YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

Awesome movie, own the boxed set. Highly suggest anyone interested watch the entire thing! If you're poor at least check it out by alternative means until you can afford to buy it. Please do buy a copy when you can to support these guys, I hope to see more stuff like this from them in the future.

Long live the BSS and the freedom of information! :) I was too young to take part in the early BBS days, but I did enjoy catching the tail end of them and the start of the web. ;)

86HillyBilly 2 weeks ago

I was not really that long ago. I ran a PC-Board BBS from 1992 - 1996 3 phone lines. Even attended BBS CON a few years. Had Internet Use Groups via satellite and internet email, before many knew what the internet was. Having 3 users at one time on my BBS was cool. Downloading games or what ever. Then quickly came the internet. Domain Names I even got a domain name for free called outdoor.com If I only knew what was to come, I could have grabbed a bunch of domain names, oh if I only knew

johnrcornelius 7 months ago

The BBS is not just a piece of history. It is alive and well and more accessible than ever before on telnet connections. I run a BBS. I create original ANSI Art and modify Door Games. Its still awesome.

r1ch1t 7 months ago

when he said there was no multi-tasking it reminded me of when DesQview came out. when that happened I was so happy.

thunderscratch66 8 months ago

@thunderscratch66

lol only you and me know what desqview was ... allowing multiple nodes on a dos pc for renegade bbs [or others] ;b.

lordtalon69 4 months ago

@lordtalon69 it was also good at school/work for pretending to be doing something serious when i was actually goofing around doing whatever i wanted.

thunderscratch66 3 months ago

I can confirm what the guys says about C64's lol, put them in the closet and they heal themselves....

I had a Commodore floppy drive that stopped working and leaving it alone for 1 week or so.... started working again.... (WTF)

OBSysteme 8 months ago

Wow. Thanks for posting this vid. When I first heard about BBSes as a kid, I immediately dreampt of writing my own software, but didn't cause RBBS-PC and Tom's Fido were already there.... Back then anyone could be a sysop.. I only had use of my parent's phone line at night and still got tons of callers... now you gotta have sonething everyone wants or get 5 mouseclicks a week :-D

RomanticLinguaphilia 8 months ago

I ran a bbs in Oklahoma City from 90-92 It was called The Landing Zone. It was a IBM pcxt with a 20mb hard drive. Was so fun to run...

BadBrad23 10 months ago

sadly i never got to experience BBS back in the day.

madmax2069 10 months ago

BBSing isn't dead, it just evolved... if you have a telnet client you can access plenty of them right now... my board is back after being down for 10 years.. running Mystic BBS software.

telnet chaotic dot dyndns dot biz

jgargano03 11 months ago

BBSing isn't dead, it just evolved... if you have a telnet client you can access plenty of them right now... my board is back after being down for 10 years.. running Mystic BBS software.

jgargano03 11 months ago

@jgargano03 What's the telnet address?

snowblindu 8 months ago

Image BBs's with today's phone plans... you could dial accross the continent into peoples computers... exploring would be fun.... there was just something about mono-tasking that today's internet et miltitasking Gui's does not have....

back then, when you were in front of a computer... it was quite an experience...you were entirely "there" and not elswhere.

OBSysteme 11 months ago

@OBSysteme Yes it was certainly a magical time back then.. I'm very glad to have lived it.. was very exciting. Would be really cool if we had the calling plans we have now.. I could have tested so many BBS's our local ones were not that great.. but I enjoyed them

snowblindu 8 months ago

@snowblindu I was in a rural area in a very small canadian town far from any major city, and there was only ONE BBS in the town and no computer store. Still, in this limited environement, we seemed to be in the BBS culture (I even remember seing files on that BBS that used to make the news on the continent, remember the terrorist handbook TXT file?). I remember meeting alot of new people by going to their place and doing floppy disk swaping, we were hundry for software and had no outlet.

