I loved QWK packets. That saved me a ton of long distance telephone charges. I didn't use OLX ("Silly Little Mail Reader" was my jam) but the concept was wonderful.
Oh, wow. I didn't realize that. Very cool. I used the heck out of it.
At one point I learned about the QWK format and wrote some code to build a QWK packet out of text files. My idea was to distribute an e-zine as a QWK packet. I successfully made QWK packets but never had any actual content to release.
> My idea was to distribute an e-zine as a QWK packet.
What a cool idea! I would have loved something like that.
This hearkens back to the day of Byte and PC Magazine where I would actually buy paper magazines to learn about the latest tech -- and I wondered, why couldn't there be an electronic version of this? (the QWK downloadable e-zine idea sounds so ergonomic). But eventually the Internet happened and we got these in the form of websites.
But I feel websites still lack the nice offline, self-contained natures of a magazine. Links on a website feel dispersed. Whereas an offline packetized magazine would have a linear nature to it, and you'd be able to browse in one sitting. And look at full page glossy ads (hey, I looked at the ads -- they were so cool back in the day with Gateway and Dell feuding).
Yeah. My primary BBS was relatively nearby in the same state. But in those days intrastate US calls outside of your very local area could actually cost more than interstate.
Mustang Software (Wildcat! BBS) bought Qmodem and SLMR (and renamed the latter to OLX).