About The Owner

You want to know more about me? It's hard to pick a place to start, so I'm going to start where most of you remember. I'm a Florida native, born in Ft. Lauderdale, Sept. 1978. I was on computers from the age of 4 and have loved them ever since. I learned BASIC programming on a Sinclair and a Commodore 64, then progressed from there onto the Apple IIe, IIc and II Plus.

April of 1989 my Dad opened a computer store where I worked with him until I was 16 and knew everything. At 16 I went off to start my own company, which never did quite as well as it could have, but it was fun. This is where most of us lost contact, because in 1998 the BBS had gone from 3000+ members down to about 100 active members. Most of them logged on to play a few doors and logged right off. The internet had taken over! Looking back, maybe I was dumb for fighting it, but oh well — I finally caved and shut down the last 4 phone lines and packed Bobby's World away in a closet. The computer, hard drives, modems, etc. were all packed up in my garage until about 2009. I decided to throw away the 486/DX4-100 when I moved to Pennsylvania in 2009, but I kept the HDDs and their data on my new server.

Situations as they were, my Dad wanted to sell the company and asked me if I wanted it. Of course I'll take over an already established business and run with it. So at 21 I took over the computer store. Sept. 11th, 2001 hit us all hard and I was unable to keep the storefront, so I went mobile. I operated everything from my apartment and decided I needed a new name. After a few days of brainstorming, my girlfriend and I came up with Mobil-Technician.com and its logo.

I continued to provide on-site support and services in the Orlando area for a few years. It paid the bills and put extra money in my pocket, but I never devoted enough time to make it into anything more than a side job. Mobil-Technician.com wasn't giving me the sense of satisfaction I was after. Due to the state of our country, I felt the need to serve in the military. I joined the Navy and devoted 20 years of my life to service. I'm currently retired from the Navy.

I know I've left lots of blanks in the middle, and of course didn't mention some of the lesser-known details from all the other side ventures I've taken, but if you really want to know me more, get involved in the chat sessions and I'm sure we'll talk again.

Sysop · Bobby Rubano · Bobby's World BBS

About The BBS

Wow, this one is fun! You really want me to remember ALL of this crap?!

1988 I started a "BBS" at the house using Dad's PC-XT running at 4.77 MHz. We had a 1200 baud modem, but that was top of the line. It ran on the house phone line, so when somebody wanted to get online they had to call first and tell me to turn it on. I eventually upgraded to a selection box that allowed them to dial a code while the phone was ringing and it would auto-switch to the BBS. As it grew more and more popular the line was busy during the day and Mom and Dad wouldn't have that, so we got a separate line. At this stage of the game the BBS was a primary source of shareware and pictures. I had a whole 5 MB hard drive, so I was living it up! Dad eventually upgraded to a 10 MB hard drive and I had tons of space!

The first big upgrade came in the form of a 2400 baud modem WITH MNP! Does anybody remember MNP? Our computer at home kept upgrading and the BBS just kept moving homes. I can't say for sure what year it was, but well before the rest of the general population got one, Mom and Dad got me a US Robotics 9600 baud external modem! It was hot stuff! At top speed I was able to download 1 KB per SECOND, MAN!

The BBS grew bigger and bigger, and with donations of spare parts and cash I was able to purchase additional modems, computers and other required equipment. At its peak I had 5 computers running in my bedroom with nine 33.6K US Robotics modems connected. During our high times at night I had people actually come to the house to log on so they wouldn't have to wait for a line to open up, and I connected the primary voice line to the 9th modem to allow one close friend to get online if the board was full. I think our max people ever online was 12 at a time. The workstation computers that answered the phones were all running DOS 6.2 with DESQview. Most of them were nothing more than 386-SXs with a random bit of speed on one or another. The primary server was a 486-DX.

When I finally closed the BBS it was running on two 250 MB hard drives: one was my primary boot drive with Wildcat! on it, and the other was where all the doors and downloadable shareware were. I had a 6 CD changer running a shareware bonanza pack for downloads. In its final days the BBS had combined into one machine with an 8-port DigiBoard running on a dual Pentium 100 MHz machine with 32 MB of RAM. I acquired a set of 400 MB SCSI hard drives and used them as mass storage.

I still have both WORKING 250 MB hard drives in a box, and a few pieces of the old equipment just to remind me of what it was. I sold most of the modems and threw away a lot of the electronics recently. The BBS was fully built until 2003, when I joined the Navy.

As time goes on and I remember other little details, or can fill in the timeline better, I'll update this. For the moment this is all I can remember.

Sysop · Bobby Rubano