Typed in random letters. What is this subreddit about? reddit / bbs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cameroncac · 2015-04-29 02:26 Just wondering. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- vivvasekkta · 2015-04-29 04:21 I hope you don't mind if I ELI5 this for you. I don't mean to be condescending, I promise. :) BBS stands for Bulletin Board System(s). It is a pre-public Internet means of telecommunication. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MGJon · 2015-04-29 13:44 To expand on /u/vivvasekkta's answer: [Here's the Wikipedia entry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system) [Here's a documentary about it](http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/) [Here's a list of active BBS's](http://www.telnetbbsguide.com/) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cameroncac · 2015-04-29 15:07 Ok thanks! I just typed in random letters like I said. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sysop_2400 · 2015-04-29 15:20 Before cellphones or the www, or before most people could get on the Internet, people still wanted to chat and play games with each other. Some people would let other people's computer call theirs so they could do that. Some even got many phone lines so a lot of people could call at once, even up to 256. BBSs could be a computer in someone's bedroom, or a whole bunch of computers connected to hundreds of phone lines costing many thousands of dollars a month to run. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cameroncac · 2015-04-29 15:23 Ok, Cool! Thanks! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PhotoJim99 · 2015-04-29 21:52 And they were a blast. Good times. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- vivvasekkta · 2015-04-30 01:12 I really, really love that Jason Scott documentary. If anyone hasn't seen it yet, it is well worth the time to watch it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mro_1337 · 2015-04-30 20:53 i didnt like it. he interviewed all those people but only used a few mins of the interviews. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- greg8872 · 2015-05-03 05:45 [Here's a sign of a house with a BBS in it's basement](http://i.imgur.com/GtO1Vmc.jpg).... Top wire is power, middle wire cable tv, bottom fat line, 64 pair trunk phone line. We never went past 16 lines in use at that location though. Google maps didn't have street view of other location that was the main BBS with 32 lines, it looks more interesting becasue lines were added over time so there are 35 total phone lines strung from the pole to the house. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sysop_2400 · 2015-05-03 12:30 Oh man, that sounds like it was an awesome board. What software were you guys running? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- greg8872 · 2015-05-03 12:52 TBBS (with TDBS). The original BBS was set up in a township east of Akron Ohio. Back then it cost money to call from the west side to there, so the owner paid for someone who lived in the middle to have a phone line in their house that did nothing but forward off to his main number so people could call for free. Many of us paid for "unlimited" memberships, however some people felt that allowed them to connect and just stay connected all day long so they didn't have to fight busy signals that usually happened in evenings. Well they got told no, got mad, and spent a ton of money to set up competing 32 line BBS... The war had begun! Well one of the shots fired by the owners of the new BBS was to notify the phone company that the number which was residential was for business purpose, that did not allow free forwarding. (oh, and then they also busted him for using 33 residential lines instead of business lines, that was pricey fee and increase in his phone bill) So then another BBS setup was started in the middle of Akron (the photo above), where we got go have fun with the "new thing" at the time of tieing chat boards between 2 TBBS systems together. (At times we even had a BBS from Oregon that would link their chat as well). Well being local, it wasn't faceless people online, we all had our weekly parties, was a big family of core users, and like all families, bickering began, and led to fights, so the 16 line bbs separated, and now there was a 3-way bbs war in town. The internet eventually killed it, why pay for BBS when you could pay $20/month for internet. My BBS (single line Maximus) even fell to the internet, becasue on '96 I ended up using the dedicated phone line for internet access till we finally got boradband a few months later. I wasted many years playing on BBS's as well as programming for them. (and sometimes hacking them) If only I had been smart enough to do that kinda stuff for money instead of fun. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ShooterJennings · 2015-05-05 18:26 it's a great doc. I immediately watched it a second time. Just brought me back to those good ol' times. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sysop_2400 · 2015-05-07 13:22 Oh man, that sounds pretty damned epic. Were you involved at all with setting up that second 32 line system? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- greg8872 · 2015-05-07 14:03 Not setting up that one (but I had set up and played with a 2line version of TBBS, but preferred Maximus for my own board). I was more involved in writing games/apps for the BBS and helping with things like issues with the door computers. TBBS didn't run standard "Door" games (being a multiline system that ran off off of a single program running, it couldn't just drop and execute a game) , so there were two stand alone computers that ran door games that people could access one at a time. The programming we did was using TDBS which was based off of dBase 4 I think it was. One of my best tools I wrote was a "DOS" emulator, that looks and behaved like you were in DOS. (couldn't actually run a program though). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sysop_2400 · 2015-05-07 14:30 Haha, oh man, I remember waiting for a door server to open... The board that I found myself calling home was MBBS/WG3, none of that pesky waiting for door to open. Never did get around to writing my own software for it, but did do a buncha screen! aND LeaRNeD To TyPe LiKe THiS WaY Too FaST. hahaha ---------------------------------------------------------------------- chairmanmow · 2015-05-09 21:41 Big beautiful Sluts! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cameroncac · 2015-05-10 03:21 Ew, You butter huffers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mak1405 · 2015-05-29 01:31 You know where I can buy it digitally? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- vivvasekkta · 2015-05-29 01:40 IIRC, Jason Scott made it free to distribute. You can watch it on archive.org here: https://archive.org/details/BBS.The.Documentary Enjoy. :D ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mak1405 · 2015-05-29 13:11 Thanks I thought I was pirating