TWICS BEELINE
From BBS to "BEE JIMA"
by Jeffrey Shapard


TWICS BeeLINE is a public computer conferencing and electronic
communication system operating in Tokyo, Japan. About half of
the subscribing members are Japanese, with the rest from a
variety of other cultural backgrounds. The friendly local flavor
has an international aroma. Most communication is in English,
which provides a window out for the Japanese users, and a window
in for those who would like to communicate with people in Japan.
The BeeLINE is connected to the world through various modems on
standard telephone lines for local access, and through NTT's
DDX-P packet switched data network for global access.

TWICS means "Two-Way Information Communications System", and
comes originally from a collaboration of ideas between two men,
Toshiaki Tanaka, the entrepreneurial president of Sakako Co.,
Ltd. (a shrimp import and seafood sales enterprise), and David
G. Fisher, a far-sighted faculty member of the International
Education Center (IEC, a non-profit educational organization
specializing in language education and cultural exchange
activities). Tanaka-san was interested in micro-to-mainframe
data communications and Mr. Fisher was interested in the
educational applications of communicating via computer. The
TWICS BeeLINE systems have been designed and developed by, and
are operated by, Makoto Ezure from Sakako and me, Jeffrey
Shapard from IEC.

Tanaka-san and Sakako have provided most of the financial
support for developing the system, as well as the bee logo.
Sakako's main product is Honeymoon brand frozen shrimp, and the
biggest customers are in the wedding industry. Weddings lead to
honeymoons, bees make honey, and shrimp makes nice food for a
happy wedding reception. The BeeLINE name is a combination of
this registered corporate logo, the second syllable of "online",
the idea of traveling somewhere together (such as on an air, sea
or train line), and the idea of quick and direct access, as in
"make a beeline" for the information. (Recently, though, Joichi
Ito ported in a little note from George Por about the universal
implications of bees and cross-pollination, and this adds
another dimension to the logo and the role of TWICS BeeLINE.)

The TWICS founders spent more than a month meeting during early
spring in 1984 laying out a system philosophy of open
communication and participation and a goal of quick and easy
access. Both philosophy and goal were general enough to allow
flexibility in evolving, yet solid enough to serve as a basis
for development. Also, a decision was made to build the first
system by hand, to reinvent the wheel, as an educational
exercise. It was an exercise, and it was educational, but it
cost a lot of time.

The first TWICS BeeLINE went online in September 1984, with a
lot of menus leading nowhere except to the private messaging
facility. The pioneer users were about 35 members of a monthly
meeting of telecom enthusiasts called TokyoNet, and they
contributed greatly to the development of the BeeLINE through
their scathing criticism. This first system only had one
telephone line and a 300 baud modem, and it eventually supported
four bulletin boards, E-mail, a hierarchical reading library,
and about 100 people with passwords, only a dozen or so of whom
were very active. Early growth was slow.

TWICS had no one working full time on system development and
operation until July 1985, when IEC made this possible for me,
who had by that time become fervently convinced that Japan had a
need for, and was ready for, a multiuser computer conferencing
system.

The second TWICS BeeLINE went online in September 1985, and by
the end of March 1986 it supported six dial-up modems at a
variety of speeds and more than 350 people with passwords, about
100 of whom were active. Features included E-mail, real-time
messaging, hierarchical reading libraries, games, a member
directory, and around 30 bulletin board areas. While some of the
BB areas had the standard broadcast message function of a BBS,
others developed distinct atmospheres. Groups formed around
them, and the interaction became conversational, with flow and
cohesion to the discourse. The topics ranged from the never-
ending talk about modems on BB TNET to discussion on aspects of
human language on BB GAIGO.

This system was a great hacker's environment (MC68000-based
supermicro running under a UNIX System V port), but a sysop's
nightmare. It was slow, there was no hardware or software
support from the OEM, and a range of serious technical problems
surfaced which kept us, the sysops, so busy that we had no time
to continue development the multi-BBS program into the homegrown
conferencing system it was becoming. Despite this, new members
kept coming in, and they deserved better. So, TWICS decided to
quit reinventing wheels and go out and get a car, and Sakako
agreed to finance it until subscription and usage fees could
make it into a self-sufficient operation.

The third TWICS BeeLINE went online in April 1986 on a fast
little DEC MicroVAX II, 16 access ports, and the first full
PARTICIPATE conferencing system in Asia. E-mail, real-time
messaging, private file directories, download libraries, and a
member directory are also supported. "BEE JIMA" is the metaphor
for our online island community, and is used as a basis for


organizing the public side of PARTI/bee.

Japan is an island nation, full of communities in villages,
towns, and cities squeezed in between the mountains and the sea,
with ports of various sizes and shapes through which
communication flows between communities. So, our own online
community is organized in the same terms, an island community
"BEE JIMA" (Bee Island), with our village ("MURA"), a port
("MINATO"), and our very own volcanic mountain ("YAMA"). In the
village, there is a village office ("YAKUBA"), a community
meeting place ("YORIAI"), a high-tech corner ("AKIHABARA") named
after the famous electronics district in Tokyo, a health center
("EMEDICA"), a place to hang around and read things ("HON YA"),
a school ("GAKKOU"), and a market ("ICHIBA"). The port has
holding areas and leads to other parts of Japan ("NIPPON") and
the world ("SEKAI"), and, of course, the "ENA". The mountain has
a hot springs ("ONSEN") recreational area, and a wooded brush
area ("YABU") for semiprivate meetings.

To help you visualize our island community, Ezure-san of TWICS
drew a map (based on an original sketch by Kiyoshi Yoneda):

The overall atmosphere on TWICS BeeLINE is informal, and since a
high percentage (as of this writing) of the user community lives
in the Tokyo area, new online relationships often lead to face-
to-face meetings. Our core user community ranges in age from
late teens to late sixties, from students to people near
retirement, from corporation office workers to freelance
journalists, and includes people from Japan, other parts of Asia
and the Pacific, Europe, and North and South America.

For information on rates, membership terms and conditions, and
how to sign up, please access TWICS, hit [RETURN] a couple times
to get the username prompt, and login as "GUEST".

International access via packet network:

4401-357-1125

Domestic (Japan) access via DDX-P:

163-060-357-1125

Direct phone via modem:

300 (CCITT v.21):
03-433-3281
03-433-1520

300/1200/2400
(103/212a or v.22/v.22bis):
03-433-0824
03-433-0679
03-432-9552

(Set as 8 bit data, 1 bit stop, no parity, X-on/X-off enabled.)

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Author's note: Jeffrey Shapard is a Montanan (U.S.) now living
in Machida, a green suburb of Tokyo. He is a guitar picker and
manual laborer turned linguist turned English teacher turned
telecom fanatic and sysop of TWICS BeeLINE. He can be reached as
"JEFU" on TWICS, Unison and POTS, as "BDQ389" on STC, and as
"73117,1601" on CIS. Yoroshiku and howdy!