Reference

Glossary

The story itself is deliberately kept brief – the details are here. A reference of terms from the mailbox, Amiga, and telecom world, explained in plain language. The linked terms in the running text of the other pages lead straight to the matching entry.

Mailbox basics

BBS / MailboxBulletin Board System: A computer you dialed into by modem over the phone line – like a digital pinboard with messages, software to download, and forums, long before there was an internet in today’s sense.
SysopSystem Operator: The operator of a mailbox – took care of the technology, content, and rules, comparable to the administrator of a website today.
User: Someone who dialed into a mailbox and used it.
Access level: Every user had a level that set how much they were allowed to do – how long and how often per day, which areas, and what download ratio. New callers started at the bottom; those who contributed or became known moved up. At Empire BBS the levels were, just for fun, named after McDonald’s items: from NewUser and HappyMeal through McChicken, FishMac, and BigMac up to the sysop level BurgerKing.
Door: An external add-on program that the BBS software launched through a defined interface – for example online games, databases, or surveys. The user briefly left the main menu and "went through a door" into another program.
Bulletins: Notices and circulars from the sysop that everyone could read on login – news, rules, announcements. Like a notice board at the entrance.
RatioUpload/download ratio: A rule on many mailboxes requiring you to upload files yourself in proportion to what you downloaded – meant to stop people from just "skimming off" the good stuff.
Leech / Leecher: Someone who downloads as much as possible without contributing anything themselves. The ratio was meant to curb exactly that; "Top Leecher" lists named the most prolific downloaders.
Public domain / Shareware: Freely copyable software. Public domain was completely free to use, while shareware could be tried out and, if you liked it, called for a small fee. Programs like these made up most of a mailbox’s file offerings.
Xenolink / AmiExpress / Paragon: Various BBS software programs for the Amiga used to run a mailbox – similar to how different software runs a website or server today. Empire BBS went through Paragon, then briefly AmiExpress, and finally Xenolink. → More detail
ANSI / ASCII (art): Two ways text and simple graphics were displayed on old screens. ASCII uses only plain text characters, while ANSI additionally uses colors and special codes for more elaborate "screen art" – typical of the visual charm of old mailboxes.
AUGL mailboxAmiga User Group Liechtenstein: The bulletin board of the Amiga User Group Liechtenstein. This is where I first ever dialed into a mailbox, back in 1989, with the borrowed Supra 2400.

Networks & mail

Fidonet: The best-known worldwide network for linking private mailboxes in the 1980s/90s. Messages were passed step by step from mailbox to mailbox (node → hub → net coordinator) until they reached their destination – often within a few days, impressively fast at the time. Every system had a unique address in the scheme Zone:Net/Node.Point – Empire BBS was 2:301/416, and over the years further node numbers were added for the individual lines (such as 417 and 472). → More detail
Node: A single mailbox system within a network like Fidonet, with its own address.
Point: A "minor participant" below a node, usually a private individual without a publicly reachable mailbox, who "docked" onto a node. Reading and writing was done with dedicated point software (recommended at Empire: "Spot" on the Amiga): you downloaded the new messages in a batch, read and answered them offline at home, and uploaded the replies on the next call – saving costly connection time. → Original instructions
Hub: A distribution point in a mailbox network – collects messages from several nodes and forwards them in bulk to save on phone costs.
Echomail: Public, topic-based discussion forums on Fidonet that, much like today’s forums or newsgroups, were distributed from mailbox to mailbox by polling. Every participating node received the same posts.
Netmail: A private message on Fidonet addressed directly to one person – the counterpart to public echomail and essentially the network’s personal e-mail.
Nodelist: A regularly updated list of all Fidonet systems worldwide with addresses and phone numbers – the network’s phone book, telling mailers whom to call.
DreamList: The "phone book" of the Swiss and Liechtenstein mailbox scene: a monthly, nearly complete directory of the systems in both countries – with phone number, speed, sysop, software, and network addresses. Founded in 1989 by "Byte Rider" and later carried on by "D-Light", distributed via Fidonet, Usenet, IRC, and the then-young internet. Empire BBS was listed in it – an independent record of the whole scene. → More detail
Polling: An automatic call, usually at night, between two mailboxes to exchange new messages and files – at night because phone calls were cheaper then.
Mailer & Tosser: Background programs of a mailbox: the mailer set up the nightly polling connections and exchanged the data packets, the tosser sorted the incoming messages into the right boards.
Magic files: Keywords you could send to a Fidonet system to automatically request a specific file: you sent the magic word, and the system sent back the corresponding file.
Amiganet: An international Amiga mailbox network built on Fidonet technology, connecting Amiga systems across borders. Empire BBS was represented here too as a node (address 39:110/901).
AmiNet: An Amiga mailbox network built on Fidonet technology, mainly in German-speaking areas – something like Fidonet’s little brother. I was a co-founder (restructured October 1991); Empire BBS served as a hub, relaying mail to and from abroad (addresses 44:8010/901 and /904). ⚠ Not to be confused with the Amiga file archive of the same name, aminet.net, which is still online today.
UUCP: An older transfer protocol that let mailboxes exchange data and e-mail – used here as a gateway to send and receive e-mail on the emerging internet.
ParaNet / SFNet: Other mailbox networks in which Empire BBS was a node – listed with their own addresses on the login banner. Like Fidonet and Amiganet, they passed messages from system to system.
SWF3 network: Toward the end of the mailbox era the system operated under the branding of the radio station SWF3; the associated network connected mailboxes from that scene. Technically it worked like the other mailbox networks.
EHQEuropean Headquarters: Within software-trading/cracking groups, the central European point of contact or mailbox of such a group.
Cracking group: Loosely organized scene groups that cracked and distributed copy-protected software; some used mailboxes as distribution points and left greetings to friendly systems in their "demos" (small graphics/music programs).

