Randy John Suess (January 27, 1945 – December 10, 2019) was the co-founder of the CBBS bulletin board, the first

bulletin board system A bulletin board system (BBS), also called computer bulletin board service (CBBS), is a computer server running software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user can perform functions such as ...

(BBS) ever brought online. Suess, along with partner

Ward Christensen Ward Christensen (born 1945 in West Bend, Wisconsin, United States) is the co-founder of the CBBS bulletin board, the first bulletin board system (BBS) ever brought online. Christensen, along with partner Randy Suess, members of the Chicago Area ...

, whom he met when they were both members of the Chicago Area Computer Hobbyists’ Exchange, or CACHE, started development of CBBS during a blizzard in Chicago, Illinois, and officially established it four weeks later, on February 16, 1978.

Biography

Suess was born in

Skokie, Illinois Skokie (; formerly Niles Center) is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States, neighboring the City of Chicago's northern border. Its population, according to the 2020 census, was 67,824. Skokie lies approximately north of Chicago's do ...

, to Miland, a police officer, and Ruth (née Duppenthaler), a nurse. He served in the Navy, and afterward, attended the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle. Suess worked at IBM and Zenith. Suess put together the hardware which supported CBBS, while Christensen built the software, which was automatically loaded whenever someone dialed in. Suess also hosted CBBS, because his home in the Wrigleyville section of Chicago could be called without paying long-distance charges by anyone in Chicago. By the time they retired the system in the 1980s, its single phone line had received more than half a million calls. There is still at least one active CBBS system as of August 2020. In the 1970s, Suess was also an

amateur radio operator An amateur radio operator is someone who uses equipment at an amateur radio station to engage in two-way personal communications with other amateur operators on radio frequencies assigned to the amateur radio service. Amateur radio operators hav ...

, using the

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assigne ...

WB9GPM. He was an active member of the Chicago FM Club, where he helped with maintenance on their extensive radio repeater systems. In 1992, Suess and Christensen received a Dvorak Telecommunications Excellence Award for their development of the first BBS. In May 2005, Suess and Christensen were both featured in BBS: The Documentary. Suess died on December 10, 2019 in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Suess, Randy 1945 births 2019 deaths American computer programmers IBM employees People from Skokie, Illinois Military personnel from Illinois University of Illinois Chicago alumni