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Bulletin board system
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A Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer system running software that allows users to connect and login to the system using a terminal program. Originally BBSes were accessed only over a phone line using a modem, but by the early 1990s some BBSes allowed access via a Telnet, packet switched network, or packet radio connection.
Once logged in, a user could perform functions such as downloading or uploading software and data, reading news, and exchanging messages with other users, either through electronic mail or in public message boards.
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Encyclopedia
A Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer system running software that allows users to connect and login to the system using a terminal program. Originally BBSes were accessed only over a phone line using a modem, but by the early 1990s some BBSes allowed access via a Telnet, packet switched network, or packet radio connection.
Once logged in, a user could perform functions such as downloading or uploading software and data, reading news, and exchanging messages with other users, either through electronic mail or in public message boards. Many BBSes also offered on-line games, in which users could compete with each other, and BBSes with multiple phone lines often offered chat rooms, allowing users to interact with each other.
The term "Bulletin Board System" itself is a reference to the traditional cork-and-pin bulletin board often found in entrances of supermarkets, schools, libraries or other public areas where people can post messages, advertisements, or community news.
During their heyday from the late 1970s to the mid 1990s, most BBSes were run as a hobby free of charge by the system operator (or "SysOp"), while other BBSes charged their users a subscription fee for access, or were operated by a business as a means of supporting their customers. Bulletin Board Systems were in many ways a precursor to the modern form of the World Wide Web and other aspects of the Internet.
Early BBSes were often a local phenomenon, as one had to dial into a BBS with a phone line and would have to pay additional long distance charges for a BBS out of the local calling area. Thus, many users of a given BBS usually lived in the same area, and activities such as BBS Meets or Get Togethers, where everyone from the board would gather and meet face to face, were common.
As the use of the Internet became more widespread in the mid to late 1990s, traditional BBSes rapidly faded in popularity. Today, Internet forums occupy much of the same social and technological space as BBSes did, and the term BBS is often used to refer to any online forum or message board.
BBSing survives as a niche hobby for those who enjoy running BBSes and those users who remember BBSing as an enjoyable pastime. Most BBSes are now accessible over telnet and typically offer free email accounts, FTP services, IRC chat and all of the protocols commonly used on the Internet.
History
A notable precursor to the public Bulletin Board System was Community Memory, started in 1972 in Berkeley, California, using hardwired terminals located in neighborhoods.
The first public dial-up Bulletin Board System was developed by Ward Christensen. According to an early interview, while he was snowed in during the Great Blizzard of 1978 in Chicago, Christensen along with fellow hobbyist Randy Suess, began preliminary work on the Computerized Bulletin Board System, or CBBS. CBBS went online on February 16, 1978 in Chicago, Illinois.
With the original 110 and 300 baud modems of the late 1970s, BBSes were particularly slow, but speed improved with the introduction of 1200 bit/s modems in the early 1980s, and this led to a substantial increase in popularity. One bulletin board service in California was run by a volunteer for the Gun Owners Group which spanned the state. It was run by Sharon Woods using an old IBM XT computer with a black screen and dial-up modem at 1200 baud.
Most of the information was presented using ordinary ASCII text or ANSI art, though some BBSes experimented with higher resolution visual formats such as the innovative but obscure Remote Imaging Protocol. Such use of graphics taxed available channel capacity, which in turn propelled demand for faster modems.
Towards the early 1990s, the BBS industry became so popular that it spawned two monthly magazines, Boardwatch and BBS Magazine, which devoted extensive coverage of the software and technology innovations and people behind them, and listings to US and worldwide BBSes. In addition, a major monthly magazine, Computer Shopper, carried a list of BBSes along with a brief abstract of each of their offerings.
According to the FidoNet Nodelist, BBSes reached their peak usage around 1996, which was the same period that the World Wide Web suddenly became mainstream. BBSes rapidly declined in popularity thereafter, and were replaced by systems using the Internet for connectivity. Some of the larger commercial BBSes, such as ExecPC BBS, followed the logical convergence of technologies and became true Internet Service Providers.
The website textfiles.com serves as a collection point of historical data involving the history of the BBS. The owner of this site produced BBS: The Documentary, a program on DVD that features interviews with well-known people (mostly from the United States) from the "hey-day BBS" era.
The on textfiles.com contains over 105,000 BBSes that have existed over a span of 20 years in North America alone.