OBSysteme 8 months ago

@OBSysteme To end my story... I remember Modem and BBS-type of culture surviving on Irc chat channels for a while, remember when MIRC was the thing? It was like a Bulleting Board System but on steroids in real time, and people still had the "local" mindset about the internet.... by that, I mean, that on MIRC, people tended to still group themselves on channels of their city or state, as if you we on BBS (where the phone lines limits your geographical scope, not your mind).

OBSysteme 8 months ago

As a SySop of a BBS this is right on. You younger people can't understand why you can't understand. We paved the way to what younger people now know as "Web pages". Think of a BBS as a "Web Page". And that's all I have to say about that.

SysOpAlpha 11 months ago 2

It was so much fun, even for a 10 year old programming and using my appleIIE and the BBS's.

econogate 1 year ago

Downloading Wolfenstein 3D, Shareware 1.7 MB took 45 minutes.. It was awesome..

klabkebash 1 year ago

@klabkebash now with 4mbits ADSL line you can download this for 2.4 seconds. Comparing that today's modern standards is useless and I don't get really guys which are trying to compare BBS with today's Internet, because the Internet awesome, and BBS was awesome too.

crogeek 9 months ago

@crogeek While the benefits of fast (and almost ubiquitous) connectivity are hard to deny, one of its drawbacks is that people have forgotten how to wait. I remember the first time I ever got online, a friend of mine logged on to a BBS to get a copy of netscape navigator 2.0.This procedure, over a 14.4k modem, took about an hour. While we waited, my friend, my brother, and I had a great dinner while talking and laughing. The one thing I learned that night was: patience has its rewards.

astrochelonian 6 months ago

@astrochelonian you're right but one thing is better compared to today modern Internet standards. PC (and especially Amiga) games were so much better back in the days - where consoles have much better games than on PC platform.

crogeek 6 months ago

@crogeek Well, I certainly have my opinions on the matter (I love my old PC games -- dosbox, where would I be without you?), but I'm the first one to admit that 1) It's very much a matter of opinion, 2) The games that come out today cater to the newer generation, one with which I don't share much in terms of gameplay expectations or aesthetics. :)

astrochelonian 6 months ago

I spent some time at BBN, until I was discovered and escorted out.

sydferret 1 year ago

Legend of the Red Dragon!

GriggsC123 1 year ago

@GriggsC123 I could play LORD all day!!!

cholmes800 1 year ago 5

Check out this classic BBS... telnet://bbs.dxrw.org

We run the classic Commodore CNet Amiga BBS. Checkout Reign of Fire BBS today!

SpitfireTN 1 year ago

Check out this classic BBS... telnet://bbs.dxrw.org

SpitfireTN 1 year ago

I miss the BBS's even if when I was young, in a tiny town, it would cost a fortune for long distance, so we were pretty much restricted to the only BBS in town, some guy set-up in his bedroom.

One thing that is striking, is that it was in a tiny New Brusnwick town (at the ends of the world - pre-internet) and in there they had the famed "terrorist's handbook" txt file. Freaky.

OBSysteme 1 year ago

awesome... ran a board in the [606] which is now 859...

It was first pcboard 15.1 then I think I took it to renegade...

old times but great times...

PWA,ACiD... ;P

bigkat859 1 year ago

What hopeless nerds.

IcelandPride 1 year ago

Having once been a sysop, this warms my heart.

robmonster23 1 year ago

SysOp is better than Admin :P

TheKiemaster 1 year ago

@TheKiemaster SysOp Game was a fun game as well.

GriggsC123 1 year ago

Gainesville, FL representing: TheLostCities/CenterOfTheUniverse :) Avg 20 calls/day (single line). QBBS, WWIV, Spitfire, WWIV, ViSiON and other Forum baselines, so many others. I still have my registered version of ThePIT, GlobalWars, and the AVATAR SDK! Props to DragonsKeep, Fireman Ken, and the mid 90's BBS community :P Good times.

slewis78 1 year ago

Commodore 64 was my first computer. Ah, spending 30 minutes waiting for tapes to load.. Those were the days.

