Hundreds of Hours of BBS Documentary Interviews

Jason Scott writes "Hi, this is Jason Scott, director of the BBS Documentary, a 4 year project to tell the story of the dial-up bulletin board systems of the 70s, 80s and 90s. The documentary's out, for sale, and is completely Creative Commons licensed. But like most documentaries, there's tons of stuff left on the cutting room floor. And that just won't do. I'm happy to announce that I have partnered with archive.org to present what will be hundreds of hours of interviews online. The BBS Documentary Interview Collection will be extended edits of the 205 interviews I conducted, presented as video and audio files, along with ZIP archives of all the photos and supporting materials for that interview. And of course, every minute is Creative Commons licensed as well. It's going to take me upwards of half a year to edit and upload the half-terabyte of files; I hope people watch a few hours here and there to get an even deeper knowledge of the history of the BBS, or maybe even make a documentary of their own."

Comments

Ahhh... the good ol days.

[bigwavejas]

The irony is... Back in the day (when BBS were most popular), one interview would have taken weeks to download. The comp geeks were runnin on Amiga's or Vic-20's with a 300baud Hayes modem.

Re:Ahh.. BBS's

[eggoeater]

...one thing that I truly miss is the sense of community.

Really? ...ironically you posted AC.

Re:Why would it take you so long to upload your fi

[wiredlogic]

Can't be a leech all your life. Gotta keep that quota up.

Early 90's slashdot effect

[ChrisF79]

I used to run a Wildcat BBS (and a Renegade BBS actually) back in the day and was just thinking about how slow everything was. I remember sitting there waiting for the busy signal to go away on the popular BBS' so I could get in, play some usurper and download Kathy Ireland pictures. And when I gave it a little thought, that busy signal is really the same as the slashdot effect... just 15 years earlier or so.