Software and hardware
Unlike modern websites and online services that are typically hosted by third-party companies in commercial server installations, BBS computers (especially for smaller boards) were typically operated from the SysOp's home. As such, access could be unreliable, and in many cases only one user could be on the system at a time. Only larger BBSes with multiple phone lines using specialized hardware, multitasking software, or a LAN connecting multiple computers, could host multiple simultaneous users.
The first BBSes used simple homebrew software, quite often written or customized by the SysOps themselves, running on early CP/M microcomputer systems such as the Altair 8800 and IMSAI 8080. Soon after, BBS software was being written for all of the major home computer systems of the era, the Apple II, Atari, and TRS-80 being some of the most popular.
A few years later in 1981, IBM introduced the PC-DOS (MS-DOS) based IBM PC, and BBS software for PCs (and later, PC clones) soon began appearing. However, early PC hardware was expensive and targeted primarily at professional and corporate users. With the introduction of the inexpensive and wildly popular Commodore 64 in 1982, many aspiring SyOps who could not afford an early IBM PC or clone, turned to the C64 as a BBS platform. As such, it spawned countless BBS software packages, many of which were based on forks of other packages. Popular commercial Commodore 64 BBS programs included Blue Board, Ivory BBS, Color64 and CNet 64.
In the early 1990s a small number of BBSes were running on the Commodore Amiga models 500 (using external hard drives), 1200, 2000, and 3000, and Amiga 4000 (which had built-in hard drives). Popular BBS software for the Amiga were ABBS, Amicon, CNet Amiga, Amiexpress, Infinity, StormForce BBS, TransAmiga BBS and Tempest.
By the late 1980s, prices began dropping on PC compatible systems, and low cost systems running MS-DOS became commodity items and began dominating the personal computer market. After Commodore International's bankruptcy in 1994, PC clones running MS-DOS became the platform on which the majority of BBS programs operated. Fido BBS was the first notable MS-DOS BBS program, created by Tom Jennings, who later founded FidoNet. There were several successful commercial BBS programs developed for MS-DOS, such as PCBoard BBS, RemoteAccess BBS, and Wildcat! BBS. Some popular freeware BBS programs for MS-DOS included Telegard BBS and Renegade BBS, both of which had early origins from, and were forks of, leaked WWIV BBS source code. There were several dozen other BBS programs developed over the MS-DOS era, and many were released under the shareware concept, while some were released as freeware.
MS-DOS continued to be the most popular operating system for BBS use up until the mid-1990s. During this time, some SysOps began expanding their BBSes to allow multiple users to access the system simultaneously. Most multi-node BBSes ran under a DOS-based multitasker such as DesqView, or were comprised of multple computers connected via a LAN. However, a handful of BBS packages implemented multitasking communications routines which, although ran under MS-DOS, allowed multiple phone lines and multiple users to connect to the same physical BBS computer. These included Galacticomm's MajorBBS (later WorldGroup), eSoft TBBS, Falken, Oracomm and DLX.
A noteworthy precursor of the multi-line BBS appeared a decade earlier as the Diversi-Dial (DDial) system, which allowed up to seven internal modems to be installed in one Apple IIe computer. The software also allowed the clustering of multiple computers to expand beyond the seven-line limit. DDials became popular for their chat room functionality, and multiple remote DDial "stations" could also be linked via dialup connections, creating a networked chat room where users on all the linked DDials could talk to each other.
By 1995 many of the MS-DOS based BBSes had switched over to 32-bit operating systems such as Windows 95, Windows NT, OS/2 and Linux. These operating systems provided more efficient use of system resources and allowed multi-user BBSes to be more easily deployed. DOSEMU running on Linux could even run legacy MS-DOS BBS software in a virtualized MS-DOS environment. By the late 1990s the most of the remaining BBSes evolved to include Internet hosting capabilities. By using modern BBS software such as Synchronet, WorldGroup, EleBBS or Wildcat! BBS, or by using legacy MS-DOS based BBS software with a FOSSIL-to-Telnet redirector such as NetFoss, users could connect to the BBS via Telnet instead of (or in addition to) a dial-up connection.
