Before the Web: How Bulletin Board Systems Connected America One Phone Call at a Time

Comments · 37

• SE

  @seanbrazell7095 · 3 days ago

  It's impossible to explain to people these days how insanely liberating bbs's were back then!

  18

• KI

  @kimopuppy · 3 days ago

  I was in my 20s and was tired of staying up late to use the house phone number without interruptions, so I had my own phone line put in

  13

• JA

  @JasonShultz · 2 days ago

  BBS's were amazing! I remember connecting to Wizard's Castle in Chicago as a teenager. It was awesome. Even my local small town had a BBS run by a single guy and I would chat with people in the local area. I would get a list of BBS's and scan them looking for whatever sounded interesting to dial into. Used to drive my parent's crazy with the long distance bill.

  3

• MA

  @MattR151 · 1 day ago (edited)

  1991 Dialed into Shoreline BBS in North Vancouver BC and played Trade Wars and went to "meets" to meet users in real life.  Even met 2 of my girlfriends from there.  Fun times!

  1

• NZ

  @NZRanger · 2 days ago

  I ran a BBS under Searchlight in New Zealand called Southern Lights.  There were a number of BBS's in our city, Fidonet was shared, files were shared, door games were shared, it was a great time to be alive!  But then yes the Internet came and it was game over.

• JR

  @jrdeal1 · 2 days ago

  Operated a BBS for many years.  First starting out on a Commador 64 before moving to a multi-line MS/DOS system.  Operated the system using USRobotics HST modems with PCBoard Software.  Ran this until mid to late 1990's  It was called Sinbad's Shack named after my Blue and Gold Macaw,  Sinbad.

• KO

  @kokokatz6957 · 2 days ago

  Such memories !! I got on a Bulletin Board in late 80"s but never had time to really get into it ;(   What I laugh about is having 2 phone lines. When my daughter was in college and Penneys had a clothing sale, we would tie up one line talking about choices and one talking to the Penneys site :)

• CR

  @Crunchtime7890 · 2 days ago

  I was a SYSop of a couple BBS's in Akron Ohio.  Hosted on and Atari 520 ST running Searchlight BBS software via an IBM emulator because I did not like the Atari ones.  My friend and I also wrote a slot game for searchlight that you  could bet your daily minutes for pulls on the slots.  We sold 1 copy.  :)

• MR

  @mrfusilli · 1 day ago

  I grew up in the 1980s having a VicModem for the Vic20 and then 300.. 1200... 2400... 14400... 19200... 56k dial up modems.... I used to call up BBS back in the 1980s upto about 1995 before it transitions to braodband era interent known today... I did run a BBS as a SYSOP for a year...  And phone bills... LOL!!! I used to call up BBS in Europe just to get the cool experience of calling long distance to hook up to a BBS!  How time flies.... I used to have a hand written phone book of Local BBS numbers to call around my city and nearby region... AND I do remember playing Legend of the Red Dragon on so many BBS!  My handle back then was "Iron Clad Burrito" (I used to work at Taco Bell.. LOL!!!!)

• FI

  @fishbone470 · 2 days ago

  Great video..I ran a BBS back in the early 90's. good times! Even played Trade Wars back in high school LOL..

• LS

  @LSUfan · 9 hours ago

  Raise a glass to the SYSops of yesterday!

• AN

  @angelh1743 · 22 hours ago

  The BBS was awesome back in the day.  It was not regulated or cencored.  I miss those days.