r/BBS

Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) were an early form of message boards that predate the world wide web. The general idea of them was that users could connect and then view messages from other users and post their own messages. Initially every BBS was separate and posts to one system were not viewable from a different system.

The first BBS was developed by Ward Christensen during snow storm in Chicago and went online in February 1978. Users could connect to the system by using a modem and a phone line. At the time, modems ran at 100 or 300 baud (1 baud = 1 bit per second) which severely limited the speed of the system. (BBS History, 2009) As the system grew in popularity, many other systems sprung up in different areas including overseas. Part of the reason for the geographic spread is that paying for a long distance or overseas phone calls to connect to a BBS was become expensive and accessing a local BBS was far more affordable. In addition to the user needing to pay for the call to dial in, many systems also required users to register and pay a fee to cover the operation costs of the computer hosting the BBS as well as the dedicated phone lines and other hardware costs. (Teelucksingh, 2013) Another constraint of using phone lines to connect was that the maximum number of concurrent users on a system was limited by the number of lines or modems hooked up to the system.

Each BBS had its own style and overtime became known for different types of content, but they all had a similar set of features. Common features included: a forum or message board where users could make posts and respond to others, a way of talking to the administrator (sysop), a library of shared files, and a user directory. Later on, chat features were added as well as games and other custom features. The interface was entirely text based and typically was either ASCII or ANSI with a UI that resembles ncurses. This is a screen shot of The Keep BBS, which is hosted in Beaverton, Oregon (Edwards, 2016):

Throughout the 1980s, BBS grew in popularity and so more nodes came online everywhere. Improvement in modem technology also helped speed up systems by increasing the bitrate from around 300 baud to over 1000 baud in 1982 and 9600 baud in 1987. The increase in bandwidth also allowed users to start sharing different content on the bulletin boards including images and other files. This is where the idea of shareware software came from. Notable programs that were shared this was include Phil Katz's PKARC (an archiving program that creates and reads .zip files) and Doom from id Software. (BBS History, 2009)

Before 1983, each BBS was entirely independent, and no content was shared between them. This was a problem for users with uncommon hobbies that lived a long distance from other people with those same hobbies. If two people wanted to communicate over a BBS, they would both need to connect to the same node. As a result, at least one of them would have to connect to a node a long distance from where they lived. At the time, long distance phone calls cost much more than local phone calls and so it would cost more to access a distant BBS than local one. (Driscoll, 2016)

In 1984 Tom Jennings developed a BBS program for MS-DOS called Fido. As it grew, he added a feature that would allow multiple Fido BBSs to share data. This experiment resulted in FidoNet which spanned the globe and included 30 000 nodes by 1998. (Bulletin Board Systems & FidoNet History, n.d.) This helped connect users over long distances without requiring them to pay for long distance calls to reach the same node.

With the rise of the world wide web in 1996, BBS usage declined as other websites and forums took its place. (BBS Corner). Despite being largely replace by modern social media platforms, the general idea of BBS and FidoNet has been continued on reddit. The different nodes with their different themes and topics resemble different subreddits that have their own forums where users can make posts and comment. The popular DEF CON hacking conference was actually started as a result of a BBS network. The original conference was supposed to be a memorial for the end of Platinum Net in Canada. Platinum net was a hacking focused FidoNet based in Canada with users and BBSs spread across north America. The first DEF CON was organized by Dark Tangent who operated the Dark Tangent System and was held in Las Vegas in 1993. (DEF CON Communications, 2018)

Bulletin Board Systems have been around for a very long time and despite falling out of popularity in favor of other social media platforms, they have had many lasting impacts. They were partially responsible for an increase in modem speeds. They led were used to distribute the first shareware which has grown into the modern open source community. They led to the creation of conferences and were a precursor to the structure of reddit. But most importantly, they helped connect people in a time before the internet was wide spread. They lasted for more than 20 years before their decline in popularity and are still in use today by a small group of hobbyists. This means that they have lasted longer than any other social media platform and may very well outlast the current platforms.