BBS (Bulletin Board System)
More info
- Creator
- Ward Christensen, Randy Suess
- Released
- Type
- System / dial-up service
- Wikipedia
- en.wikipedia.org
Dial-up server running on a home computer (usually in the sysop's basement) — reachable via modem, for messaging, file sharing, doors and multi-user games. Ward Christensen & Randy Suess, 1978.
Defining traits: ANSI art (coloured text graphics via escape codes), door games (LORD, TradeWars 2002), echomail/netmail across FidoNet (a transnational pre-Internet mesh of BBSes). Single line, two line, seven line — the number of simultaneous dial-ins was a status symbol.
Peaked around 1995, killed by the commercialisation of the web. Hundreds of BBSes are still alive via telnet/SSH — Synchronet and Mystic are the modern server packages. A nostalgic chapter of the net's prehistory.