From http://slashdot.org/articles/03/02/16/2028220.shtml?tid=95 :

Re:Don't Forget Message Networks (Score:2, Informative) 
by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 17, {at}01:33AM (#5317606)

Just to set things clear at the beginning, I'm "Sparky", the
Sparky in "Sparkware", and I'm the "father" of the QWK
format.

How did I create it? Simple. Jim Key ran the "Radio Free Memphis"
BBS and gave me the file formats to PCBoard 10.0. He did this because Dan
Mascheck, a local user who moved to Wharton, Texas, wanted a cheap and easy
way to catch up on the messages posted on RFM without getting into trouble
with his wife. So I took the PCBoard 10.0 formats, created the QWK standard
with them, and volia! That's how it happened.

PCBoard moved on to PCBoard 12.x formats but QWK had to stay at PCBoard
10.x format because of the number of clients in use (strange, we never
called them clients way back then!). PCB-ECHO grew out of QWKmail and
QWKreaders and was indeed an easy way for QWK-enabled systems to exchange
mail.

Did I ever envision it'd grow that way? NEVER! It was a quick hack that
grew way beyond what I ever thought it would fit. I was more than pleased
that it took off and today can look back with some satisfaction. I like to
tell my contemporaries that we all (all BBS users) were "the
Connestoga Wagons of the Internet". While that might not be 100%
correct technically, I feel we were the pioneers socially.

Back in 1985, I had an opportunity while vacationing in Gatlinburg, TN,
while my wife was taking a noon nap, about how two future perils might
influence my BBSing hobby. The first was known as "measured
service", where I remembered my ARRL history of relay radio and thus
begat the beginnings of QWK mail packets. The second realization was of
universal access, where it was as easy to connect to a BBS across town as
it was to connect to a BBS half-a-world away.

We have that now in the Internet. And it amazes me to no end how once we've
achieved that universal access, how impersonal my (and probably others)
sessions with the connection have evolved to this day. I RARELY ever get
into the interaction I once enjoyed while navigating the carriers of the
Wonder of the Age - BBSing.

No, today, the Internet is quite impersonal, all but websites - and I do my
best to keep up with all of the technology therewith (I'm a manager of an
Applications Group for those who are curious) - but I miss the old days.
They were better - flame wars and all - and I miss them tremendously.

One by-product of my creation is that it turns out that QWK packets are
fantastic snapshots into the history of Bulletin Boards. I have QWK packets
from my own "Sparky's Machine" dating from December, 1988 and
those of other systems, and they capture perfectly the tone and voice of
what those systems were at that moment in time.

Someday, I'll publish the QWK packets I've managed to acrue over time.
It'll almost be an archeological look back at the beginning of it all.

For anyone who wishes to contact me, you can reach me at mark_herring{at}hotmail.com.

We made the world's best buggy whips.
Sparkware (1979-1996)

-- mail{at}ozzmosis.com

--- timEd/Cygwin 1.11.b1