Modem & transmission

ModemModulator-demodulator: A blend of "modulator" and "demodulator". A device that converted computer data into tones (modulated) and back again (demodulated), so it could be transmitted over an ordinary phone line. Speed was given in "baud", and later in kilobits per second (e.g. 2400, 9600, 28.8k) – today’s internet lines are millions of times faster. → More detail
Baud / bps: A unit for transmission speed. Strictly speaking, baud counts signal steps per second, but colloquially it usually meant bits per second (bps). Over the years, 300 became 2400, 9600, 28,800 bps and more.
SupraModem 2400: An affordable, widely used 2400-baud modem from Supra. My first test modem in 1989, tried out at a barbecue. The start of my modem history, long before high-speed connections. → More detail
USRobotics Courier: A US modem brand whose "Courier" models were considered especially rugged and fast – the workhorse of many mailboxes. The line covered the jump from 9600 through 14,400 up to 28,800 bps line rate (the serial interface to the computer ran at up to 38,400 bps); an early 9600 modem cost around CHF 1000. Empire BBS ran several of them. → More detail
HST / Dual Standard: HST was a proprietary high-speed method from USRobotics. "Dual Standard" (DS) referred to modems that supported both HST and the official standard – shown on the login banner as "HST" and "DS". → More detail
ARQAutomatic Repeat reQuest: The modem’s error correction. When the connection reported "CONNECT 28800/ARQ", an error-protected connection was in place, in which corrupted data blocks were automatically requested again.
AT command: The command language used to control a modem from a computer. Every command started with "AT" (for "attention"), for example to dial or hang up. The ISDN-Master card in the Amiga could also be addressed this way, as if it were a modem.
DTMFTouch-tone dialing: The touch-tone dialing method: each key generates its own two-tone signal, which the exchange evaluates. It replaced the older pulse dialing (the clicking of the rotary dial) and dialed noticeably faster.
MNP / V.42 / V.42bis: Standards for error correction and data compression on the modem link. MNP and V.42 protected the transmission against line noise, while V.42bis and MNP5 additionally compressed the data for more speed.
Zmodem / Xmodem / Ymodem: Transfer protocols for actually uploading and downloading files. Zmodem was the most popular, because it was fast and able to resume an interrupted transfer later – a blessing on expensive, shaky phone connections.
Carrier / Handshake: The "carrier" is the signal over which two modems exchange data; if it drops, the connection is gone ("NO CARRIER"). During the "handshake" – the characteristic whistling and hissing at connection setup – the modems negotiated speed and method.
JR-Comm: A popular terminal program for the Amiga (by Jonathan Radigan). It drove the modem, set up the connection and showed the remote screen. It was the tool you dialed into a mailbox with, and I opened it for my very first dial-in.

