Antic The Atari 8-bit Podcast

Bill and David Lappen, Buy-Phone   It's a dangerous game in the computer history field to call anything the "first." But Buy-Phone is a very strong contender call itself the first online yellow pages. Years before before Yahoo!, before Craigslist, Buy-Phone was a text-based dial-up service — available at 300 and 1200 bits per second — that provided business listings, movie times, and personal ads, all for free to callers. The service launched in late 1982 and was limited to the West Los Angeles area. Buy-Phone was the brainchild of brothers Bill and David Lappen.   Here's what the August 1984 issue of IEEE Computer wrote:    "Buy-Phone's "electronic yellow pages" service for Los Angeles is answering over 3000 consumer requests per day, on any thing trom movies to restaurants to auto repair - and the best part? It's all free. The philosophy was to provide sponsored information paid for by the advertiser, not the consumer. The computer organizes over 10,000 listings to respond exactly to the caller's request. A