Inhuman bbs mpl. History of premium wheel manufacturer BBS
1970
Heinrich Baumgatner and Klaus Brand a small factory for the production of plastic chassis parts in Schiltach. The initials of the founders and the name of the hometown gave the name of the BBS company.
1972
BBS has started production of three-piece racing rim ov. In just a few years, BBS wheel technology has become a guarantee of quality for motor racing. Started as family business The company quickly became the market leader.
1976
The first BBS factory in France was opened.
1979
Martin Browngard joined the company.
1983
Serial production of discs based on BBS technologies, which have proven themselves in motorsport, has begun. This is how the BBS RS was born. This rim has become an absolute hit. In the same year, BBS America and BBS Japan appeared.
1987
The company entered the market, and its shares began to be traded on the Frankfurt and Stuttgart stock exchanges. Heinrich Baumgartner became Chairman of the Board of Directors, Klaus Brand took a seat on the Supervisory Board, and Martin Braungard became technical director. Klaus Buckenberger became the third member of the board of directors and was responsible for sales and development.
1990
In its 20th year of existence, BBS has become a key wheel supplier for brands such as BMW, Audi, VW and the world's top racing teams, with turnover exceeding DM 200 million.
1994
This year has been the most successful in BBS racing history. Formula 1 championships, IndyCar series, DTM and ADAC championships have been won on BBS discs.
1995
The company celebrated its 25th anniversary by setting new standards for light alloy wheels and the introduction of the new BBS RS II. In the same year, Michael Schumacher won the Formula 1 championship on BBS skis.
1997
BBS once again became the largest supplier of discs for the IndyCar series and for the first time - for Formula 1, equipping 5 teams and 10 cars.
1998
Already 6 teams and 12 cars were equipped with BBS wheels in the Formula 1 championship.
1999
The company began to supply wheels for Daimler-Chrysler, Porsche, Ferrari and Jaguar. A second wheel factory was opened.
2000
Michael Schumacher in a Ferrari in Formula 1 and Kenny Roberts in a Suzuki in the GP500 class added to the list of championships won on BBS wheels.
2001
Michael Schumacher once again won the Formula 1 championship, Manuel Poggiali won the GP 125 championship in a Gilera. Both on BBS wheels.
2002
The new BBS paint shop has been voted the most environmentally friendly in Germany. The Ferrari F1 and Maserati GT racing teams have confirmed the highest quality of BBS wheels.
2003
Integrated new manufacturing process: dry process for the production of aluminum wheels. Used for the first time in the world, this process underscored BBS's status as a leader in motorsport rims and an environmental advocate.
2004
This year, a new revolutionary technology was introduced - Air Inside Technology. It allowed not only to significantly reduce the weight of the wheels, but also to increase strength.
2006
Michael Schumacher won the Formula 1 championship for the 7th time and for the seventh time on BBS discs. Worldwide, BBS has won 26 racing championships and 6 quality awards for the BBS brand.
2007
BBS received all possible awards from the German automotive press. The company continued the production of light alloy wheels highest quality, which was confirmed by Made in Germany stamps.
2008
For the third year in a row, BBS received the Best Wheel award from the readers of Auto Motor und Sport magazine.
2010
As part of the annual awards ceremony for the top 10 partners, Porsche awarded BBS the "Best Supplier" award.
FidoNET- Networks, FIDO, BBS and ZX-Spectrum.
