BBS The Documentary: Episode 1 of 8: BAUD (The Beginning)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ธ.ค. 2019
- Episode 1 of 8 of the BBS Documentary, a mini-series by Jason Scott.
This episode covers the predecessors and the beginnings of the Dial-Up Bulletin Board System (BBS), with historical information as well as interviews with the pioneers and experimenters at the dawn of the home information access age.
Interviews include Ward Christensen and Randy Suess, who created what is considered the first dial-up bulletin board in 1978.
BBS Documentary Information:
Long before the Internet escaped from the lab, connected the planet and redefined what it meant to use a computer...there was a brave and pioneering band of computer users who spent their time, money and sanity setting up their home computers and phone lines to welcome anyone who called. By using a modem, anyone else who knew the phone number of these computers could connect to them, leave messages, send and recieve files.... and millions did.
They called these places "Bulletin Board Systems", or BBSes. And their collections of messages, rants, thoughts and dreams became the way that an entire generation learned about being online.
When the Internet grew in popularity in the early 1990s, the world of the BBS faded, changed, and became a part of the present networked world.. but it wasn't the same.
In the Summer of 2001, Jason Scott, a computer historian (and proprietor of the textfiles.com history site) wondered if anyone had made a film about these BBSes. They hadn't, so he decided he would.
Four years, thousands of miles of travelling, and over 200 interviews later, "BBS: The Documentary", a mini-series of 8 episodes about the history of the BBS, is now available. Spanning 3 DVDs and totalling five and a half hours, this documentary is actually eight documentaries about different aspects of this important story in the annals of computer history.
Baud introduces the story of the beginning of the BBS, including interviews with Ward Christensen and Randy Suess, who used a snowstorm as an inspiration to change the world.
Sysops and Users introduces the stories of the people who used BBSes, and lets them tell their own stories of living in this new world.
Make it Pay covers the BBS industry that rose in the 1980's and grew to fantastic heights before disappearing almost overnight.
Fidonet covers the largest volunteer-run computer network in history, and the people who made it a joy and a political nightmare.
Artscene tells the rarely-heard history of the ANSI Art Scene that thrived in the BBS world, where art was currency and battles waged over nothing more than pure talent.
HPAC (Hacking Phreaking Anarchy Cracking) hears from some of the users of "underground" BBSes and their unique view of the world of information and computers.
Compression tells the story of the PKWARE/SEA legal battle of the late 1980s and how a fight that broke out over something as simple as data compression resulted in waylaid lives and lost opportunity.
No Carrier wishes a fond farewell to the dial-up BBS and its integration into the Internet.
Ideal as either a teaching tool or a reminder of your own memories, the BBS Documentary Collection brings back this nearly-forgotten time in a way that will tell the story... one caller at a time.
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This whole documentary is outstanding.
came here from your channel!
Thank you for leading me to this hidden gem
Saw this one because of your mention to it in your video, thanks! (that was a great one too ;) I'm definitely watching the whole thing. It's also funny to see all these people reflecting back in 2005, knowing what happened since. And I'm obviously talking about the fashion 😅
Thanks for pointing me to this documentary. It's bringing back a bunch of memories man....
.... sort of funny how the before fore and the after 18 time merge. Like in the later parts of the documentary when they start talking about the hacking and phreaking.
didn't think i'd be spending my night learning about BBS's but alas
Thank you so much for sharing this on YT. These stories needed to be told, preserved and seen. The whole documentary is a deeply respectful loveletter to our real life cyberpunk history. Thank you.
I ran a BBS back in the 80's using Eazihost. Ran it 24 hrs a day , 365 days a year... Great days except maybe the occasions when I got a Sysop call at 3 am in the morning!
I watched this documentary when you first made it Jason. Such a fantastic piece of work. I'm on the younger side, so I missed the height of the BBS scene. I was involved in ham radio in the 90's and I caught the tail end of the BBS scene through it. Most were migrating over to TCP/IP by that point.
THANK YOU for this!!! It gives me a way to relive a time that was extremely important to my life. If it weren't for my teenage BBS obsession, I'd never have had the life I did.
I'm here after watching a Nostalgia Nerd piece featuring clips from this documentary, and boy I'm so glad I did. What a piece of work, such rare interviews, and the music, spot on. We stand on the shoulders of giants.
