BBS Documentary Now Shipping

Prophetic_Truth writes "Jason Scott is now shipping his BBS Documentary, which consists of five and a half hours of episodes outlining the history of Bulletin Board Systems. On a personal note, I can't wait to get my preordered copy! I've been looking forward to this documentary more so than HHGTG and Star Wars ROTS."

Comments

As someone blind that grew-up in mid-80's...

[Anonymous Coward]

BBS's were my life. Most of my interaction with other people outside of school was using them.

Too bad that as of Monday Slashdot no longer allows the blind to post without the help of someone that can see, or we might hear from more of us. Fortunately I had a relative that was over that could type-in that damn code from the image.

Just why is Slashdot so anti-blind? Did some blind girl dump Taco?

Re:As someone blind that grew-up in mid-80's...

[isorox]

To be fair, it's not just slashdot. I have excelent karma and have never seen this code thing before your post. You need to enter the code to create a new account too.

I guess/hope if you email them they'll create an acocunt for you and set it so you don't have to center a code.

Re:Who's posting the torrent?

[MrAndrews]

I know you meant that as a joke, but if you do download it somewhere and enjoy it, do the right thing a buy a copy on disc. This guy has done something really gutsy making his own documentary (it's not easy or cheap), and we should all be supporting his effort with our wallets. If we don't support the artists in our own community, they won't go out on a limb for us anymore.

</preaching>

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to search through wachovia.csv for a new credit card number.

Re:BBS is nice but $50 for THIS?

[Muerto]

yes.. $50 to watch something that someone put 3 years into. Why are you so cheap? This guy spent his own money to make this and it was obviously took a significant chunk of his time.. $50 is not that much when you think about the work he put into it.

Re:Who's posting the torrent?

[MrAndrews]

Absolutely, but just because you CAN do it, doesn't mean you SHOULD. If you watch the first hour and say "this isn't for me", then that's fine... but if you spend five hours of your time enjoying it... freely-distributable or not, you should consider paying for it. You're thinking of the "enforced" morals that Hollywood pushes... these are your basic citizen's morals, where you pay for what you enjoy because it's the right thing to do.

I'm not saying you NEED to pay for it, I'm saying you need to clear your mind of all the push-and-pull nonsense you're used to with movies and DVDs, and think of it as "you and this guy's documentary". Evaluate and proceed.

Most of us here are relatively well-off (we can afford video games and Sith screenings at midnight). If we don't start really supporting our own community (both in entertainment and software) we're going to relegate ourselves to hobbyist producers, rather than a professional alternative market. Here's someone who put his money where his mouth is, and we should strongly consider following suit.

Re:Who's posting the torrent?

[tyagiUK]

And this is precisely the reason why people should (myself included) support groups like 2600 (http://www.2600.com/ with their excellent Off The Hook show. Yes, you can download it, but shows like this (by hackers for hackers) deserve financial support more than the latest over-marketed, over-hyped, *wood "blockbuster".

The same applies to video games too. Why buy the latest generic release from EA, when you can buy some innovative, lovingly crafted, software from guys like Introversion (http://www.introversion.co.uk./

Support the niches and eventually, it will change the mainstream.