CoSy (computer conferencing system)

CoSy was an early computer conferencing system developed at the University of Guelph. The CoSy (COnferencing SYstem) software grew out of an interest in group computer mediated communication systems in 1981 by Dick Mason and John Black at the University of Guelph . A project was initiated in the Institute of Computer Science to investigate and possibly acquire an asynchronous computer conferencing system, and a small team of Bob McQueen, Alastair Mayer and Peter Jaspers-Fayer undertook investigation of two existing systems, EIES from New Jersey, and COM from Sweden. It was then decided that developing a new system in-house would be the best path to take, and a new system started to take shape, written in C, and operating under a UNIX operating system on a Digital Equipment Corporation PDP11 with dial-up telephone ports. Much thought was given to the user interface and group interaction processes, especially as most of the user dial-up connections were originally at very slow 300 bits (30 characters) per second through acoustic modems. The system was gradually introduced to and tested by a small group of users, and eventually made available to other external organizations beginning in 1983.[1] Licenses to use the Unix version of the software were granted to other sites, mainly universities, and a VMS version was also developed and made available for license. CoSy was selected by Byte Magazine to launch their BIX system in 1985[2]

In addition to BIX, it was used to implement a similar British system named CIX, as well as numerous other installations such as CompuLink Network. CoSy was also chosen for The Open University's "electronic campus".[3]

Some rights to the software were later acquired by the British Columbia company SoftWords, who developed it into CoSy400 and added a simple web interface, before losing interest.

When the BIX system closed down, several former "bixen" approached University of Guelph and SoftWords and obtained the right to release the original version of CoSy under the GPL. It is now developed as an open source project, and was the basis of the BIX-like NLZero (Noise Level Zero) conferencing service.

References
  1. Meeks, Brock N. (December 1985). "An Overview of Conferencing Systems". Byte. 10 (13): 169–184. The CoSy conferencing system at Guelph formally went on line in April of 1983. 'We started charging people real money for the service in the fall of 1984,' said Mayer.
  2. Cocivera, Mary (June 20, 1985). "'BYTE' magazine goes for CoSy". Guelph University News Bulletin. University of Guelph Information Services. p. 1. ISSN 0229-2378.
  3. Waggoner, Michael (1992). Empowering Networks: Computer Conferencing in Education. New Jersey: Educational Technology. p. 73. ISBN 0-87778-238-5. Retrieved November 16, 2009.


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