One of my fav documentaries of all time. Absolutely fantastic. Being a complete nerd in my 40s I remember well the BBS days and it's so great that it was all captured so well in this film. It's the only DVD I have in my house; all the others were given away years ago. Had to hang on to this one in all its gatefold glory!
This is now a retro documentary about a retro topic. I love it.
Edit: oh it’s even better. The “new school” are using Vic 20s. This is just outstanding.
Glad to see these up on your own channel
I still have the DVD of this when it was released! Absolutely LOVE this documentary!
That was a nicely crafted DVD box-set. Well worth it.
Thank you. Amazing Documentary
Amazing documentary, I definitely was one of those annoying kids in the 90s on various BBS, and I did get a lot of crap for my 2400 Bps modem.
Great memories!!!! The first computer I ever used was in '73 or '74. That was the Plato system mentioned in this upload. After that many years later came the BBS software and I still have nearly all of the BBS software I ever used along with every modem I ever bought. Great stuff! Could still use those since I have a hard line and can't bring myself to get rid of it.
By the way, RIP Mr. Suess and thanks for everything.
Take care,
rbheiss
miss the demoscene times and being so happy to find and share any kind of info, from transistor datasheets to jumpjet or Doooom lol I think the only floppys i still have are all blue wave packs lol nice era... never found bad people there
So many memories here. Hard to believe it's been 40+ years; seems like yesterday....
Thank you so much for uploading this. I ran a BBS in Sheffield, UK when I was about 15. Fortunately we used to get quarterly phone bills, so it wasn't until the second £2000 bill that my mother put a stop to it. 😂 Saved me the money of a college education and set me up for a career in tech though, what a wonderful amazingly exciting period of history.
I just missed out on the peak of the BBS era - I didn't get online until 1996, and while I had a couple friends that ran a BBS that was only used by a few people we all knew, BBSes were well on their way out by then. It's one part of computing history that I really would have liked to experience first hand.
Thanks for this wonderful documentary. I first got online with an Amiga 500 and a 2400bps modem in the 90s. The rate of change in technology has truly been astounding. I was on Compuserve (old text version), GEnie, and local BBS. I also dialed into the local university's public access GOPHER system and did... various fun things with that.
Computers are no longer fun. It's all too easy. I'm glad it's where it is for people, but at the same time... there will never be a time like that again. Lost to the winds of time...
The history of the internet and technology is so fascinating to me. I was a kid of the 90s. We were the first generation where it was common to have a family PC and an AOL subscription. I never really thought of how we got to that point as a kid but I love learning about it now as an adult. I watch my kids walking around with a computer in their pockets constantly connected to the rest of the world, able to find the answer to any question with a simple search. Its crazy to rewind the tape to see how we got here in such a relative short amount of time. Thank you for putting together this documentary!
Nostalgia is so strong in this. Tech is better now, but the excitement is kinda gone. Great documentary
MUST see for me... I was involved in this as a FIDO node and then a stand alone BBS... off to watch!
PS -- I think I may have the first or for sure one of the first female sysops! Phreaking fun!
Hope you like it.
@@jasonscott526 trying to say maybe was a first female sysop. I'm doing fam thing, but definitely watching ASAP. TY for this!!
@@ZiaLinkInk give me your year and I'll tell you. But I'll tell you there's a lot more to the series than a bunch of system first
@@jasonscott526 I was using Nexis ? /CIS in 1970s where I worked, then had 300 baud modem in 1982 on Commodore, but I'm pretty sure it was 1984 when Adam Hudson (he was 12 then!) helped me set up FIDO on my new Sanyo computer with 1200 baud. For sure one of the first 50 nodes. Can't wait to see this... S O O N (company about to leave)
Good grief. These 8 episodes are a "tour de force" I've binge watched all 8 and wow! This should be up there in "the history of all things computers" Sterling job!! Thank you so much for taking the time & effort to put this all together - absolutely fascinating. :-) I hope you get recognition for documenting all of this in such a well filmed and thoughtful manner.
