Main thread · BBS Story
Empire BBS — a private mailbox
Between 1991 and 1999, a private mailbox ran in Eschen, Liechtenstein: Empire BBS. Not the internet in today's sense, but an Amiga on the phone network, which others dialed into by modem and later by ISDN — to read messages, trade files, and be part of a small, technically savvy community.
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|| IIIIIIIII || / Die rekonstruierte /
\\_IIIIIII_// / Original-BBS aus dem /
\ ::::::: / / Fuerstentum Liechtenstein /
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\|___|/ GAST-ACCOUNT: Name: GUEST, Passwort: EMPIREThe machine
It all began in 1987 with a C64 — the entry point, and at the same time the first English lessons via the computer games of that era. The Amiga joined in 1988. The first real mailbox machine was an Amiga 2000 with an 80 MB hard drive from Conner, later expanded with a 6-port serial card and four USRobotics modems. In the final third of the mailbox era an Amiga 3000T took over — today, in 2026, rediscovered as a sought-after collector's item.
The modems tell the speed story in fast-forward: from the Supra 2400 as the first test modem (1989, tried out at a barbecue) through a USRobotics at 9600 bps for a proud CHF 1,000, all the way up to 28.8k, and finally ISDN. The first ISDN line arrived in 1992; the Amiga carried an ISDN-Master card for it, which could be addressed just like a modem. At the end four simultaneous channels were available: two fixed analog lines and an ISDN basic access whose two B-channels could be used digitally, as analog, or mixed. On top of that, ten MSN numbers for the various dial-in purposes, personal use and testing. Running costs added up accordingly: around CHF 180 in monthly base fees, plus CHF 200 to 300 in call charges depending on traffic. The phone side of the Amiga itself was handled by WilhelmTEL, the software for the ISDN-Master, an ISDN comfort phone with answering machine, of which I was a beta tester.
→ How it all began: First Contact
The start in 1991, and the software
Empire BBS went live in 1991 — initially on the software Paragon. A brief episode followed with AmiExpress: the cracker group Analog wanted the system as its European headquarters, and the mailbox was even mentioned in an Amiga demo. That phase lasted only two or three months. From 1992/93 on, Xenolink ran the show, co-developed during its beta test — and stayed in use until the end in 1999.
Where does the name "Empire" come from? It comes from "Empire — Wargame of the Century," my favorite strategy game at the time. So the name has nothing to do with Star Wars — I'm a Trekkie anyway.
A small find for anyone who's read this far. In the reconstructed mailbox the Trekkie is still in there — just type startrek in the main menu.
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HH E M P I R E - B B S HH
HH HH
HH LINE #1: ++41 (0)75 373 59 84 (16800 DS ) HH
HH LINE #2: ++41 (0)75 373 49 26 (14400 HST) HH
HH 24 H Online HH
HH AmiNet : 44:8010/901&904&954&955 HH
HH FidoNet: 2:301/416&417 HH
HH ParaNet: 44:8010/994 HH
HH SFNet : 142:120/216 HH
HH AmigaNet: 39:110/901&904&954&955 HH
HH HH
HH ** NOW UNDER XENOLINK - POWER ** HH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHThe networks
A mailbox was never an island. Empire BBS was a node in Fidonet with the address 2:301/416 — the 2 stands for Europe, the 301 for Switzerland and Liechtenstein, the 416 for Empire BBS. On top of that came AmiNet, the little sibling of Fidonet in the German-speaking world — I was a co-founder, and Empire served as a hub relaying mail to and from abroad (not to be confused with the file archive of the same name, aminet.net). Then there was the international Amiganet for Amiga systems across country borders. A UUCP gateway also produced my first own e-mail address in 1992, years before e-mail became widely known. Toward the end the SWF3 network joined in, branded after the radio station.
→ The whole story: The SWF3 archive
Messages traveled by polling. Instead of calling each message to its destination individually, at expensive rates, systems collected them and passed them on in bundled, mostly nightly calls, when calls were cheaper. What's a single click today was back then a coordinated relay run from mailbox to mailbox.
How tightly the mailbox scene was networked at the time shows up in an independent find: the DreamList, the monthly directory of every Swiss mailbox, lists Empire BBS in its February 1996 issue under "Vaduz/FL" — with three lines (two analog, one ISDN) and the software Xenolink. The full list, Empire entry included, is available here in the original.
The community and everyday life
There were two worlds. Among the sysops an organized network of mail and software exchange, out of which many friendships grew. And the users — ranging from good friends to "noobs" who called for the sysop over every little thing. Anyone who wanted sought-after files had to contribute something themselves, via the ratio: roughly 2:3 for in-demand files, 1:3 for public domain.
Dialing in required technical know-how — and that filtered the crowd. The community was smaller, but more knowledgeable than the later "anything goes" internet. I still miss that quality today. What kept me going for so long, until 1999, was less a single highlight than idealism, and the active role as a hub in AmiNet and Fidonet.
This era also produced one of the strangest anecdotes of all: the Beavis & Butt-Head hotline. A free ISDN number accidentally turned into a regional viral hit back then, with several hundred calls a day — the whole story is under Misc.
The end of an era
From 1995 on, the internet became publicly relevant, and users gradually drifted away. At the same time, I was often technically ahead of my own customer base — a phase that was sometimes exhausting. Even so, Empire BBS kept running for years, until operations were finally shut down in 1999 and the Amigas moved to the basement. It was the same year my time in telephone technology ended, in October — the move into IT followed at the start of 2000. In parallel, the Amiga as a platform went into decline overall; the path led toward the PC.
Rediscovery in 2026
What started as a small wish — to see the login screen once more and to restore the Amigas that had been in storage for about 30 years — turned into a data rescue in 2026. The A3000T had survived (its CMOS battery hadn't leaked); the hard drive could be read out with BlueSCSI, and the complete Xenolink system, along with roughly 34,000 messages from its operating years, ran again in WinUAE. That's what the browser-based recreation grew out of. The whole story behind it has its own page: The data rescue.
And a second, anachronistic guest has snuck in. Anyone who types claude in the demo runs into someone who didn't exist yet in 1996, but who took part in this restore project.