178:Conference List from 1990
152:internet service provider
23:, was a major commercial
62:after a move. It became
198:Bulletin board systems
70:system and moving to
25:bulletin board system
17:Canada Remote Systems
35:" companies such as
58:that later became
47:and closing down.
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173:Toronto Free-Net
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19:, or simply
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130:online chat
122:Bell Canada
80:hard drives
192:Categories
126:CRS Online
115:Rose Media
41:The Source
37:CompuServe
88:mainframe
141:Symantec
103:RelayNet
45:Internet
33:big iron
137:Delrina
95:FidoNet
68:PCBoard
29:Toronto
145:WinFax
74:from
56:RCP/M
76:CP/M
72:DOS
64:CRS
39:or
21:CRS
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