Amiga & hardware

Amiga: A line of home computers from Commodore (from 1985), known for graphics and sound that were outstanding at the time. Enormously popular in the demo and mailbox scene – and the platform Empire BBS ran on.
Amiga 2000: The first "big" Amiga model with expansion slots – allowing a hard drive, a multi-serial card, and several modems to be connected. Empire BBS’s first machine.
Amiga 3000T: The tower variant of the Amiga 3000, more powerful and well expandable. Empire BBS ran on it for the last third of its life; in 2026 this very unit was rediscovered as a valuable, still-working collector’s piece.
Commodore: The maker of the C64 and the Amiga. Commodore’s decline and bankruptcy in 1994 also marked the beginning of the end of the Amiga era.
C64Commodore 64: The best-selling home computer of the 1980s. My entry into computing in 1987 – and, through the games of the time, my first English lessons too.
Commodore C128: Successor to the C64 with more memory and several operating modes, backward-compatible with the huge C64 software library. Part of the device collection.
Kickstart / Workbench: The inner workings of the Amiga: "Kickstart" is the built-in firmware (the ROM operating system), "Workbench" the graphical interface on top of it – roughly comparable to the BIOS and desktop of later PCs.
Assign: A basic concept of the Amiga operating system: a freely chosen name that points to a directory. Instead of a fixed path like "DH0:Xenolink/Data", a program simply addressed "XENOLINK:". On startup the system set up a whole series of these, listed on screen as it went. Roughly comparable to a mapped drive letter or a symbolic link. → More detail
SCSI: A fast interface used to connect hard drives and other devices to the Amiga. Such a SCSI drive in the Amiga 3000T held the roughly 34,000 mailbox messages that were read out in 2026.
Multi-serial card: An expansion card with several serial ports – needed to run several modems at once. Empire BBS used a 6-port card; its capacity was never fully used.
Recap: Replacing old electrolytic capacitors on a circuit board. Recommended for decades-old Amigas, since leaking capacitors cause damage – part of the 2026 restoration.
CMOS / RTC battery: A small battery on the mainboard that holds the clock and basic settings. On decades-old Amigas it often leaks and eats into the board – the most common reason old machines die. On Empire BBS’s A3000T it luckily stayed sealed. → More detail
BlueSCSI: A modern device that replaces an old SCSI hard drive with an SD card, or makes its contents accessible. It let the data on the Amiga drives be secured in 2026 without risking the aging original hardware. → More detail
WinUAE: An Amiga emulator for the PC that recreates a complete Amiga in software. It let the rescued mailbox system, WilhelmTEL included, be started up again – the login screen appeared once more after 30 years. → More detail

