ANTIC Interview 455 - Bill and David Lappen, Buy-Phone

Podcast: ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Podcast · Randy Kindig, Kay Savetz, Brad Arnold

Opublikowano: 2025-03-15

Bill and David Lappen, Buy-Phone It's a dangerous game in the computer history field to call anything the "first." But Buy-Phone is a very strong contender call itself the first online yellow pages. Years before before Yahoo!, before Craigslist, Buy-Phone was a text-based dial-up service — available at 300 and 1200 bits per second — that provided business listings, movie times, and personal ads, all for free to callers. The service launched in late 1982 and was limited to the West Los Angeles area. Buy-Phone was the brainchild of brothers Bill and David Lappen. Here's what the August 1984 issue of IEEE Computer wrote: "Buy-Phone's "electronic yellow p...