UNDERGROUND

ground for the many young people who built their systems with little more than curiosity and salvaged computer bits dis- carded by others. Maybe Melbourne's personality as a city of suburban homebodies and backyard tinkerers produced a culture conducive to BBSes. Or maybe it was just Melbourne's dreary beaches and often miserable weather. As one Melbourne hacker explained it, 'What else is there to do here all winter but hibernate inside with your computer and modem?'

In 1988, Melbourne had some 60 to 100 operating BBSes. The numbers are vague because it is difficult to count a col- lection of moving objects. The amateur nature of the systems, often a jumbled tangle of wires and second-hand electronics parts soldered together in someone's garage, meant that the life of any one system was frequently as short as a teenager's attention span. BBSes popped up, ran for two weeks, and then vanished again.

Some of them operated only during certain hours, say between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. When the owner went to bed, he or she would plug the home phone line into the BBS and leave it there until morning. Others ran 24 hours a day, but the busiest times were always at night.

Of course it wasn't just intellectual stimulation some users were after. Visitors often sought identity as much as ideas. On an electronic bulletin board, you could create a personality, mould it into shape and make it your own. Age and appear- ance did not matter. Technical aptitude did. Any spotty, gawky teenage boy could instantly transform himself into a suave, graceful BBS character. The transformation began with the choice of name. In real life, you might be stuck with the name Elliot Dingle - an appellation chosen by your mother to honour a long-dead great uncle. But on a BBS, well, you could be Blade Runner, Ned Kelly or Mad Max. Small wonder that, given the choice, many teenage boys chose to spend their time in the world of the BBS.

Generally, once a user chose a handle, as the on-line names are known, he stuck with it. All his electronic mail came to an