Jim Maxey is perhaps the best known name during the BBS era (1978 to 1994). He operated the largest and most successful Bulletin Board System in history, Event Horizons BBS from 1983 to 1996.

Event Horizons was not the first BBS, but without doubt it was the best known and by far the most financially successful BBS, world-wide. According to the UK publication, The Economist, Event Horizons annual sales reached 3.2 million dollars in the early 1990's, which was long before the World Wide Web.

Jim Maxey has been featured on a good number of television programs, including "A Current Affair", "ABC Newswatch", "Science Digest", "The Tonight Show", "The Computer Chronicles", "Nova", and "The Science Channel". Some of the information here was taken from those programs and are now in print for the first time.

As has been widely published, Maxey began Event Horizons in 1983 just after a run in with Larry Flint. He talked about being awarded custody of his toddler daughter and struggled to make ends meet. Maxey was a Television Broadcast Engineer in late 1978 but found he preferred working on camera as a reporter. Early on he was a disc jockey, then a television news reporter (Texas??) sometime in the mid 1980's. He also worked for the Army at Fort Hood, Texas where he was reportedly responsible for creating training videos to help Army M1 tank enlisted personnel identify the enemy. One interview Maxey indicated his graphics career began from experiments for tank models using graphics to replace or simulate moving targets.

On The Science Channel, Maxey talks about moving back to Oregon in 1987. Event Horizons had already existed for a few years. He settled down with his daughter (where he was the local Girl Scout Leader in Lake Oswego, Oregon), an animal rights activist, and began to develop ways to make Event Horizons more profitable.

Jim Maxey's accomplishments include:

• Founded the first commercial Online business. In 1983 he created Event Horizons Inc and operated Event Horizons BBS as CEO and president.
• World's largest and most profitable BBS in history.
• In 1989 was the first BBS to accept credit cards for online access with a merchant account.
• First to create a succession of moving images or "movies" available to download on the BBS.
• With seven other developers, created the GIF format on Compuserve Information Service.
• Created the first color images with the new EGA format, which preceded the VGA format.
• In 1987 coined the term "SuperVGA" with the first high resolution images profiled on After Hours in the best selling magazine at the time, PC Magazine.
• Created the first Dating Service in 1983.
• The first to create the Graffiti Wall.
• Authored the first graphics oriented online game, "Escape From Languor".
• Authored the award winning "Voyager III", an educational adventure into space which actually taught astronomy. The adventure was profiled on the cover of Boardwatch magazine.

MORE BACKGROUND:

Event Horizons BBS began in 1983 but it was years before success allowed Jim Maxey to consider serious advertising which was mostly with PC-Magazine, coincidentally, the most expensive computer magazine to advertise. Event Horizons BBS had no competition for more than two years. They used interesting ad concepts which seemed imaginative for the time and probably wouldn't work today. The ad on the right from PC Magazine in 1994 demonstrates an audacity that actually worked. Jim Maxey figured people wanted quality and were willing to pay for it. It worked very well.

Jim Maxey was one of the first BBS operators (sysops) to run the commercial BBS package, The Bread Board System (TBBS) created by Phil Becker. For the 13 year history of Event Horizons Jim Maxey continued to use TBBS software.

In 1992 Playboy Enterprises sued Event Horizons for copyright infringement. Apparently Event Horizons BBS was offering a few lingerie images of nude women first published and owned by Playboy. The exact details of the lawsuit has not been make public but a segment on ABC NEWSWATCH in 1993 indicated Maxey wrote a check for a half million dollars to Playboy as compensation. That seems to have stirred the online world and helped made Maxey somewhat of a cult figure, at least, mostly amongst sysops. An article in Boardwatch magazine then urged Playboy to use Maxey's BBS design to create their own online service.

Rumor indicates Jim Maxey retired from the BBS world in or around 1996 to lecture on creating an online business. Other reports have him continuing his earlier work as news directory or editor. After a few reports in early 1999 and later in 2000, Maxey seems to have retired. At least, we cannot locate him. If anyone knows how or where to contact Mr. Maxey, please let us know.

The following are a few images graciously granted to us by permission from The Archives BBS where apparently Maxey signed an agreement to display some of the images from the early days. We publish these images now with permission.