Phone & telecom technology

ISDN / Swissnet: A digital telephone line standard from the late 1980s/early 1990s, faster and more stable than the classic analog line. "Swissnet" was the Swiss name/variant of it.
B channel / D channel: An ISDN basic access consisted of two bearer channels (B channels, 64 kbit/s each) for calls or data, and one control channel (D channel) for signaling. This let you make a call and transmit data at the same time.
Channel bonding2×64 = 128 kbit/s: Combining both ISDN B channels into a single connection at 128 kbit/s. During nightly polling, Empire BBS used both: plain ISDN at 64 kbit/s (X.75), and – in many sessions – bonded dual ISDN at 128 kbit/s, which brought mail in and out of the country noticeably faster.
X.75: The transfer protocol two ISDN lines used to exchange data. Where a modem on an analog line had to laboriously negotiate a carrier first, X.75 established a clean 64 kbit/s connection directly over the digital B channel. In Empire’s session logs it shows up as "64000/X.75" – the mailbox’s most common poll speed.
Basic & primary rate access: The two ISDN access types. The basic rate access (BRA) provided two voice paths over an ordinary pair of wires – for households and small offices. The primary rate access (PRA) offered thirty voice paths over a four-wire 2 Mbit/s line – for companies and phone systems. The key innovation was that the number of voice paths and the phone numbers (in blocks of ten, a hundred, or a thousand) could be booked independently of each other. → More detail
S0 buscommonly called the S bus: The four-wire wiring behind the network termination onto which several ISDN devices were connected – up to eight could share the bus. As a genuine bus it had to be properly terminated at its end, with 100-ohm resistors. That made installation considerably more work than a simple analog jack, since a run wire with termination is more effort than just clamping on two conductors.
U interface (ISDN): The digital access line from the exchange to the network termination (NT) at the subscriber’s premises – a single pair of wires bringing the basic access into the building. It was often mistakenly called the "U bus", but it was not a bus: exactly one NT hangs off a U interface, not several devices. Only behind the NT, with the S0 bus, does the actual bus wiring begin.
NT-BA: The small termination unit at the end of an ISDN basic access. It had only the U interface as input and two S0 bus outputs, nothing else – no power connection, no analog ports. For larger installations it could be mounted in a special rack fixture. Digital line duplicators were the precursor technology to it.
NT-2ab: The larger network termination: a U interface as input, two S0 bus outputs, plus two independent analog a/b interfaces, each of which could be configured with three phone numbers. It had no PBX function but needed power – if that failed, only emergency operation remained, via either the S0 bus or the analog interfaces.
ISDN-Master (II): An ISDN controller card for the Amiga (hardware by bsc büroautomation AG, software by Relog AG; manual, 3rd edition 1994). Through its "bscisdn.device" it behaved like a modem – with AT commands and compatible with serial.device – so terminal and BBS software could use it directly. The telephony software WilhelmTEL was bundled with it. In use at Empire BBS from 1992. → More detail
ZyXEL: Taiwanese network and modem maker, founded in 1989 in Hsinchu. Known for especially high-quality modems (the Elite and U series) and, by its own company history, for the world’s first combined analog/digital ISDN modem in 1995. Dedicated ISDN routers followed later with the Prestige line.
ZyXEL Elite 2864I: A combined V.34 analog modem and ISDN terminal adapter in one box – by ZyXEL’s own company history the first device of its kind (around 1995). On an internet connection it ran dial-on-demand, dialing by itself the moment a computer wanted to reach the net. That is exactly what pushed one customer’s phone bill to 3,000 CHF, because Windows kept triggering connections in the background. → More detail
MSNMultiple Subscriber Number: On an ISDN basic access, several individual phone numbers could sit on one line (here up to 10) – each usable separately, say for voice, mailbox, or a fun hotline. Every number is assigned individually, not as a block. The VoIP counterpart is the SIP line.
DDIDirect Dialling In: On the primary rate (system) access, direct dialing-in: instead of individual numbers, the phone system received a whole block of numbers, say 100 or 1000 consecutive numbers, and distributed the extensions internally itself. That let many numbers run over few lines. The VoIP counterpart is the SIP trunk.
PBXPrivate Branch Exchange: A company’s own phone system. It connects the internal handsets with each other and with the public network. → More detail
Line duplicator: Older technology that allowed two phone lines to run over a single physical wire – a precursor to the idea of the ISDN network termination (NT-BA).
Party-line relayshared-service relay: An older, purely analog switching relay that let two subscribers with two different numbers share the same physical line – it switched depending on polarity, blocking the other line each time.
a/b wires: The two copper wires of a classic analog phone line ("a" and "b"). Voice, dial tone, and ringing signal all ran over this simple pair – the "boringly thin wires" that at first didn’t seem very exciting.
TT83 jack: The more modern successor to the old, bulky but rock-solid four-hole jack. It could be split into two plugs that locked and were keyed so the two connections couldn’t be swapped. In practice it wasn’t especially sturdy, though, and the keying could be defeated: break off the small anti-mismatch tab on the plug, and it would fit in backward too – then the line stopped working. That caused a good number of support calls. → More detail
Analog switched line: The classic phone line, where a connection is newly established ("dialed") for every call. The foundation of the early modem and mailbox era, before ISDN and DSL arrived.
