Bulletin Board Systems, or BBSes, were social applications on early computers that allowed local users to connect via personal computers and digitally "hang" with one another. They were virtually wiped out by the mass-acceptance of the Web and other Internet applications, but one dedicated computer historian is determined to keep this little bit of social software alive. Who knows, if it wasn't for BBSes, there's be no MUDs, no CounterStrike and no Ultima Online. It doesn't bear thinking about.
Long before the Internet escaped from the lab, connected the planet and redefined what it meant to use a computer...
....there was a brave and pioneering band of computer users who spent their time, money and sanity setting up their home computers and phone lines to welcome anyone who called. By using a modem, anyone else who knew the phone number of these computers could connect to them, leave messages, send and recieve files.... and millions did.
They called these places "Bulletin Board Systems", or BBSes. And their collections of messages, rants, thoughts and dreams became the way that an entire generation learned about being online.
When the Internet grew in popularity in the early 1990s, the world of the BBS faded, changed, and became a part of the present networked world.. but it wasn't the same.
Go here to order your copy of BBS: The Documentary and pay your respects to connectivity.
Via boing boing
