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1978: Ward Christensen and Randy Suess launch the first public dial-up Bulletin Board System. The two unleash the kernel of what would eventually spawn the World Wide Web, countless online messaging systems and, arguably, Twitter.
It will be several decades before the hardware or the network catch up to Christensen and Suess' imaginations, but all the basic seeds of today's online communities are in place when the two launch the first bulletin board, dubbed CBBS, in 1978. Later that year the two developers announce their creation to the world in the November issue of Byte magazine.
The article creates a stir among hobbyists and hackers and it isn't long before others begin building clones of CBBS. By the mid-1980s BBSs support an active community with no less than three magazines devoted to covering the latest in the proto online world.
Reportedly conceived when Christensen was trapped in his Chicago home during the Great Blizzard of 1978, BBS takes its basic premise (and name) from the community bulletin boards that once adorned the entrance of public places like libraries, schools and supermarkets.
The notion of digital meeting place in mind, Christensen and Suess set out to create the software and managed to go from idea to working bulletin board in just a month. In fact, some evidence suggests it actually takes them even less time -- a mere two weeks -- and Christensen and Suess extend the timeframe to make the results sound more impressive.
Whatever the case, the results are definitely impressive. The original home brewed internet, BBS is primitive but quickly proves revolutionary.
Sure, connecting to someone on BBS means dialing into a phone line through your Trash-80 PC, typing a message in your monochromatic terminal and waiting days -- sometimes even weeks -- before you repeat the process to (hopefully) find a reply, but holy cow, look! we've got digital friends.
Unlike today's web, BBS uses traditional phone lines to login to remote computers, meaning that if you wanted to dial in to a BBS out of your area, you'd be looking at long distance charges from the phone company. Consequently, early BBSs were very locally-oriented systems, but before too the limitations gave birth to phone phreaking and other hacks.
Because of the complexity, limitations and slowness of BBS, the early system is largely populated by computer enthusiasts willing to shell out big bucks for fastest modems. Given the audience it's hardly surprising that -- like the early web that would come after it -- early BBSs often consist of very technical postings, software downloads and primitive online games.
But you can also thank the BBS for some of the world's first flame wars, as enthusiasts trade barbs battling over the superiority of Ataris to Amigas.
Eventually the early World Wide Web supplants the BBSs, but even today the humble BBS isn't completely gone. In fact, BBSs thrive in Taiwan where it's an extremely popular form of communication for Taiwanese youth.
Thanks to projects like Jason Scott's <a href="http://textfiles.com/">textfiles.com</a> -- which seeks to preserve and chronicle those early BBSs -- many of the remnants of the BBSs themselves are available as well. Also worth seeing for an even more in depth look at the history of the BBS is Scott's documentary film, <a href="http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/">BBS The Documentary</a>.
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