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BEC was not intended to be a profit-making operation, charging fees that were designed only to cover operating costs, (Phrack reports $ 5 per month for an account at the end of 1989, though the system may have in fact been out of operation by then, and other sources note that the system was supported
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I was one of the sysops. Originally we were set up (illicitly) in the computer room of a midtown advertising agency. It is a VERY amusing story -- pity you didn't know about it before the movie! We eventually migrated to the offices of a communications firm elsewhere in the city. I still have the Big
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existed at the time, systems which allowed the general public to access Usenet were virtually unknown. As with many early
Internet and Usenet systems, a community began to form among users of the system which had occasional outings to restaurants.
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In mid-1990, after increasingly unreliable operation, The Big
Electric Cat suffered what proved to be fatal hardware failure, leaving a gap which was filled by some its users founding one of the first commercial
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This was the first such system in New York and one of the first in the world. Previously, access to Usenet had been almost exclusively through systems at
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Electric Cat user manual, with its very entertaining cover. Robert
Sweeney was killed in a motorcycle accident in 2001.
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BEC was started by four college students, with one of them, Rob
Sweeney, owning the equipment. The other
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The Risks Digest, Volume 5: Issue 77 Thursday, 17 December 1987, with a posting from Eric Corley
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A list of BBSes in the 212 Area Code contains the following note, attributed to Lee
Fischman
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Usenet articles posted by Big
Electric Cat users continued to appear until early June 1990.
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http://groups.google.com/group/rec.music.gaffa/browse_thread/thread/de86b43ec04d4f22
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269:"HyperCard performance analysis with large datasets: Some answers"
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Message from Rob
Sweeney comparing BEC to operating a coffeehouse
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Usenet posting originating from the Big
Electric Cat written by
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This article is about the computer system. For the song, see
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were
Charles Foreman, Lee Fischman, and Richard Newman.
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by donations) and relying entirely on volunteer labor.
61:variant, the Big Electric Cat (sometimes known as
34:song, was a public access computer system in
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239:"Future Culture (an online zine) Issue #364"
291:http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/5.77.html
224:Volume Three, Issue 30, File #2 of 12,
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147:used a Big Electric Cat account.
241:. April 16, 1993. Archived from
73:access to Usenet at no charge.
20:. For the Australian band, see
1:
206:".:: Phrack Magazine ::"
38:in the late 1980s, known on
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15:
115:The movie referred to is
319:Shell account providers
314:History of the Internet
271:. 1988. Archived from
226:Network Miscellany III
186:www.bbsdocumentary.com
182:"BBS: The Documentary"
57:running the UniStride
82:Bulletin Board System
281:founder Alexis Rosen
118:BBS: The Documentary
28:The Big Electric Cat
164:"List of 212 BBS'"
65:) provided dialup
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166:. Archived from
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69:users with text
22:Big Electric Cat
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51:Stride Computer
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214:. Retrieved
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189:. Retrieved
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84:culture and
78:universities
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55:minicomputer
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32:Adrian Belew
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309:Panix (ISP)
145:Eric Corley
49:Based on a
303:Categories
216:2008-03-20
191:2023-03-31
151:References
18:Lone Rhino
143:founder
42:as node
93:History
86:Fidonet
222:Phrack
133:ever,
99:sysops
53:brand
44:dasys1
40:Usenet
279:Panix
135:Panix
67:modem
131:ISPs
59:Unix
63:BEC
305::
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137:.
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