WARNING: This message will take you along some of the quainter byways of
Washington birding history. You may want to skip it unless you are into that
kind of thing or have an interest in archaic voicemailbox technology.

________________________________________

Gene's post incited me to rummage through my BirdBox files to see if I could
come up with anything helpful. I set up the BirdBox (454-2662) and ran it
from my house for the first six years before handing responsibility off to
Rachel who has kept it going for another six. (Thank you again, Rachel!)
Gene, it will be a miracle if you can wring six more months out of it, let
alone years. The system was already outmoded when we launched on April
Fool's Day, 1995, with a posting by Ted Peterson from the Edmonds Marsh.

Here is an excerpt from the press release announcing the launch:

"Bob Morse of Olympia spearheaded the Washington BirdBox project,
researching the hardware and software and finding a donor [Ruby Egbert] to
finance their purchase. Bob presented a proposal to the WOS board who
committed to supporting the system by paying the monthly telephone charge
and other incidental expenditures.

"The software for the BirdBox was developed by Bill Principe and other
birders in the Los Angeles area. It is in use for the LA BirdBox and the
Northern California BirdBox. Washington's is the first BirdBox to offer
state-wide coverage.

"The BirdBox runs on a 386 computer with 4MB of RAM, a 70MB hard drive and a
special voice card."

Talk about raw power!

That old Siemens machine, which had about a million hours on it when we
bought it at RePC, died in July 1997. We returned to service in September
with a new (to us) box after a complete rebuild, as announced in WOSNews:

"The Washington BirdBox is about to come back on-line in a greatly enhanced
version.... Thanks to the generosity of Jerry Blinn and Ruby Egbert, a
newer, more powerful computer was purchased last month. Bob Mauritsen has
donated dozens of hours writing new code for the program, in order to
provide improved access and flexibility, more service options, and greater
user-friendliness and reliability."

That "newer" computer (a Compaq 486 if I remember right) is still powering
the BirdBox. And it's even older than you thought, Gene. It was bought at
RePC more than ten years ago as a well-used machine.

The software is also older than you thought. The application, called
Voiceware, was developed by the long-vanished Digital Development
Corporation of Dayton, Ohio (version 4.5, from 1991; originally released in
1989), and as Gene says, was installed from floppies. Here are the system
requirements, as detailed in the manual:

"Voiceware can be run on any IBM PC/XT/AT/80386/80486 or true compatible
having at least 640K bytes of memory, a hard disk drive, and a monitor.
Voiceware requires MS-DOS Version 3.0 or greater."

Windows? Never heard of it.

I've still got an electronic version of the manual if you need it, Gene. You
might also want to talk to Bob Mauritsen. Or maybe Bob's reading this
message right now and will run and hide. That software was already creaky in
1995 and to work with it today would be like deciphering a dead language. It
runs on a special proprietary card that was no longer in production when the
WOS BirdBox launched; we obtained one at the time through the original LA
BirdBox developer, Bill Principe. I imagine that it would be impossible to
replace. In any case, Bill would also be a good guy to talk to.

It is truly amazing how stable and versatile that old software was, and is.
The BirdBox is still performing a useful role. Good luck with keeping it
going, Gene, until the next generation of wireless technology allows for
instant, effortless bird sighting reporting at low cost from anywhere in the
field. Maybe.

Hal Opperman
Medina, Washington
hal at catharus.net














From: Eugene and Nancy Hunn <enhunn323 at comcast.net>
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2007 14:38:23 -0800
To: <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Subject: [Tweeters] WOS BirdBox

Tweets,

As you now know I'm the new keeper of the BirdBox (new number is
206-364-1162). Thanks to Rachel for tending it for so many years and to the
volunteers who transcribe it. And thanks to all who sent me their opinions
and suggestions with regard to the Box. The responses were running about 2:1
to junk it, but with a strong and articulate minority in favor of keeping
it, for now.

It is a real dinosaur. A nine year old computer, keyboard, and monitor with
9 year old MSDos software that was originally installed via floppy disks.
I'm trying to find out who invented it in the first place and if someone
might have updated the software to run on modern machines. If any of you
might know something about it please let me know. I googled "Birdbox" and
located two or three other systems that were using it, at least as late at
2002 (e.g., Southern California) and am trying to contact the people
involved to see what they might know about it.

Meanwhile I will see if I can't add a feature to the existing system that
would incorporate a weekly summary, such as on a regular answering machine
type rare bird hotline, to include whatever recent sightings might have been
reported on the BirdBox plus Tweeters and the grapevine, bypassing some of
the rigamarole of the menu. Also, I trust our volunteers with check it daily
and transcribe incoming reports promptly to Tweeters so we're all on the
same system.

Any additional suggestions about more cutting edge birder communication
systems would also be appreciated, as in its present form the Box's days are
clearly numbered. I'm home at enhunn323 at comcast.net.

Gene Hunn
18476 47th Pl. NE
Lake Forest Park, WA