ATTENTION! This article is taken from the magazineBlack Crow-2 is the responsibility of the editor of this magazine.Mikhail Maksimenko (MAX) Networks, FIDO and ZX-Spectrum ──── FIDO is a network of friends. Treat those around you the way you would like to be treated.(C) Jesus If you have an idea what a modem is, computer networks in general and FIDO in particular - you can not read this section. It is intended to give a general idea of these things to beginners. Contents 1. Lyrical digression. 2.BBS. 3.FIDO. 4. Network structure. 5. How to become a FIDO member. 6. Wiring diagram for an internal HAYS modem.Lyrical digression ───────────────────────── Suppose (for starters - just assume) you have a computer, modem and phone at hand. Combining all this into a single whole, you suddenly find yourself in a completely new, exciting world, the existence of which you may not have suspected before. You find yourself at the center of events not only in your country, but in the whole world. Your social circle expands to such an extent that you are unable to keep the names of all your friends in your memory. All news are available to you almost at the moment of their appearance. Cities, countries, borders no longer exist. There is a huge cyberspace without borders, authorities, censorship and other things that are unnecessary for a normal person. And you get all this without getting up from your familiar chair. All of these are computer networks. And all you need to access all this is a computer, a modem and a phone. BBS ─────── (Bulletin Board System - Electronic Bulletin Board). WBS is the simplest solution for a computer network. In this case, there is a server answering the phone and you calling that server. After connecting your modem to the server modem, a special terminal program is launched on the latter, which can transmit something to the screen of your terminal and read commands from your keyboard through the modem. The main purpose of the BBC, no matter how they tried to elevate it - it's file sharing. Calling on the BBC you can use the same modem to pick up something that is available to you, or send something. And although many sysops (system operators) and heaped on their stations a bunch of additional functions, yet the transfer and reception of files remains the main purpose of the BBS. There is no need to talk about any acceptable network communication. Most often, all communication comes down to communication with the owner of the WBS, discussing his interests, or, at best, to communication between users of a single station, the circle of which is most often limited to one settlement. FIDO ──────── Once upon a time there was one man. And all night long this man rang on the BBC to his friends. Rang - rang, and tired. And the peasant made himself such a lotion, which called itself at the appointed time, handed over the letters written by the peasant in advance to the necessary phones, and took away the answers, if any. This is how the network was born. fido, which the aforementioned man named after his dog (Fido translated from English - faithful). It was 1984. Over the years, the network has grown and expanded. It included more and more new stations. New, more advanced programs appeared. Improved technology, network structure. Soon the members of the network were not enough face-to-face communication with each other, and they came up with echo conferences, where it became possible to communicate all at once together. Echo conferences are like magazines or newspapers that are distributed all over the world and to which each member of the network can write. The network has crossed the borders of countries, and network members have realized that in order to send a letter to a distant friend, it is not at all necessary to spend a lot of money on an international call. It is easier to send a letter to a nearby node, which will forward it to the next one, again avoiding high costs. And so the letter, even if it takes some time (at present, for example, a letter from Chelyabinsk to Quebec, Canada, takes about three days), will reach the addressee, who would need a lot of money to make a direct call. The network continued to grow. Volumes of the transferred mail - proportionally. The nodes worked mostly at night, and then it turned out that sometimes in order to transmit an important personal message to any node, you have to work pretty hard, because this node is busy all night for a span of transferring echo mail over the modem. Then the network participants introduced fidosh"Radio Silence Hour" - ZMH, zonal postal hour. During this hour, which is set according to the time zone, it is forbidden to transmit anything other than personal personal mail on the network. Here in in general terms basic technical principles of FIDO:network (personal, personal) mail;echo conferences;routing (the path of a personal letter from one node to another through other nodes, when the sender does not even know which nodes his letter will go through, but can be sure that it will reach).Zonal Mail Hour. Currently, the FIDO network has more than36 thousand nodes worldwide. In addition, each node can have any number of points - network nodes of a lower order. Therefore, no one knows the real number of network participants. The official list of official nodes of the FIDO network is published centrally and updated weekly. On any BBS included in FIDO, you can find Nodelist - the name of this list. You can find more detailed and more comprehensive information about FIDO in the official documents of the network, which can also be found on almost any WBS included in FIDO. This is fidopol - fidonet policy, a document describing the network structure, hierarchy and basic rules of conduct; echopol - echo policy - description, respectively, of the structure and ethical standards for FIDO echo conferences; FTS*.*, FSC*.