bulletin board systems (BBS)

An electronic bulletin board is a computer application that lets users access a computer (usually with a modem and phone line) and read or post messages on a variety of top-ics. The messages are often organized by topic, resulting in threads of postings, responses, and responses to the responses. In addition to the message service, many bul-letin boards provide files that users can download, such as games and other programs, text documents, pictures, or sound files. Some bulletin boards expect users to upload files to contribute to the board in return for the privilege of downloading material.

The earliest form of bulletin board appeared in the late 1960s in government installations and a few universities par-ticipating in the Defense Department’s ARPANET (the ances-tor to the Internet). As more universities came online in the early 1970s, the Netnews (or Usenet) system offered a way to use UNIX file-transfer programs to store messages in topi-cal newsgroups (see netnews and newsgroups). The news system automatically propagated messages (in the form of a “news feed”) from the site where they were originally posted to regional nodes, and from there throughout the network.

By the early 1980s, a significant number of personal computer users were connecting modems to their PCs. Bul-letin board software was developed to allow an operator (called a “sysop”) to maintain a bulletin board on his or her PC. Users (one or a few at a time) could dial a phone number to connect to the bulletin board. In 1984, program-mer Tom Jennings developed the Fido BBS software, which allowed participating bulletin boards to propagate postings in a way roughly similar to the distribution of UNIX Net-news messages.

Decline of the BBS

In the 1990s, two major developments led to a drastic decline in the number of bulletin boards. The growth of major ser-vices such as America Online and CompuServe (see online services) offered users a friendlier user interface, a com-prehensive selection of forums and file downloads, and richer content than bulletin boards with their character-based interface and primitive graphics. An even greater impact resulted from the development of the World Wide Web and Web browsing software, which offered access to a worldwide smorgasbord of services in which each Web home page had the potential of serving as a virtual bulletin board and resource center (see World Wide Web and Web browser). As the 1990s progressed, increasingly rich mul-timedia content became available over the Internet in the form of streaming video, themed “channels,” and the shar-ing of music and other media files.

Traditional bulletin boards are now found mostly in remote and underdeveloped areas (where they can provide users who have only basic phone service and perhaps obso-lescent PCs with an e-mail gateway to the Internet). How-ever the BBS contributed much to the grassroots online culture, providing a combination of expansive reach and a virtual small-town atmosphere (see also virtual com-munity). Venues such as The Well (see conferencing sys-tems) retain much of the “feel” of the traditional bulletin board system.