Presentation
BBSes were generally text-based, rather than GUI-based, and early BBSes conversed using the simple ASCII character set. However, some home computer manufacturers extended the ASCII character set to take advantage of the advanced color and graphics capabilities of their systems. BBS software authors included these extended character sets in their software, and terminal emulator software authors included the ability to display them when a compatible system was called. Atari's native character set was known as ATASCII, while most Commodore BBSes supported PETSCII. PETSCII was also supported by the nationwide online service Quantum Link, later known as America Online (AOL). The use of these custom character sets was generally incompatible between manufacturers. Unless a caller was using terminal emulation software written for, and running on, the same type of system as the BBS, the session would simply fall back to simple ASCII output. For example, a Commodore 64 user calling an Atari BBS would use ASCII rather than the machine's native character set. As time progressed, most terminal programs began using the ANSI standard, but could use their native character set if it was available.
A BBS GUI called Remote Imaging Protocol (RIP) was promoted by Telegrafix in the early to mid 1990s but it never became widespread. A similar technology called NAPLPS was also considered, and although it became the underlying graphics technology behind the Prodigy service, it never gained popularity in the BBS market. There were several GUI-based BBS's on the Apple Macintosh platform, including TeleFinder and FirstClass, but these remained widely used only in the Mac market.
In the UK, the BBC Micro based OBBS software, available from Pace for use with their modems, optionally allowed for colour and graphics using the Teletext based graphics mode available on that platform.
The most popular form of online graphics was ANSI art, which allowed replacing letters with IBM Extended ASCII blocks and symbols, allowed changing colors on demand, provided cursor control and screen formatting, and could even include sound. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, most BBSes used ANSI to make elaborate welcome screens, and colorized menus, and thus, ANSI support was a sought-after feature in client programs. The development of ANSI art became so popular that it spawned an entire BBS "artscene" subculture devoted to it.
Today, most BBS software that is still actively supported, such as WorldGroup, WildCat! BBS and Citadel/UX, is Web-enabled, and the traditional text interface has been replaced with (or operates concurrently) with a Web-based user interface. For those more nostalgic for the true BBS experience, one can use NetSerial (Windows) or DOSBox (Windows/*nix) to redirect DOS COM port software to telnet, allowing them to connect to Telnet BBSes using 1980s and 1990s era modem terminal emulation software, like Telix, Terminate, Qmodem and Procomm Plus. Modern 32-bit terminal emulators such as mTelnet and SyncTerm include native telnet support
Content and access
Since early BBSes were frequently run by computer hobbyists, they were typically technical in nature with user communities revolving around hardware and software discussions. Many SysOps were transplants of the amateur radio community and thus amateur and packet radio were often popular topics.
As the BBS phenomenon grew, so did the popularity of special interest boards. Bulletin Board Systems could be found for almost every hobby and interest. Popular interests included politics, religion, music, dating, and alternative lifestyles. Many SysOps also adopted a theme in which they customized their entire BBS (welcome screens, prompts, menus, etc) to reflect that theme. Common themes were based on fantasy, or were intended to give the user the illusion of being somewhere else, such as in a sanatorium, wizard's castle, or on a pirate ship.
Some BBSes, called "elite boards" or "warez boards", were exclusively used for distributing pirated software, phreaking, and other questionable or unlawful content. These BBSes often had multiple modems and phone lines, allowing several users to upload and download files at once. Most elite BBSes used some form of new user verification, where new users would have to apply for membership and attempt to prove that they were not a law enforcement officer or a lamer. The largest elite boards accepted users by invitation only. Elite boards also spawned their own subculture and gave rise to the slang known today as leetspeak.
Another common type of board was the "support BBS" run by a manufacturer of computer products or software. These boards were dedicated to supporting users of the company's products with question and answer forums, news and updates, and downloads. Most of them were not a free call. Today, these services have moved to the web.
Some general purpose Bulletin Board Systems had special levels of access that were given to those who paid extra money or knew the sysop personally. These specialty and pay BBSes usually had something special to offer their users such as large file libraries, warez, pornography, chat rooms or Internet access. The notorious Rusty n Edie's BBS was raided by the FBI in January 1993 for software piracy, and later sued in November 1997 by Playboy for copyright infringement.
Pay BBSes such as The WELL and Echo NYC (now Internet forums rather than dial-up), ExecPC, and MindVox (which folded in 1996) were admired for their tightly-knit communities and quality discussion forums. However, many "free" BBSes also maintained close knit communities, and some even had annual or bi-annual events where users would travel great distances to meet face-to-face with their on-line friends. These events were especially popular with BBSes that offered chat rooms.
