Plugging into the Networks

Americans with modems swap gossip, recipes, even on-line "sex"

By day he is a 32-year-old bureaucrat from Queens, N.Y., investigating claims for the Social Security Administration. Each night he is transformed into "Sir Weej," a pseudonymous writer whose breezy essays on music, politics and life in the electronic age have attracted scores of readers. His followers, however, do not look for him on the printed page. Sir Weej's medium is his modem, the book-size box that connects his home computer to his telephone and puts him in touch with similarly equipped people all over the nation. "I feel as though a world has opened here in my living room," he writes in phosphorescent characters on his video monitor. "The amazing thing is that I am no longer talking to myself."

Although Sir Weej, whose real name is Luigi, spends a couple of hours a day hunched over his terminal, he is neither a computer professional nor a thrill-seeking whiz kid. He is just an ordinary citizen who yearns to communicate. Along with tens of thousands of other computer owners who share that urge, Sir Weej has discovered that he can tap into the outside world with his home machine for more than just a peek at stock quotes and airline schedules or an occasional trespass on the turf of the military-industrial complex. Increasingly, as more and more home terminals are hooked into the telephone system, the lines that connect computers are being used for personal networking, carrying the raw materials of human intercourse: gossip, elephant jokes, pesto recipes and even the murmurings of long-distance seductions.

The equipment necessary to play the game can cost less than $300 or more than $5,000 for a deluxe system that combines computer, modem, printer and disc drives. Once the machinery is installed and the modem plugged in, there are hundreds of computer networks accessible by phone, from bulletin boards geared to specific machines to on-line dating services that anyone can join. The most popular pay-for-connect-time utilities, like The Source (40,000 subscribers) and Compu Serve (70,000), advertise in newspapers and computer magazines. These commercial operations offer their subscribers news, horoscopes, games and travel tips. The phone numbers of smaller systems pass by electronic word of mouth. All it takes to get started is one working telephone number; most networks carry extensive lists of other services. One data base in New Jersey offers a catalogue of 1,300 different phone numbers to explore, and many of them attract more than 5,000 calls a year.

At the end of each phone line is a computer that has been programmed to store and display messages. Most of these machines are operated free of charge by a self-appointed system operator (Sysop), who donates his equipment and services out of enthusiasm for this new form of communication. Some, such as Miami Big Apple, TRADE-80 and AMIS (Atari Message and Information System), are for owners of particular computers, offering them a place to trade hardware. The Aviators Bulletin Board (pilots) in Northern California and HEX (handicapped) in Maryland are forums for special groups that want to share experiences.