Canada Remote Systems

Canada Remote Systems, or simply CRS, was a major commercial bulletin board system located in the Toronto area. It was one of the earliest commercial systems outside the "big iron" companies such as CompuServe or The Source, and survived into the 1990s before being overwhelmed by the internet and closing down.

CRS was founed by Jud Newell in 1979 (another source says 1981) as a small two-line system running on the then top-of-the-line PCBoard system. It grew over the next few years to become one of the first really large BBS systems, which allowed its users to carry on conversations with thousands of local residents. At the time the average BBS system was run on a single 300 or 1200 baud modem and had extremely limited storage space (hard drives were not yet common) for messages or files. CRS offered a practical "middle ground" between the expensive mainframe systems and the local BBS, both in terms of pricing and features.

During the late 1980s the growth of the FidoNet upset this balance. Now a user could call into their local BBS system and have conversations with users from all over the world -- although practically this was limited to North America. CRS's value as a place to hold conversations with thousands of people no longer separated it from any other BBS. PCBoard did support a Fido-like system known as NaNet, but this was supported by PCBoard only and thus had a much smaller amount of traffic than the platform independant Fido. For some time CRS offered a NaNet hub service to other PCBoard operators in Ontario in order to increase the user base, but this effort was never particularily successful and CRS's support wavered in an on-again, off-again fashion.

With the message traffic no longer a major driver, CRS decided to regain relivance by greatly expanding its file section, adding considerable amounts of online storage and greatly improved modem speeds. In 1992 they could claim to be the largest PCBoard system in the world with over 250 lines and about 10,000 paid members. However their agressive growth led the company being forced into receivership in August 1990, with a secured debt of about $275,000 and about $300,000 in unsecured debt, of which about half was owed to Bell Canada. A group of investors known as Delrina led by Neil Fleming restarted the company as CRS Online, with Jud moving into an "evangelist" position. They also added a number of other BBS systems aimed at online chat, which PCBoard did not support very well, at least in large multi-machine installations.

In 1996 CRS Online was purchased by a growing internet service provider, iStar Internet. It appears their interest was primarily in CRS's infrastructure, notably their modems, phone lines and rack space. CRS itself quickly disappeared.