* are technical standards and recommendations for Fidonet Technology Networks (FTN).Network structure ───────────────── The functional unit of the FIDO network is the node. A node is, most often, a computer with a modem on which the corresponding software is installed, which communicates with other nodes according to a special schedule. Each node in the network has its own unique address. Theoretically, all network nodes are equal. Topologically, no. Usually the nodes are grouped according to the territorial sign in the network, networks - into regions, regions - into zones. All this is reflected in the host address. Those. Knowing the FIDO address, it is most often possible to accurately locality determine the location of the node. Currently, a 4-dimensional address system is used. Those. an address in FIDO consists of 4 numbers separated by special characters. Namely: zone_number:network_number/node_number.point_number For example: 2:5010/14.7 - my point address. Here:└─┼─────┼─┼──── Zone 2 - Europe and Russia └─────┼─┼──── Network 5010 - Chelyabinsk and│ │ area. └─┼───── Node 14 within the 5010 network └──── 7th point of the 14th node. Obviously, the node with address 2:5010/14.0 is hierarchically higher than 2:5010/14.7. And indeed it is. Full members of the network are only nodes with a zero point number (hereinafter referred to as simply nodes). Most often in their address 0 after the dot is not indicated, but simply written 2:5010/14 for example. The node is free to choose with whom to maintain network contact within the network. Point is also attached to the node, and all of its relations with the outside world are carried out only through this node, whose sysop is called his "boss". A node can connect to itself as many points as it likes, and it also bears full responsibility for any of their actions. A node that has a constant connection with a certain number of other nodes is called a hub. Most often, such nodes do not have BBS due to their high workload. In each network, the sysop of the node with node number 0 is the network coordinator, which determines and controls routing (passing and reaching the network inside and outside the network), changes in the mode of operation of the nodes, and performs other administrative functions. There are also regional, zonal coordinators and a network coordinator. All these positions are elected, and in no way do they give advantages over other nodes, except for the responsibility for decision-making. Perhaps that's enough. It seems to me that the above information is enough to get started. Everything else you can find in official FIDO documents, or simply by talking to a familiar sysop - Fidoshnik.How to become a member of FIDO ─────────────────────── The first step is a call to the BBC. BBS phones are not hard to find if you have access to a computer. Often they are published in newspapers and magazines. Call, do not be afraid, make mistakes, communicate with sysops. Sysops are usually benevolent people, and they will gladly explain to you everything that you do not understand. The only thing I want to say - NEVER HANG UP IF ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE LINE ANSWERED VOICE. Be sure to pick up the phone, apologize and politely ask about the mode of operation of the BBS. Well, after the first step is taken, it is already easy to navigate. If the sysop BBS - node FIDO - you have every right (naturally not immediately) to ask him to give you a point address. Although, he has every right to refuse you. If the sysop BBS is also a point, you can ask him for advice. In general, I'm tired of painting obvious things here. Orient yourself. The main thing - do not rush. And remember - no one owes you anything (just like you - no one). Each network node works on its own enthusiasm and completely disinterestedly, so much will depend primarily on your attitude towards others.I have already sat down for this story several times, but each time I could not finish it. The discovery of our company's blog prompted me to do this, although the story has nothing to do with NetCat. This story is about the legendary, in its own way unique and, I'm not afraid of the word, cult phenomenon: White Bear BBS. Location: Moscow, time: early 1996.
Introduction
When I was writing this article, I caught myself thinking that it would be difficult for me to convey to the readers the atmosphere of that time, primarily because it seems to me and myself something distant and unreal. Now, when there are several tens of millions of Internet users in the country, there are broadband networks, laptops with Wi-FI, millions of Russian-language sites - what can I say, and almost every first person has mobile phones - it's hard to imagine that 15 years ago nothing like this was just did not have. So let's try to imagine the year 1996 on the basis of dry facts.There are 4 large Internet providers in Russia: GlasNet, Relcom, Demos and Russia-On-Line. The number of Russian-language sites with a domain in the .ru zone is a couple of hundred (the domain itself is less than two years old). There are about a hundred thousand Russian Internet users (mostly those whose work is connected in one way or another with the Web). There are about the same number of mobile phone users, because the pleasure is not cheap. Yes, and you can’t just buy a mobile phone, you need to get a personal permission from the State Committee for Communications (yes, until 2000, without such permission, use mobile phone was impossible).
Artemy Lebedev's studio is half a year old, ICQ is only in the project, Yandex and Google are not even in the project. The cost of Internet access is about $ 3 per hour, which was unaffordable for ordinary surfers (you sit for an hour a day - pay $ 150 per month; for example, I then earned an average of $ 200 per month, which was considered very good for 17- summer boy).
The current (and the first, approved as a standard for this language, already for half a year) version of HTML is 2.0. It's almost a year before the first W3C recommendations on CSS1 appear. PHP1 already exists, but few people know about it. Internet Explorer 2 just started supporting JavaScript, but that didn't help it much in the unequal fight against Firefox's grandfather Netscape Navigator, even though IE, unlike NN, was a free browser.
