Wayne Bell is the creator of the

WWIV WWIV was a popular brand of bulletin board system software from the late 1980s through the mid-1990s. The modifiable source code allowed a sysop to customize the main BBS program for their particular needs and aesthetics. WWIV also allowed tens ...

BBS BBS may refer to: Ammunition * BBs, BB gun metal bullets * BBs, airsoft gun plastic pellets Computing and gaming * Bulletin board system, a computer server users dial into via dial-up or telnet; precursor to the Internet * BIOS Boot Specificat ...

system. The first WWIV BBS went online in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

in December 1984. His BBS, WWIV version 1.0 written in BASIC and 2.0 written in Turbo Pascal later came to be named Amber, node 1 of the

WWIVNet WWIVnet was a Bulletin board system (BBS) network for WWIV-based BBSes. It was created by Wayne Bell (computer specialist), Wayne Bell on December 1, 1987.SysOp A sysop (; an abbreviation of system operator) is an administrator of a multi-user computer system, such as a bulletin board system (BBS) or an online service virtual community.Jansen, E. & James,V. (2002). NetLingo: the Internet dictionary. Netl ...

was Laison Al'Gaib when it was

, then Random when it became Amber. Bell continued to own and develop the WWIV software for over a decade, becoming an iconic figure in the online world, before the privatization and subsequent expansion of the Internet caused the BBS world to fade in the mid to late nineties. Bell eventually sold WWIV, retaining his career as a computer technician. Clips of an interview with Bell appear as part of '' BBS: The Documentary''.

References

* Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American computer programmers {{US-compu-bio-stub