Week 3, Task 2

Bulletin Board Systems 

Buletin Board Systems (BBS) are a computer operating software that allows users to connect their computers and share data between them. Actually these programs were in use long before the age of the internet dawned. The first BBS was created on February 19 1973 by two computer scientists Ward Christensen and Randy Suess and was called the “Computerised Bulletin Board System” (Ballas, J "Bulletin board systems: a nostalgic look back." Computers in Libraries 13.5, 1993). In the beginning these systems were largely used by universities and libraries, but by the late 1970s many private users had appeared. A  BBS worked by a central computer that connected the different members (System Operator/SYSOP) (Spencer, Bruce, “A brief history of the Internet “Aardsma, T L. Inside the Internet8. 8 Aug 2001) and sometimes this SysOp operated the BBS as a hobby and provided his service for free and sometimes charged hios members a fee for access to the BBS.

The 80s and early 90s were the heyday of the BBS culture with an estimated 1,56 million users in 1993 (http://www.livinginternet.com/u/ui_fidonet.htm). From a very basic system with white text on black background BBSes evolved into meeting places with sophisticated graphics (for its time). Early BBS were often a local phenomenon as people used their telephone lines to dial into the internet, later modems made it more widespread. Here people could come together to discuss everything from advanced physics to popular rock music. Only the rise of the internet as we know it today in the mid to late 1990s caused the BBS to decline in popularity, nonetheless it still exists to this day.

References:
Spencer, Bruce, “A brief history of the Internet “Aardsma, T L. Inside the Internet8. 8 Aug 2001

Ballas, J "Bulletin board systems: a nostalgic look back." Computers in Libraries 13.5, 1993
http://www.livinginternet.com/u/ui_fidonet.htm