Feb 16 is the BBS's 32nd birthday

On this day in 1978, Ward Christensen and Randy Suess launched the first-ever dial-up BBS, in Chicago. They got the idea while trapped inside during a blizzard, and published it in Byte magazine.

It was several decades before the hardware or the network caught up to Christensen and Suess' imaginations, but all the basic seeds of today's online communities were in place when the two launched the first bulletin board, dubbed CBBS for computerized bulletin board system. The two developers announced their creation to the world in the November 1978 issue of Byte magazine.
The article created a stir among hobbyists and hackers, and it wasn't long before others begin building clones of CBBS. By the mid-1980s, BBSs supported an active community with no less than three magazines devoted to covering the latest in the proto-online world.

Feb. 16, 1978: Bulletin Board Goes Electronic

(Image: Penguin Pete)

Previously:

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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I really did not like the internet as it gained in popularity. I was running my Wildcat! BBS, and what I liked best about BBS networking was that the people on them tended to be from regional communities, you could meet the people you spoke to online, locally. It was a simpler time, when there were no network security issues or threats other than the common computer cold, with BBS’s.

The internet ruined everything, and came like a US Military assault upon the ruling Sysops of the day, and their scattered yet interconnected BBS systems, on networks like FidoNet, and USNet, and others, which interconnected the BBS systems into a global network one might call the undernet, which did not route all global traffic through the pentagon… But Microsoft was set to launch Windows 95, and was about to make their own private global network by linking regional hubs they set up all over the world, and so the arpanet was unleashed to cut Microsoft off at the pass, and in one fell swoop,
the internet killed the BBS star.

To this day, the BBS has lost none of it’s charm and beauty, security and simplicity, and a small number of die-hard old-school sysops still run their dialup BBS’s for like minded former BBSers and old Sysops, and while one can not find lists of thousands of BBS’s up now, as back in the early 90′s, one can still find the short lists of holdouts from simpler times, when plain text and ansi graphics ruled the computer networking world.

Happy birthday BBS, and many more!
valis

Yes, BBS ruled and I still love the games, especially LORD (Legend of the Red Dragon). I even liked LORD 2!

I log in to a BBS almost everyday still via Facebook. Come relive the glory of 12 levels, 1 kind of Dragon, and Violet and Seth in the inn.
http://apps.facebook.com/endoftheinternet/
Not my site or app, I just play under the name Valis there too.
Anonymous

Oh man, cassette tapes! Spangles! Old school man, old school…
sleze

MajorBBS FTW! Onix rules!
greywind

All 8 episodes of The BBS Documentary by Jason Scott are available online. A nice little bit of Nostalgia there.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1731271864657931901#
rasputinaxp

Zmodem, baby!
gswetsky

Happy birthday Ward, Randy and chinet cbbs! Let’s see, this means vpnet (aka vpnet.uucp, vpnet.chi.il.us) started up about 29 or 30 years ago. It’s nice to have been just a little bit of history.

Gerry
Anonymous

The bbs scene is still quite active and alive. http://bbs-scene.org
Anonymous

what about hacker’s haven? I miss that one…
Anonymous

Hi everyone,

Well i use to be a sysop of 3 bbs on Color 64 (Commodore 64) from 1985 to 1998.

I am in Lachine (Montreal),Quebec,Canada and at the time i was at the same town.

For sure,i still got memories of it,cost me quiet a dollar here for phone lines and extras.

Internet have killed BBS,Telidon and many other old systems and services.

But,i still from here to there they are still some few bbs in Canada and USA on dial-up…boy!.

I remember that i didn’t have a call for 1 month on any systems at the very end,only wrong numbers!.

I think that the next thing that will go eventualy is postal letters that are already replaced by e-mails and also fax machines will gradually go.

I see that some bbs systems are now getting back online for very less $$$ by using telnet,i have seen quiet few Commodore,IBM,Atari and so…using a bridge or simply an emulator (for old computers) on a PC….wow!.

I wonder sometimes,if it would not be better to let memories where they are,they will never be the same anymore anyways,what do you think?.

Salutations to all of you!.
Guy
:o)
Pantograph

Aaaahh the good old days of BBSes, before the internet or caller ID when you misdialled in the middle of the night and you heard an angry voice through your modem speaker… Good times.
benher

300 baud baby! Now that’s nostalgia!
- Anonymous
  
  300 Baud? Try 110 youngster! :)
SleighBoy

ATZ
ATA OK

…

ATH
NO CARRIER
neurolux

Happy 100000th!
rebdav

I had the 300 baud TRS-80 cartridge. My mother sprung for a month of The Source in the early 80′s, but cancelled after a month, I guess it was expensive. I remember fidonet on some of the bbs’s but I had nobody to email at the time. The modem was confiscated and lost when I started racking up calls to BBS’s.

After convincing my parents the first trs-80 was going bad, I had taped over the vents, they got a second. You could network them by connecting the audio in/out at the tape drive plugs.
Anonymous

http://bbsdocumentary.com :D
Anonymous

Procomm Plus….Ah those where the days. I remember getting my first 1200 baud. I lived in Los Angeles. Called about 100 BBS’s. The next month my phone bill came in for $750 for TOLL CALLS. Ah the memories.
Galoot

Thank you, Ward and Randy! Because of you, 15 years later I met my wife online.

Two years after that, BBSes were on the outs, but the marriage is still going strong.
Anonymous

Beep boop boop beep beep boop boop

Weeeee-eeeee-eeeee-oooo-oooo weeeoooo weeeoo P’shuhhhhhhhhhhh KUH-SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH