the development of off-line readers (OLRs). The first CIX OLR was TelePathy (DOS-based), which developed into the first Windows OLR - WigWam (now an open-source project, under the name Virtual Access). The first official Windows OLR for CIX was called Ameol, from A Most Excellent Off-Line Reader. This handled email, CIX conferencing and Usenet, and is still freely available. It was written independently by Steve Palmer in 1994. The official desktop client is now CIXReader and runs on Windows XP or later and is freely available to all subscribers. Many other OLRs, written by CIX users, are also available for other operating systems, such as Nicola on the Amiga, and Polar for Psion PDAs. Augur is an Open Source OLR designed for CIX. In 1996, it was decided to port the system to Sun hardware, and upgrade the bank of modems. ISDN dial up access, and ability to use the Internet to blink (a term used to collect messages) were also introduced. Example conferences Some of the busiest conferences on CIX are enquire_within (general discussion), bikers, windows_xp (support for, and discussion of, Windows XP), windows_vista, digital_tv, philology (words and their derivations), cultmedia, mac (support for, and discussion of, Apple computers and macOS), Amiga (discussion of the 68k/PPC Amiga platforms), carp (the Campaign for Real Pedantry - discussion of any fine points of detail, often concentrating on the use and abuse of the English language), internet, own.business, gussets_live! and gps (Global Positioning System). Another busy conference is sasha_lubetkin, a conference for a much loved member of the system with the same name. See also WELL - Still-active US precursor of CIX BIX - the Byte Information eXchange References Disembodied Fellowship & Real-Time Ribs by Davey Winder Bug Hunting in Corel Need to Know, Blinking rules PC Pro, How to be an internet Guru. Davey Winder External links ICUK Website CIX Forums CIX Office CIXReader CIX VFR Club Internet forums Bulletin board systems Pre–World Wide Web online services