The 25th Anniversary of the BBS

Jason Scott writes "25 years ago today, Ward Christensen and Randy Suess officially announced the creation of a little project they threw together with a 300 baud Hayes modem, a Z-80 based S-100 computer, and a phone line. They called it "Chicago Bulletin Board System" (CBBS) and it was the first dial-up BBS. From this beginning, BBSes grew into the many thousands and became an entire industry, and when the Internet started to mature with the World Wide Web, the users who had cut their teeth on BBSes moved over to it. So raise a toast to these two fellows for a quarter century of great online times."

Comments

One word.

[nickgrieve]

Tradewars.

Re:If you want to go back:

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess this must be the first /.-ing of BBSes...

Help my modem's on fire!

The REAL fun..

[Anonymous Coward]

The real fun with BBS's was tricking fellow users into accidentally typing +++

Re:Doesnt that computer look in a sorry state now

[Threni]

"a 300 baud Hayes modem, a Z-80 based S-100 computer, and a phone line"

I dunno - the very same hardware has served Kuro5hin pretty well over the last 5 years! It if ain't broke, don't fix it!

ATH!

[zozzi]

I remember when some young whiner used to join the chat "rooms" and we used to sucker him in hanging up. Conversation went something like this:

Whiner: blah blah blah

Guru 1: This xyz BBS has a cute bug to gain system privileges...

Guru 2: Agree and talk about it but no details until the whiner starts reallllly begging to know the details. Then:

Guru 1: Ok type +++ (originally typed as ++ space bkspace +) followed by ATH and hit enter

Whiner: NO CARRIER

And of course being a busy BBS he would be kicked out for a jolly good time. The fun at the inept continued when we created variations on the ATH theme on the same victim :-)

Re:SD2 Alums, represent!

[IanBevan]

Jesus Christ, that was so long ago...

Yes, around 2003 years I think. Not sure about your BBS though.

Thanks, I'll be here all week...