I was born in 1975 which means that I’m probably the last generation to know pre-internet means of going online. And that method is known as BBS.

The first BBS officially started accepting calls in 1978. It was called CBBS.

It is very difficult to describe with BBSing was like but I’ll give it my best shot.

Imagine for a moment that you have a computer with nothing but MS-DOS. There’s no GUI, meaning no Windows and usually no mouse. Your screen resolution is 80×25 (remember, VGA is 640×480). You have only 16 colors. You do not have a network card in the box. Only a serial port and a modem. And it’s a dial-up modem.

In your local area there are several BBSes. These are all run out of people’s homes. Not a single one is owned by any corporate entity except maybe the local computer shop (for towns that even had one). The only way you’ve ever been made aware these systems exist is by word-of-mouth alone.

Some of these systems interconnect with each other via FidoNET while others are simply islands unto themselves – but that’s okay because they usually have good online games.

Since there was no such thing as included long distance call plans at this time and you didn’t feel like opening your wallet to the phone company, you stayed within your LCA (local calling area).

Most local BBSes were single-node, meaning they could only accept one caller at a time. If you called and the line was busy, you just had to wait. Multi-node systems were out there but were few and far between.

So now you wanted to call one of these systems up. How do you do it?

If you had Windows 3.1 you could connect via the black-and-white program called (appropriately) Terminal and then download a better MS-DOS client that had color support – assuming the BBS even had one for download available (which most did).

If you had just MS-DOS, you usually got a freeware dialer app from a friend on floppy disk and had to Sneakernet it to your computer.

And then you call. You finally hear a ring. The modem handshake noise starts and you connect.

What’s on a BBS? Local message boards, games, binary files and text files. That was pretty much it.

But it was awesome.

There was a literal feeling of excitement when you connected and got online. It was cool, it was local and it was free. You could post a message and someone would usually respond back. You could play really awesome turn-based online games.

The person who ran a BBS was called a Sysop (pronounced siss-ahp). I was a Sysop at one point in the early 90s and ran my own BBS.

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There is a small possibility BBSes might actually make a comeback. What’s making it a possibility is the increasing censorship on the internet. Big Telecom has said in no uncertain terms that yes, things will be censored. It’s already in effect right now by having certain Usenet newsgroups that are simply unavailable to subscribe to via your local ISP – on purpose.

If there’s any absolute in the computing world, BBSes cannot be censored. There is simply no way any governmental institution could shut them all down without taking the phone service for everyone offline. I can guarantee you that if internet censorship gets out of control for whatever reasons, the BBS will be there.

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If you’d like to experience what a BBS is like, head over to USBBS List. Many systems are available on dial-up and telnet.

For Microsoft Windows XP users:

You can connect to any telnet BBS via the internet by launching a command prompt and typing telnet and then o [ip address or hostname]. The color support is very good and emulation is proper.

And if you dare, you can dial a system by using HyperTerminal. This is a built-in program in XP and you can get to it via Start / All Programs / Accessories / Communications / HyperTerminal. Make sure to set your font to Terminal, a built-in Windows font.

For further reference

There is a documentary called BBS: The Documentary. You can purchase this or view it online on Google Video. This film describes BBSing and the experience far better than I ever could.

Posted In: Editorials

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