Pulse dialingrotary dialing: The oldest dialing method: for each digit, the line loop is briefly interrupted the corresponding number of times – three for a 3, ten for a 0, at a rate of about ten pulses per second. A short pause is needed between digits; wait too little and two digits merge into one. A telephone’s hook switch does the same kind of interrupting – which is why you could "dial" by hand in old phone booths or with a test handset. → More detail
Tone dialingDTMF / touch-tone: The more modern dialing method: each key sends two overlaid tones at once (Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency). Noticeably faster and more reliable than pulse dialing – and the prerequisite for controlling phone menus, remote answering-machine retrieval, and similar services by pressing keys. → More detail
Blueboxing: A trick from the early phone world: with reproduced control tones (classically the 2600 Hz tone) you could fool the switching equipment, for instance to call for free. Related in spirit is the remote retrieval of early answering machines, which was also controlled by tones (tone dialing).
Answering machine remote: A small tone generator that played DTMF touch-tones. You held it up to the microphone of the handset – the speaking side, not the earpiece – and could then listen to your answering machine remotely, even from a phone that itself only supported pulse dialing. Because the device simply generated DTMF tones, it could also be used for things the manufacturer never intended. → More detail
Clear-back / disconnect supervision: The rule for who is allowed to end a phone connection. With the old analog technology the line stayed up until the caller hung up – if only the person called hung up, the connection (and thus their line) stayed occupied. Only later two-way disconnect supervision ensured that either side hanging up reliably cleared the connection. → More detail
Teletester: An unassuming but central tool of analog telephone work – essentially a small test handset used to switch onto a line in order to find and identify it. Set to high impedance, a diode showed the ringing signal without loading the line; set to low impedance, you could listen into the line over the speaker. Tapping the test contacts acted like a hook switch – so you could "dial" by hand using pulse dialing. A legendary Beavis-and-Butt-Head sound mix was hung on a test number reached this way. → More detail
X.25 / Telepac: An early data transmission technology for businesses, a precursor to modern data networks, offered in Switzerland under the name "Telepac". Unlike with a modem, no fixed line was switched through; instead the data was broken into small packets and sent individually through the network – billed by data volume, not connection time.
X.31 (data on the D channel)X.25 over the D channel: The D channel of an ISDN line is actually meant only for signaling and is usually underused. That spare capacity could also carry packet-switched data (X.25/Telepac) without occupying one of the costly B channels. That was long touted as the D channel’s "great future" – it never caught on in the consumer market, since the few kilobits weren’t attractive to private users and ADSL soon followed. It was, however, genuinely and widely used in the background: card payment terminals in shops, for instance, kept a permanent, cheap connection to the authorization computer this way, with no dial-up needed – along with alarm systems, vending machines, and other telemetry.
Telex: An older, worldwide network for teleprinter messages – text messages between teleprinter machines, long before fax and e-mail. The message was prepared on a paper punch tape: each character corresponded to a pattern of holes. Once the tape was ready, it ran through the reader and the message went out over the line in one go – saving costly connection time compared to typing it live. At the other end the teleprinter printed the text onto a paper strip or a roll. Teleprinters were part of everyday work in telephone engineering.
ADSL / VDSL: Technologies that, for the first time, made permanent, faster internet leased lines possible over the ordinary phone line – a precursor to today’s fiber internet.
Leased line: A permanently switched connection between two points that isn’t dialed anew each time – the basis of the first "always on" internet access for businesses from the mid/late 1990s.
Fiber / FTTH: Data transmission over light instead of copper – today’s standard for fast connections, with speeds reaching into double-digit gigabits. The end of a technical journey that began with the 2400-baud modem.
VoIP / SIP: Telephony over the internet protocol: instead of running over dedicated lines, calls travel as data packets, controlled via the SIP protocol. VoIP replaced ISDN as the access technology – but the principle stayed the same: voice paths and phone numbers (blocks included) are still booked independently of each other, today with a SIP provider.
SIP line: In VoIP, a single phone number with its own registration at the provider – you book as many lines as you need numbers. It’s the modern counterpart to the ISDN MSN, just over the internet instead of a dedicated line.
SIP trunk: In VoIP, a bundle for phone systems: a collective access with a whole block of numbers and several simultaneous call channels. The system distributes the extensions internally itself. The SIP trunk is thus the modern counterpart to ISDN DDI on the primary rate access.
Videotex (called "Tex" in Switzerland): An early form of interactive online service via a special terminal, used among other things for the first online-banking applications – long before today’s internet banking.
PTT / Swisscom: The PTT was the Swiss state monopoly for post and telephone. In 1998 the telecom arm became Swisscom (with the post office made independent). An early online transfer ran over the PTT in 1991.
Telegiro PTT: The electronic payment service of the then PTT (post and telephone administration). Over a Videotex terminal, my first own online bank transfer ran through it in 1991 – years before online banking became widespread.
WilhelmTEL: The telephony software for the ISDN-Master II (by Relog AG). With a suitable handset it turned the Amiga into a full-featured ISDN comfort phone with an answering machine – including a phone book, call billing, call recording, and a freely selectable ringtone per MSN (every number switchable on/off individually). I was one of its beta testers. → More detail

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