Reston man makes world his on-line oyster
Area's largest computer bulletin board is one "whale of a hobby"
By NIKOLAS LANYI
The Connection
Tony McClenny is a heck of a popular guy. After all, people from all
parts of the world call his home in Reston's South Lakes Village 24 hours a
day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Fortunately, McClenny has some
help answering the phone: In his basement sit 24 computers linked by a
sophisticated network system, forming one of the area's largest computer
bulletin boards, The Virginia Connection. McClenny has run the system since
New Year's Day 1985, keeping it on-line continually while adding capacity,
efficiency devices and services for the hundreds of computer junkies who
use the bulletin board to send messages, play games, share programs and tap
into thousands of information sources.
The Reston bulletin board is one of hundreds around the country that tie
into larger "information highways" linking millions of users. Most people
are familiar with electronic mail, used in many modern offices for in-house
communication. A bulletin board like McClenny's allows subscribers to
communicate via E-mail with people linked, directly or indirectly, with
other bulletin boards or larger mail systems. Here's how it works:
Subscribers -- who pay a flat fee of $36 a year -- call McClenny, log on
and write a message. (It can be designated for specific users or for
everyone to read.) Several times a day, McClenny's computer bundles the
messages and sends them to several larger mail networks and bulletin
boards. The computer also receives bundled E-mail from other systems. Over
the course of two or three days, a given message passes from system to
system, finding its way around the world. Part of the fun is simply
scanning all public messages -- a process eased by more than 750 message
categories, such as sports or Rush Limbaugh. Users may read the messages
one at a time, or, using special off-line "readers", download hundreds or
even thousands of messages to read at their leisure after signing off.
"Prior to this you'd have to sit there on-line and read the messages",
McClenny said. Replies and new messages may also be compiled off-line and
then "uploaded" to the message base in the twinkling of an eye. It's also
possible to "chat" -- have a real-time conversation with another user,
typing in your end of the dialogue and seeing the response appear on your
screen. You can almost hear the person's voice. Subscribers can choose from
a selection of games to play on the system, or participate in group
activities such as a football pool with imaginary high-stakes gambling. If
you're looking for shareware programs for anything from looking for
computer viruses to chess games, McClenny's system offers more than 80,000
programs organized into 100 file directories.
Users can also retire to the electronic version of a private dining room,
carrying on their conversations free from strangers' eyes. McClenny warns,
however, that as the SysOp -- system operator -- he has the right to read
all private messages: He doesn't, but he wants people to know the rules.
The electronic frontier is fairly free, but McClenny still has to play
sheriff at times. Since children use the system, he asks users to refrain
from profanity. He also asks users not to "flame" one another -- the E-mail
term for personal attacks. In eight years and 10 months, McClenny has only
had to kick one unruly subscriber off the system, telling him to hang up
and not call back. "I'm truly blessed that I don't have people that give me
a hard time, or give other people on the system a hard time or upload
anything they shouldn't," McClenny said.
Like many computer buffs, McClenny, a retired district manager for
Hechinger's, backed into his hobby. He had always been interested in the
emerging technology, buying his first personal computer from Radio Shack in
1979 and replacing it with an IBM PC in 1984. He liked to play around with
various programs and especially enjoyed playing computer chess. But it
wasn't until he was transferred to Virginia Beach, living in a small
furnished apartment away from his family, that McClenny embarked on his
current avocation. In search of more programs, McClenny bought a bulletin
board program for $8 and set it up as a depository for shareware. He
hooked up his modem and ran the program day and night. Ninety days later,
his hard drive was full and he had to buy another.
After his transfer back to Reston, McClenny kept the network going. It
grew to three machines, then four, then five. By that time, information was
moving noticeably slowly -- the system wasn't sophisticated enough to
handle the flow of information. So this year -- after soliciting advice
from experienced subscribers -- McClenny bought a "very expensive" Novell
program that made everything move quickly. He added 10 machines in April,
and paid $2,400 to the phone company to run an extra cable to his house --
giving him 20 phone lines and the capacity for 90-100 lines.
In May 1992, McClenny made the bulletin board a business. He can now
accept credit card payments, and he said the board is "almost self-
supporting" at this point. But despite the cost in time and money, McClenny
said he's happy to be a SysOp. "It's just been a whale of a hobby," he
said. It's also made McClenny a minor celebrity to his subscribers. People
recognize his name in strange places. He has friends around the country.
He's even visited a subscriber on the island of Anguilla, bringing him
toothpaste and floppy disks from the mainland. McClenny, who is also a ham
radio operator, has communicated with folks in Saudi Arabia, England, Cuba
and Greece. "People see me and say, "Hey, I've spoken to you," he said.
"You don't know who you're going to meet, or where."
McClenny built most of his computers himself, using spare motherboards,
cases and 386 disk drives from various manufacturers. Most of the machines
sit on a high shelf in a back room of his basement. In the next room,
scattered around his desk, several monitors -- one for every four computers
-- tell McClenny who's on the line and what they're doing.
This year marked a leap forward for the network. McClenny not only added
several computers, he bought five compact disc machines that can store vast
amounts of compressed information, instantly retrievable when a subscriber
requests it. With his bank of CD-ROMs McClenny provides gigabytes of extra
shareware that does not take up valuable hard disk space. McClenny spends
much of his time monitoring the software deposited to his system, or
uploaded in computer parlance. One of the major tasks is making sure the
uploads are virus-free to protect himself and everyone that uses the
board. If a virus were to make its way into a popularly-downloaded program,
it could cause havoc across the world. He needs to make sure it's shareware
-- programs distributed for free by the software authors in exchange for a
few dollars to be sent by each user -- rather than proprietary software,
which is illegal to copy for distribution.