Truly this was the best of times
When this geezer is shouting at the kids to get off the lawn and dreams about the good old days downloading L337 warez from the local BBS on my C64 was part of those days.
well your not on my lawn
if you didn't NTSC fix anything.. it didn't happen.. NTSC folk needed us Euros more when everyone else was going amiga haha
I was spectrum guy in the 80s then in the late 80s I was a PC guy during the 18-bit era.
Watched all the Atari and Amiga guys die by the wayside.
The nail in the coffin was Elite Frontier and the PC had Full texture mapping. The Amiga couldn't handled it.
The Amiga 4030 was a good computer but the Pentium with a graphics card kicked the shit out of it.
Luv and Peace.
Thank you for this documentary; I just finished Episode 1. I read about this on the 2600 FB page so I had to come check it out. I was a user in the 80s and then ran my own Wildcat! 3.0 system in the 90s while also beta testing 4.0 before that was released. Those were great days.
I agree about Wildcat software. I loved it.
I was a caller to the original CBBS in Chicago run by Randy Seuss and CBBS #2 run by Ward Christiensen. I was only 13 years old at the time, and I used to aggravate Ward & Randy by experimenting with typing invalid commands at the menus. Randy once called to talk to my parents, and on one of those phone calls where I answered the phone, he told me that my TRS-80 computer was a toy, just like he says in this video. I should also say that my father got upset when I used to call BBS's out of "Call-pak," as is talked about in this video. We had "Call-Pak Unlimited," but there were zones that were still within the 312 area code but would be billed as long distance calls, and my father used to comb BBS lists to let me know which BBS's were off limits because they would be long distance calls. Eventually, unlimited call pak went away, so even BBS's on the opposite side of Chicago would rack up "units" and be billed by the minute even though they weren't long distance.
I remember the excitement when Fido-Net, and EchoMail arrived.
My favorite documentary to re-watch. Incredibly revolutionary personalities and technology colliding in a compelling story that starts at the very beginning of the "wild west" of computing.
I still remember going from 2400 to 14.4k. Download a 1.4meg disk image in 15 min!
I remember going from 300 to 1200. I paid for 300 and then users started asking for to get a 1200 modem. I told them that 300 was reading speed! I had to get a 1200 of course and after that buying modems over and over again. The good old days.
I ran a BBS in the early 1990s. It was a really fun time.
26:48 - I think we all had those power switch strips mounted on our desks. The first one was always "COMPUTER", then "MONITOR", then maybe "PRINTER" (if you had one). lol
Miami BBS Scene represent! Memories of The Shire, The Golden Dawn, Mustang BBS, Crash and Burn, BBS 1 & 2, Color BBS, The Lighthouse and so many more I couldn't possibly remember them all.
This is such an incredible documentary.
27:30 - A 5MB HD for $3K... and I thought my first HD, a Miniscribe 40MB servo-drive was expensive at around $450! My second one was a Toshiba 65MB with rotary voice coil. I think that was a mere $350. And DRAM? I can't even recall how much that was in the early 90s, but if I had simply endorsed my paycheck as payment for a megabyte, I don't think I'd be far off, lol.
Great documentary, BTW. Came here from Nostalgia Nerd. Subscribed!
I was under 10 when I ran the C64 BBS so I could never afford the 10MB or 20MB LT Kernel drive... way too much $. Instead, when I was in Jr High, I was able to buy an A590 for my Amiga 500... cost almost $1000 for a 52MB Quantum HD wrapped in a sweet looking case that matched the contours of my Amiga 500.
Who remembers *_"Yell at the Sysop?"_*
People today don't realize how time it took people to fully grasp the power they had in their hands to communicate with this technology... for example on the early internet, with IRC chat, people would hang out in chat rooms linked to their home city and that was pretty much it... I still remember as a child, the first gulf war.... that is when we started to then land in Iraq and koweit chat rooms ... i It's like having a synthetiser in your hand and all you do is try to play bacch on it.
Talking about the self-healing Commodore - we had a 1541 that would re-align itself if we drove around the block. lol
My wife and I ran a BBS back in the day. First on an Apple ][ and later on a PC on Fidonet. I still have the BBS phone number.
513 (now 937) area code was my base. Loved Renegade BBS boards. Warez, utilities, and textfiles constantly streaming on my phone line. My stepdad gave me a licensed copy of ProCom plus. I much preferred Terminate! The final terminal! LOL if I remember correctly it had a built-in war dialer also that wasn't too bad.
