Retro Review - Computer Bulletin Board ( BBS ) Systems

It has been awhile since I posted a retro review, so I figured I'd cover a topic that was very influential for me growing up: BBS systems! Computer Bulletin Boards are the precursor for social media. Many were run by hobbyists like myself and were free to access. But accessing them required using a phone line, and most BBS systems could only support one user at a time. But most BBS systems had what most modern websites have today: messageboards, email, file sharing, even games. I ran a BBS from 1991 until about 1993 or so. I was an active BBS user from 1990 through today, although my BBS usage dropped significantly around 1995 when access to the Internet became cheaper and easier. In this video I demonstrate some of the basic BBS functions like email, message boards, FidoNet echo groups, door games, and file downloads. I do suggest checking out Jason Scott’s excellent BBS documentary to get more depth on the technology and the influence it had during its heyday: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgE-9Sxs2IBVgJkY-1ZMj0tIFxsJ-vOkv Get a list of Telnet BBS's: Telnet BBS list: http://www.telnetbbsguide.com/ Synchronet BBS List: http://synchro.net/sbbslist.html Syncterm client software: http://syncterm.bbsdev.net/ Subscribe to my email list to get a weekly digest of upcoming videos! - http://lon.tv/email Visit the Lon.TV store to purchase some of my previously reviewed items! http://lon.tv/store Want to chat with other fans of the channel? Visit our forums! http://lon.tv/forums Want to help the channel? Start a Patreon subscription! http://lon.tv/patreon Or you can help out just by purchasing things on Amazon through this link: http://lon.tv/amazon Follow me on Facebook! http://facebook.com/lonreviewstech Follow me on Twitter! http://twitter.com/lonseidman Catch my longer interviews in audio form on my podcast! http://lon.tv/itunes http://lon.tv/stitcher or the feed at http://lon.tv/podcast/feed.xml Follow me on Google+ http://lonseidman.com