Mark Shields
Houston, Texas based programmer Mark Shields wrote a BBS program called SoftWorx for the TI-99/4A in the summer of 1983 which served his board The USS Enterprise. Shields' inspiration came after watching the motion picture WarGames. The application originally made outgoing calls in an attempt to locate other computers. It was eventually adapted to accept calls. The user interface was modeled directly on Nick Naimo's Networks II BBS software which had been written for the Apple 2. Shields used TI Extended BASIC as the basis for his application. No actual code from the Naimo's software was used, although the online experience to modem users at the time was comparable. Shields donated the application to the public domain and several sites briefly sprang up in the 1980s.
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