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SteveDallas · 04-23-2004, 08:33 AM

A BBS is a Bulletin Board System.

You younger folks are used to the Internet... more or less, every computer can talk to every other computer. Back in the olden days, however, most people with modems dialed up to specific computer systems, and those systems didn't talk to each other. For example, Compuserve was one of the earliest and biggest ones. You could chat, read message boards, and download files (the actual display of pictures was heavily limited by available technology). So you could dial up and use Compuserve, but that was it--Compuserve didn't interact with Delphi or Genie or any of the other online services.

A BBS was basically a smaller version of that. It was usually run by a single person (the "sysop") on a single computer. Many of them only had one telephone line, so only one person could dial in at once. Successful BBSs would usually end up with more lines, and some of them even made money. (Primarily, I'm guessing, the ones that let subscribers download naughty pictures.)

In the heyday of BBS culture (late 1980s, say, into the early 1990s), listings of BBSs in the Philadelphia metro area took several pages.

04-23-2004, 08:33 AM	#5
SteveDallas Your Bartender Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Philly Burbs, PA Posts: 7,651	A BBS is a Bulletin Board System. You younger folks are used to the Internet... more or less, every computer can talk to every other computer. Back in the olden days, however, most people with modems dialed up to specific computer systems, and those systems didn't talk to each other. For example, Compuserve was one of the earliest and biggest ones. You could chat, read message boards, and download files (the actual display of pictures was heavily limited by available technology). So you could dial up and use Compuserve, but that was it--Compuserve didn't interact with Delphi or Genie or any of the other online services. A BBS was basically a smaller version of that. It was usually run by a single person (the "sysop") on a single computer. Many of them only had one telephone line, so only one person could dial in at once. Successful BBSs would usually end up with more lines, and some of them even made money. (Primarily, I'm guessing, the ones that let subscribers download naughty pictures.) In the heyday of BBS culture (late 1980s, say, into the early 1990s), listings of BBSs in the Philadelphia metro area took several pages.