What is (was) a bulletin board?

Is it the same as what we know as forums today?

[fischermx]

I've seen a few sites calls their forums section "Bulletin Board", but I think an original bulletin board was somehow differente?
I remember I used to connect to communities by telnet and that was called BBS, I guess, but I'm not sure what BBS stands for, may be is that it?

[mcavic]

In the old days, a BBS, or Bulletin Board System, was a dialup text based system that carried message boards, file sharing, and/or chat.

[grandpa]

My old BBS, on FidoNet, was not much different from the forums of today. People posted messages, other people replied to those messages. Mostly, I think, the technology and terminology has changed.

[Automan Empire]

(Laughing) Thank you very much for making me feel old before my time.
I think the main differentiation would be that "BBS's" were pre-WWW, with a lot of the users connecting directly to the server by modem, as opposed to now where "forums" receive all their traffic via the internet.

Aaaah, the olden days of whistling into the phone, to keep the remote computer connected when it was taking forever to log in...

[mcavic]

Yes, a BBS was the people's way of dealing with not having the Web.

[Essex_boy]

Ahh young one, bulleting bords were pre web you could post a message like here on thsi forum but it would cost a packet.

God i never thought id be asked that! Guess I must be getting older.

[Burner]

Does anyone remember Fidonet? Back in the day we would post to BBS's and after a day or so all the BBS's that were part of the network would dial each other up and share posts...

Sharing some memories here... PcBoard, Wildcat, Searchlight BBS... How about the text based console games we'd play? I think we called them doors...

I wish I could remember the name of that Space trader game I used to play.

Burner

[mcavic]

Yes, all of the above.

Do you mean TradeWars?

[Burner]

My god YES that was it :)

[mcavic]

I still have my registration code. :)

[Hawkgirl]

Ah yes, the good old days of BBSes.

Remember what "chat" was back then? A one-line 300baud dialup where the Sysop sat at his terminal, waiting for you to call and then breaking in to your post and typing to you directly.

[fischermx]

Guys, you are letting the people know your age ;)

Oh, well, not that much, I'm 35 and it was not too long time ago ... I was in highschool I think.

What's about you? Where you were on the BBSes days?
:)

[httpwebwitch]

One weird memory of BBS was ascii pron. You know what I'm talking about. Elaborate ascii renderings of scantily clad ladies showing their <ahem>.

I tell ya, for a 12-year old boy in 1984, ascii pron was fascinating

as we grow up, so does the web

[edited by: Woz at 10:51 pm (utc) on June 21, 2005]
[edit reason] Tidying up [/edit]

[vincevincevince]

You'd be surprised how many of those groups are still running, normally with internet access as well these days.

[Sarah Atkinson]

OMG have you guys seen the AOL bulletin boards?

it's just a list a messages with no organization at all

[Sarah Atkinson]

And I have 2 words for you regarding old messaging systems....
Party Lines.

Some of you might now what I'm talking aboult. The open test numbers Ma Bell use to have which a bunch of people could call up at the same time and yell back and forth to each other.

"BETTY, with a B. HAMILTON 3-3810 CALL ME"