Represented? This is the time we are talking about.
Back then, FIDO was the only computer network available to happy owners of computers with modems. I was one of them. My computer with a Pentium 66 megahertz processor was certainly not the most sophisticated, but quite modern.
So, I am a sophomore student and happy, as mentioned above, the owner of the USR (US Robotics) Sportster 14400 modem. Who does not know - this figure meant the data transfer rate, measured in bits per second (for example: now in our office a channel of 10 megabits, that is, almost 1000 times more). However, it was not always possible to connect to 14400, more often it was 9600 or 4800. When I bought the Courier 33600 modem, the situation changed, but not much.
I will not talk in detail about Fido and BBS-s, who does not know what it is -
read for example and. I spent almost every night on BBSs, downloading something, uploading something. And one day I came across White Bear BBS. This acquaintance literally turned my ideas about the possibilities available to me with my modem.
Meet White Bear
There were many BBSs in Moscow, but Mishka had two key features. First, it was multichannel. First 4, then 16, then 32, and then 64 modems were connected to the server on which he lived judge strictly). All modems were manufactured by ZyXEL, at that time the main competitor of US Robotics. This is not surprising, since Mishka was owned by Data Express On-Line (abbreviated as DEOL), the official distributor of ZyXEL products (in the common people "Zukhel") and one of the first private Internet providers in the country. Initially, Mishka was intended to support Zuhel users: drivers, utilities, manuals, etc. However, the DEOL management made one serious "mistake" (this was the second key feature): they installed a program on the BBS that allowed legitimate users to communicate with each other online, in a chat. Not in DOS text mode, but in a full-fledged windows client.
Why mistake? Because all the available modem lines were instantly occupied by lovers of exotic pleasure: real-time communication through a computer. And thus, they deprived the owners of zuhels (usually non-poor people, because ZyXEL modems were much more expensive than others) of the pleasure of downloading a new firmware. In addition, Deol's commercial subscribers accessed the Internet using the same phones - our activity also affected them.
Why is "error" in quotation marks? Because it was she who gave many, including me, a start in life. Or on the Internet.
The program was primitive - from a modern point of view. Any user of ICQ and other QIPs will laugh at the sight of that program. She was an ordinary chat, but then she seemed like manna from heaven and the height of communication possibilities. During the day, sometimes it was possible to call Mishka the first time, but at night, it happened, it took more than an hour to dial. Subsequently, the Deol administration introduced a limit on a one-time connection (45 minutes - after this time, the subscriber was dropped, they had to call again), and then on the time spent by the subscriber on BBS per day, as well as on the number of phrases in the chat. We got out of this situation simply: we registered similar nicknames. An extra underscore and you're already a different subscriber. For example, I had the nickname DedVasilych, as well as Vasilych, DedVasilych_, Ded_Vasilych, etc. In total, I had 6-8 subspecies of the nickname. 3-4 hours a day was usually enough for me, and if not, I registered a new user.
Contingent
Mishka had hundreds of users, and fifty people were completely active. Mostly they were teenagers, from 12 to 20 years old, but there were both very small ones, about seven years old, and quite adult guys. The female gender on Mishka was in a strict minority. We talked ... yes, about everything. Music, computers, girls, bill gates-must-daily, study, alcohol, computer games etc. Material wealth (not so much ours as parents) is average and above average. This is understandable, not every parent has the ability and desire to buy such an expensive set of toys for the family: a computer and a modem (an average of a thousand and a half dollars, which was very much for most Muscovites).Residents of other cities also visited us. Such, however, usually lived no more than a month, when the parents received a bill for long-distance communication, after which the modem was either tightly controlled by the elders, or simply sold (don't forget: there were no broadband connections and home networks even in the project, only a telephone connection ).
Now it is difficult to explain why we spent almost every night chatting for several hours (and if we needed to sleep, we stopped by for ten minutes to check in). It was weird and cool. We didn’t feel like we belonged, we didn’t trudge from belonging to the avant-garde, because we all knew about the existence of the Internet with much more possibilities, and some of us even visited it. We just enjoyed the fact that you can just sit at home and chat with fifty people, sometimes separated by tens, and sometimes hundreds of kilometers.
Okay, of course I'm lying. The feeling of belonging to something sacred, not accessible to mere mortals, was very strong.
