WFC screen
The BBS software's idle mode — "Waiting For Caller" — sitting on the sysop's monitor while the modem waited for the next call.
With nobody dialled in, packages such as WWIV, Telegard and Renegade showed a console full of the day's numbers: calls so far, last caller, new messages and uploads. From there the sysop could log in locally, kick off maintenance or break into chat with whoever had just connected.
It was more than a menu. It glowed in the room all night, and when the modem picked up and a handle appeared, the sysop knew exactly who was online — a kind of surveillance that felt perfectly natural when the board lived in your bedroom. Many packages added a screen blanker to WFC mode, because otherwise the layout burned itself into the phosphor.