A.A. History—month & day unknown

1986: By this time, A.A. meetings, or at least gatherings of A.A. friends, were being held on bulletin board systems (BBSs) in Seattle, Washington; San Francisco and Los Angeles, California; Chicago, Illinois; and likely other cities across the U.S. [right: welcome screen for the Dura-EuropaS BBS in Tacoma, Washington, 1986–93]. A few staff members at the General Service Office (GSO) in New York City were aware that A.A. members were meeting electronically and began maintaining contact addresses.

Little is known about the first A.A. members who reached out to others through computer-based communication. It is likely that those among the first to use email sought to connect with others to share their experience, strength, and hope. There are fragmentary records and oral histories of A.A. members using the earliest BBSs over local telephone connections via modems, which were both slow and unreliable. Hardware concerns were paramount, and while communication between computers over distances was possible, it was very challenging.

1986: A.A. members began meeting on Q-Link, also known as Quantum Link, an online service launched in 1986 as a precursor to modern Internet services. Within two years, the group grew to 200 members across the United States. Designed specifically for users of Commodore 64 and 128 home computers, Q-Link featured a relatively advanced graphical user interface for online services at the time [left: Q-Link home page, c. 1986]. It connected users via dial-up modems, typically at speeds of 300 or 1200 baud (bits per second [about 2.9–4.3 Mb per hour]), and offered a variety of innovative online services, including:

• online chat;
• multiplayer games;
• early versions of role-playing games;
• file sharing;
• email; and
• news, weather, and other information.

1986: The first mention of anything “online” in Box 4-5-9 appeared in the Holiday issue in an article [right] titled “A.A.W.S./Intergroup Seminar” (the first ever). Of the 82 Intergroups and Central Offices, “12 have on-line computers and 12 more are considering” going online.

1986: For the first time, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (AAWS) published the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, in a softcover (paperback) 3½" × 5½" format [left]. By the end of the year, approximately one softcover copy was sold for every nine hardcover copies (81,200 vs. 725,000).