Offline meetings
If you live in the same city, constantly communicate and there are very few of you, it’s a sin not to meet in person. We met every week on Thursdays (sometimes on other days). The meetings were held in a public garden at the intersection of Maly Levshinsky Lane and Prechistenka, not far from the Arbat. Why exactly there - I don’t know, it started even before I met Mishka. We called the meeting place a sandbox, because in the center of the square there was a fenced-off place with sand, where in the indefinite future a monument to Surikov was to be erected, which was unambiguously evidenced by a stone placed in the center of the sandbox with a corresponding inscription. Or did the stone appear later? I don't remember anymore.What were we doing there? Yes, everything that ordinary young people do: they drank alcoholic beverages, discussed anything, especially if it was connected with computers, sang songs, ran away from the police called by local residents, and so on. There were also fights, both with locals and among themselves. Somehow, even an aboriginal, awakened by us, shot at us from the window. Not combat, of course.
The sandbox ended after the opening of the Tamerlan restaurant in the nearest house. Our gatherings five meters from the entrance to a very expensive establishment did not inspire enthusiasm among the owners and security guards of the said establishment. And the meetings from the sandbox moved to the Neolit club, opened by one of Mishka's users, from those who were very "above average". I have only been there a few times. One of the times I remember a meeting of eminent fidoshniks, among whom was “personally Exler himself” (this is how he was introduced to me, only later I found out who he was at all, because I was not a fidoshnik).
Either I didn’t like the place, or work and study began to take more time - I don’t remember - but I didn’t get accustomed to Neolit. The meetings of the Deolites continued for several more years, but most of us, including myself, gradually stopped attending them. However, this was already after the end of Mishka.
Polar Bear Sunset
White Bear BBS closed in the winter of 1997. Several factors contributed to this event. First, the Internet access service became popular, and the Deol administration was forced to release freeloader-occupied modem lines for commercial users. Secondly, Internet access has become more accessible, and the charm of ordinary chat has been overshadowed by the much more serious possibilities of the Web.Mishka's closure caused a breakdown in many, including me. Most of those of us who have not yet had access to the Internet have found the opportunity to connect to it, legally or not (more on this in a separate story). The community has partially recovered on the #deol IRC channel on the Undernet. As part of the former users of White Bear BBS, the channel lived for some time, but the process of growing up and changing interests cannot be stopped. The community was gradually disintegrating, deolovtsy dissolved in new parties or lost interest in the hobbies of youth. In the process of writing this article, I tortured Yandex with Google in search of traces of past glory. There are few traces left.
Afterword
The White Bear meant a lot to me. In addition to the aforementioned ticket to the Internet, he gave me a second job (the first was the position of a salesman for the ConsultantPlus legal reference system). I don't remember how I got involved with Deol's administration, but in 1997 I was hired as a piece job as an Internet adjuster for users of this provider. At the request of the user, I came to his home or work and set up access (despite detailed instructions, it was not such a simple procedure, sometimes I had to dance with a tambourine), for which I received as much as 20 dollars. On one of these visits, I was asked if I could make a website, to which I answered yes without hesitation, although I had no idea what kind of animal it was. We agreed on $100, on the way home I bought the book "HTML in action", and soon the site of four pages in bold and italic on a colorful background was ready. This incident marked the beginning of my passion for site building, from which, by the end of 1999, the first version of NetCat grew.Remarkable people worked in Deol, for example, Evgeny Soldatov and Elena Gubareva, but I was not particularly well-disposed to the company's team, because communicated with them mainly by phone. In addition, by the time I graduated from high school (1999), I was already carried away by my work and gradually moved away from both the Deol community and work in Deol. And over time, both the #deol channel and the provider itself closed.
In the form I described, Mishka lived only a few months, but what months they were! I don’t know how my fate would have turned out without Mishka, but for sure it would have turned out quite differently.
P.S. Once again I apologize if I messed up something in the chronology or facts, so I will be glad for corrections. Over the years, I have lost contact with almost all the Deolists. If there are any among the readers of this article, I will be very glad to meet again. You can also in the sandbox area :)
P.P.S. I express my gratitude to the archive.org project for their invaluable help in correcting the gaps in my memory. If this article is accepted favorably by the habra community, I will write one or two more stories from the nineties.