"We're either talking to each other on POPnet or driving around together in a car we bought," said Crook.
      What do they talk about? "Jokes, cars, parties, and women," Crook said.  Orem doesn't monitor private lines, but if the jokes get too dirty on the open channel, he may yank the offender's password and call him at home to warn against it.
     Subscribers have been known to concoct elaborate fantasies on the tube.
     "One guy was making up things to tell a cop if you get pulled over," said Weiss, known as "Dave" after the character in the television show "Moonlighting." "We also made up our own religion."
     "One time they all pretended they were watching a movie together," said Judy Orem. "They'd say 'Shhh!', 'Pass the popcorn' or 'Sit down! I can't see!'"
     There have even been fantasy "marriages" between members, acted out before an audience of computer-linked friends. Zimmerman is currently "married" to a boy nicknamed "Jet Black," who, not coincidentally, is her boyfriend.
     POPnet is a relatively simple computer setup. The hardware is one Intel central processing until with 15 available hookups called modems. (For computer aficionados, it's a 640K CPU with a 10 megabyte hard disc. The 15 modems are 1,200 baud.) Subscribing to POPnet costs a one-time $10 fee plus 50 to 70 cents an hour. (Rates depend on time of day.)
     The software, or programming, includes the games, message boards and open channels developed by Orem and his son Peter, 17.
     A former systems analyst manager for BART, Frank Orem began POPnet when Peter Orem broke one computer in an attempt to upgrade it. Orem bought a new computer, but then a friend repaired the original unit.
     "I got the idea that if we had two units, we could talk to each other," he said. Together father and son developed some computer games that used two terminals. But, rather than marketing the games--since software is easily copied without royalty payment--Orem decided to set up a network for users to call in.
     Setting up the network, said Orem, has been a profitable small business. The systems are designed to attract a maximum of 400 subscribers living within a local, toll-free calling area. He is now selling the 15- and 23-modem systems for up to $13,500. In addition to the Walnut Creek network, systems are now set up in San Ramon and Maryland. A fourth system is scheduled to open in Berkeley-El Cerrito by the end of the year.
     Orem said that parents generally approve of their children using POPnet--"as long as they don't tie up the phone lines. Some of the kids have to get their own phone lines.
     "One dad told me he doesn't mind paying the POPnet fee because now is son is talking to people, not just playing games with a machine."
 

Return to home