BYTE in the October 1984 issue announced BYTEnet, "a project in computer conferencing", with 200 beta testers who received free service during the "experiment".
[2] The magazine formally announced BIX in the June 1985 issue, offering an introductory sign-up fee of $25, and evening and weekend charges of $6 per hour of connect time: the service offered direct numbers in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston.
[3] It was a text-only Bulletin Board System-style site running the CoSy conferencing software.
BYTE staff and writers such as Jerry Pournelle were active on the service,[8] and invitations for further discussion were printed with many articles in the magazine.
Lower prices and full page ads in BYTE were unsuccessful in turning the service around.