My first computer, which eventually ran my BBS was a Sanyo MBC-550. It was one of the early PC Compatibles. Except it was only about 90% compatible, which meant it wasn't compatible at all. It's BIOS conformed to IBM in most places except the video. So, it was not compatible with any software that was written for Hercules, or later, CGA cards.
I dialed a "long distance" same-area-code number from my cousin's house when I was a kid and my parents actually yelled at me about it and asked how I was going to give my aunt and uncle back the two-hundred and something dollars that it cost. Telcos have always been wack but that was the wackest thing ever.
it was great.. ran a bbs on a compaq portable2 back in the mid 90s... was great when i got ISDN and i had 2 lines that I could use, then i went to 4... billing was atrocious though lol
Theatre of Magic original table = Legend!
wonderful docutmentary. pity amateur packet radio didn't get a mention. that was my first exposure to bbs type communications in the 80s. no long distance fees either.
OMG... The Computer Chronicles 4:00
That was the best hobby I had in my life. dEVIL BBS RIP- 2:403/53 (Israel)
I have this on vcd... or svcd
some place
ChatNet BBS and Jeff Leuhrs were a big deal in Dayton Ohio about 1996 and 97.
RemoteAccess 2.0? Nuts? Telnet? Bueller??
34:46 ah shit Dan Kaminsky. RIP
Does anyone here remember PC-Mania (Tharen "Zern" Zernechel)?
Commodore rulez, suckers!
I had Radio Shack stuff. A number of their computers. But I had a Commodore Vic-20, and a bunch of C-64 computers and SX-64.
Did anyone reach out to Ken Pletzer, the creator of C-Net BBS for the Commodore 64?
I reached out to a lot of people, some of whom declined or didn't get back. Ken was reached out to, didn't work out.
@@jasonscott526 Bummer, he was a big part, at least in my perspective.
Alguien puede traducirlo en español porfavor gracias
BTW no one gives a shit about any of the other retro computers aside from the C64 and the Vic20. It's stood the test of time and now has a mini and maxi version that sell to this day.
We'd run BBS in 2005 in Siberia FOR FUN. Was not very sucessful, obviously
Lol. I always said sisop as opposed to sysop. Ohio dialect I guess.
Great Documentary but it should be titled "The beginning of the end" As the reason things are getting so bad is because of computers, You would expect with advances in technology, Civilization would get better? But due to the way power has been consolidated in the hands of the ruling class due to computers being used to track trace, censor and control everything that can be, things are getting worse, freedom is being stomped out, disinformation is being spewed out on purpose to keep people confused and ignorant of what is actually going on. Censorship has never been as bad as it is today in the New World, The ruling class is able to uniformly feed manipulated information to the masses in such a way that we now have massive amount of people who are so indoctrinated by extreme ideological beliefs and political views that they are now incapable of even recognizing the truth when it is told to them. the future is looking bleak unless something changes and fast. Civilization is being dismantled by malicious and ignorant fools right before our very eyes and most do not even realize it.
Watch Mick Fleetwood in the movie Running Man! totally tells the future!
I'm left with a feeling this whole BBS'ing was more an US (/UK) thing, but I could be wrong and due to the phone charges it was localised more. Anyone who has more insight on this apart from US/UK?
Greece here reporting, they were a rarity back then (only a handful of people could use or afford them). But yeah as far as i know there were many BBS's all over Europe late 80s to mid - late 90's, i first saw one working on a friend's home in early 90's (i think was '92)- i was too young to appreciate what a revolution this was ... Before the internet won ofc!
BBS existed in Australia, I was a member of several, eventually one offered a thing called an “email address” if I mailed in $5! 😂 Local calls to BBS were untimed too.
Very popular in sweden
Finland had loads of BBSes. After 6pm (until morning) you could use the phone for an unlimited time with a single "billing tick" so you could spend as long as you wanted downloading files from a BBS basically free. Demo scene was also really big here and those tend to go hand in hand.
Please accept Bitcoin / Bitcoin Lightning. Google is never gonna do it so...
Nostalgia Nerd sent me
Which video?
I ended up here from nostalgia nerds channel.