IFX Group History

The original core group formed in April of 1986 out of several college friends with shared interests in computers. The collective interests of the group covered a much wider range of disciplines including music, graphic art, programming and communication.

The computer hardware platforms of choice in those days ranged from Commodore and Atari computers to early IBM XT and 286 clones. There were members of the group that even designed and built custom computer hardware platforms for applications outside the ability of commercial computer hardware of the day.

The name for the group came from a series of random letters found on Oklahoma license plates at the time. The plates used three letters followed by three numbers. When the three letters I F X started to appear, it was obvious that when pronounced (eye effects), it fit our eclectically creative and artistic group.

In April of 1988 we found our first commercial customer and started our first full time commercial online service under the name Professional Data Systems that served as the promotional face for the computer and software company of the same name. This online service was continuously available until the end in November of 1998. The software used to run the service ranged from QuickBBS, written by Adam Hudson to TBBS written by Phil L. Becker (he later employed Adam Hudson).

By 1990, the IFX Group was well into the business of developing and marketing online entertainment and utility software for bulletin board operators all over the world. The rights and complete source code for the last of our online entertainment software, Virtual Sysop, were sold to Tom Faulkner in 1996. It was clear that the world was moving away from localized BBS islands towards the Internet and the IFX Group was working hard to help our customers make a smooth transition.

The main focus of the group shifted in the late 1990's to more Internet based solutions. The platform of choice for both firewall security and robust service was a new product created by Phil Becker called the IPAD (hardware with embedded software) and later IPAD-OS (the operating system software alone). This product was so far ahead of the times that even more than a decade later the world has yet to catch up to Mr. Becker's original vision, security or performance.

A strong belief in the original IPAD-OS vision has put the IFX Group right in the middle of new development for the IPAD-OS. This is both an effort to improve the operating system and an effort to extend the original vision to the place no general purpose operating system can ever go.

In 2004, after a year of research and writing effort, the IFX Group took our first step into the world of print publishing. The first book was a technical guide for the IPAD-OS. This guide covered every part of the IPAD-OS to a level of detail never before possible and was very well received.

In April 2008 the IFX Group celebrated our 20th anniversary. We are still following our original mission to provide help where needed. A recent example is our growing collection of information and resources for those wishing to try Linux on the desktop. But on a more fun side, we have also opened up an idea forum for just about anything our members and customers can imagine. We like to think of this collection as the seeds of invention.

The work continues. Keep checking back for updates.