Networks
Most early BBSes operated as stand-alone islands. Information contained on that BBS never left the system, and users would only interact with the information and user community on that BBS alone. However, as BBSes became more widespread, there evolved a desire to connect systems together to share messages and files with distant systems and users. The largest such network was FidoNet.
As is it was prohibitively expensive for the hobbyist SysOp to have a dedicated connection to another system, FidoNet was developed as a store and forward network. Private electronic mail (Netmail), public message boards (Echomail) and eventually even file attachments on a FidoNet-capable BBS would be bundled into one or more archive files over a set time interval. These archive files were then compressed with ARC or ZIP and forwarded to another nearby node or hub via a dialup Xmodem session. Messages would be relayed around various FidoNet hubs until they were eventually delivered to their destination. The hierarchy of FidoNet BBS nodes, hubs, and zones was maintained in a routing table called a Nodelist. Some larger BBSes and FidoNet hubs would make several transfers per day, some even to multiple nodes or hubs, and as such, transfers usually occurred at night or early morning when toll rates were lowest. In Fido's heyday, sending a Netmail message to a user on a distant FidoNet node, or participating in an Echomail discussion could take days, especially if any FidoNet nodes or hubs in the message's route only made one outgoing transfer call per day.
FidoNet was platform-independent and would work with any BBS that was written to use it. BBSes that did not have integrated FidoNet capability could usually add it using an external FidoNet front-end mailer such as FrontDoor, BinkleyTerm, InterMail or D'Bridge, and a scanner/packer/tosser program such as FastEcho or Squish. The front-end mailer would conduct the periodic FidoNet transfers, while the scanner/packer/tosser program would usually run just before and just after the mailer ran. This program would scan for and pack up new outgoing messages, and then unpack, sort and "toss" the incoming messages into a BBS user's local electronic mailbox or into the BBS's local message bases reserved for Echomail.
Many other BBS networks followed the example of FidoNet, using the same standards and the same software. These were called FidoNet Technology Networks (FTNs). They were usually smaller and targeted at selected audiences. Some networks used QWK doors, and others such as RelayNet (RIME) and WWIVnet used non-Fido software and standards.
Before commercial Internet access became common, these networks of BBSes provided regional and international e-mail and message bases. Some even provided gateways, such as UFGATE, by which members could send/receive e-mail to/from the Internet via UUCP, and many FidoNet discussion groups were shared via Usenet. Elaborate schemes allowed users to download binary files, search gopherspace, and interact with distant programs, all using plain text e-mail.
FidoNet is still in use today, though in a much smaller form, and many Echomail groups are still shared with Usenet via FidoNet to Usenet gateways. Widespread abuse of Usenet with spam and pornography has led to many of these FidoNet gateways to cease operation completely.
Shareware
Much of the "Shareware" movement was started via user distribution of software through BBSes. A notable example was Phil Katz's PKARC (and later PKZIP, using the same ".zip" algorithm that WinZip and other popular archivers now use); also other concepts of software distribution like freeware, postcardware like JPEGview and donationware like Red Ryder (software) for the Macintosh first appeared on BBS sites. Doom from id Software and many Apogee games were distributed as shareware. The Internet has largely erased the distinction of shareware - most users now download the software directly from the developer's web site rather than receiving it from another BBS user 'sharing' it. Today shareware is commonly used to mean electronically-distributed software from a small developer.
Many commercial BBS software companies that continue to support their old BBS software products switched to the shareware model or made it entirely free. Some companies were able to make the move to the Internet and provide commercial products with BBS capabilities.
Features
A classic BBS had:
The BBS software usually provides:
- Menu Systems
- One or more message bases
- File areas
- Voting Booths
- Statistics on Message Posters, Top Uploaders / Downloaders
- Online games (usually single player or only a single active player at a given time)
- A doorway to third-party online games
- Usage auditing capabilities
- Multi-user chat (only possible on multi-line BBSes)
- Internet email (more common in later Internet-connected BBSes)
- Networked message boards setup by the SysOp
- Most modern BBSes allow telnet access over the Internet using a telnet server and a virtual FOSSIL driver.
- A "yell for sysop" feature that would make the BBS computer emit an audible noise so that if the SysOp was near the computer and chose to respond, he or she could join a remote user in text-to-text chat.
See also
External links
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