Ward Christensen, born in West Bend

West Bend, Wisconsin

West Bend is a city in and the county seat of Washington County, Wisconsin, United States in southeastern Wisconsin. The population was estimated to be 29,894 in 2008...

, Wisconsin

Wisconsin

Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...

, U.S., is the founder of the CBBS

CBBS

CBBS was a computer software program created by Ward Christensen to allow him and other computer hobbyists to exchange information between one another....

 bulletin board, the first bulletin board system

Bulletin board system

A Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer system running software that allows users to connect and log in to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, a user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging...

 (BBS) ever brought online. Christensen, along with partner Randy Seuss, started development during a blizzard in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

, and officially established CBBS four weeks later, on February 16, 1978.

Christensen was noted for building software tools for his needs. He wrote a cassette-based operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

 before floppies

Floppy

Floppy may refer to:* Floppy disk or floppy disk drive* Floppy disk controller* The Floppy Show* Mr. Floppy from the Sitcom Unhappily Ever After* Mr Floppy Australian rock band* Floppy a character from The Magic Key...

 and hard disk

Hard disk

A hard disk drive is a non-volatile, random access digital magnetic data storage device. It features rotating rigid platters on a motor-driven spindle within a protective enclosure. Data is magnetically read from and written to the platter by read/write heads that float on a film of air above the...

s were common. When he lost track of the source code

Source code

In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...

 for some programs

Computer program

A computer program is a sequence of instructions written to perform a specified task with a computer. A computer requires programs to function, typically executing the program's instructions in a central processor. The program has an executable form that the computer can use directly to execute...

 he wrote ReSource, an iterative disassembler

Disassembler

A disassembler is a computer program that translates machine language into assembly language—the inverse operation to that of an assembler. A disassembler differs from a decompiler, which targets a high-level language rather than an assembly language...

 for the Intel 8080

Intel 8080

The Intel 8080 was the second 8-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel and was released in April 1974. It was an extended and enhanced variant of the earlier 8008 design, although without binary compatibility...

, to help him regenerate the source code

Source code

In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...

. When he needed to send files to Randy Suess he wrote XMODEM

XMODEM

XMODEM is a simple file transfer protocol developed as a quick hack by Ward Christensen for use in his 1977 MODEM.ASM terminal program. XMODEM became extremely popular in the early bulletin board system market, largely because it was so simple to implement...

.

Christensen received two 1992 Dvorak Awards for Excellence in Telecommunications

Dvorak Awards

The Dvorak Awards for Excellence in Communication were established by computing columnist John C. Dvorak. Ascend Communications was their primary sponsor, but other businesses both inside and outside the computing industry also assumed sponsorship. The awards were given from 1992 through 1997...

, one with Randy Seuss for developing the first BBS, and a lifetime achievement award "for outstanding contributions to PC telecommunications." In 1993 he received the Pioneer Award

EFF Pioneer Award

The EFF Pioneer Award is an annual prize for people who have made significant contributions to the empowerment of individuals in using computers. Until 1998 it was presented at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., USA. Thereafter it was presented at the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference...

 from the Electronic Frontier Foundation

Electronic Frontier Foundation

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States...

.

Christensen has been working for IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

as a technical sales specialist since 1968.