Memory Lane: Bulletin Board Systems (BBS)

Back in the late 80’s and early 90’s my friends and I were big into BBSes – and let me tell you, downloading porn at like 1200 to 2400 bit/s sucked some serious balls.

For those of you who don’t know, old school BBSes or “Bulletin Board Systems” were a precursor to the internet that allowed users to dial into another system over a phone line and post simple messages, read news, and share files using a terminal program. Naturally, the interface was text-only.

While it was extremely cool to exchange messages and files with others, one of the main problems was that our BBS experience was confined to our immediate geographic location. Going outside of that area would result in costly long distance charges – and we lived in a boring town. The other problem was speed. Using a BBS was an exercise in patience – something that a 12 year old usually lacks. I mean, it could take all day to download a 5 second clip of some freaky goat porn or whatever other crazy ass files we were looking for on there.

Despite it’s downfall after the development of the internet, BBSes still have an underground following and can be accessed over telnet – although many do not offer a true “old school” BBS experience. Still, it is worth checking out if only to see how far we have come.