SeanOBriain 1 year ago

This is probably one of the best documentaries ever made period.

jhohcable 1 year ago 2

I learned on QModem, and eventually found Ripterm for dialing in... Ripterm could display 16-color VGA vector graphics on boards that supported it. It blew my mind seeing BBSes with GUIs and door games with vector graphics.

Imagine that... vector graphics used to stream game graphics over a computer network... oh right, Flash!

dojomojomofo 1 year ago

the metallica dude is wearing two belts, haha.

gnarpit 1 year ago

how about usenet and irc any love? ;)

omid11 2 years ago

i used to use Iniquity BBS pretty funny to see all the old pics of the system, etc.

bloej97 2 years ago

I am the Sysop of Doc's Place Fidonet BBS.

We are celebrating our 20'th year of providing BBS service to the Fidonet community. Come check us out.

Sorry but i can't post a link, do a search for the bbs name.

docsnetservices 2 years ago 2

Its amazing how BBS where so much smaller but just as useful in some ways. The internet has evolved the concept of interconnecting to fellow human to bring the world closer. I hope the net will continue to evolve but also keep our roots. Best to keep with roots to learn where to learn. :) I wasen't born during this time, but I would have had alot of fun if I was around that time.

LoTTEv1 2 years ago

Most of my friends have no idea what BBS is.

YouOpaOpa 2 years ago

This is cool. I use to run "The Trading Post" in Louisiana from 83-85. Without an applecat modem, the computer was worthless. I still feel this way...without communicating with the outside world, what good is a computer?

netmorf 2 years ago

This comment has received too many negative votes show

NERDS, thought this was bout bbs rims

kbmalfho 2 years ago

Says the fucking moron using the internet that evolved out of the BBS'es in this documentary.

lenowin 2 years ago 21

@lenowin In the context of home internet connections he is %100 correct. BBS users created the initial demand for home internet connections & in many cases created the first local ISPs to provide the connection to the internet. From there the general public's use of the internet grew to what it is today.

5lkk 9 months ago

wow nostalga . i ran/setup many bbs systems - anyone remember

"LOWLIFE" ")/ideo/\/asty"

BBSVideoNasty 2 years ago

ps. i have the 8part documentary of this clip but just 1 part wants to take an hour on my connection speed :(

BBSVideoNasty 2 years ago

I was interviewed for "BBS: The Documentary" by Jason Scott. He came to Texas to interview me. He did a great job on the documentary. Plus he has all of the 250 hours of video and is going to place all the raw interviews on the Internet so that people can research them if they want. He did an excellent job of the documentary.

hnbbs 2 years ago

Agreed. Wish the Commodore scene had been covered more, but it really is a top quality documentary.

Murple333 2 years ago

@hnbbs

holy hell 250 hours of video? I realize this is a year old ... but wow I have to go look for that now hahah.

lordtalon69 1 year ago

@lordtalon69 If I remember correct he took two and a half hours of video when he interviewed me. He used less than five minutes of the video of me. So he has all that video of me and others and one day he is going to get it online so that people could then watch and research that video. I hope he gets my video on line before I die. (Smile) I want to link to it from my blogs.

hnbbs 1 year ago

I wasn't born at the time when these adventures with BBS'es took place, but it still managed to strike a chord somehow.

Most captivating documentary I've ever seen, I especially enjoyed the ANSI-part.

xr0 2 years ago 13

any WWIV sysops? bought the source code for $50 to add mods and recompile? door games? =D eventually switched to oblivion.. i dont even remember the name(s) of the boards i ran now.. 1992 seems a long time ago..

alexdatsko 2 years ago

WWIV was my favorite BBS. Compiled with Borland C++.. haha. I think I had a BBS called NodeStar.

spaceagedevice 2 years ago

ahhh this is great, remembering the first bbs's, my dad must have told me about them, calling them on 2400, eventually i ran my own on 14.4k, buying the source code to WWIV, to mod for all the ansi art stuff, getting a book on serial comms to write my own in c, the first 'warez' boards, wow =] how things have changed!

alexdatsko 2 years ago

So what is this documentary about?

cometcrash 2 years ago

Look up BBS, cometcrash.

Doyubi 2 years ago

@cometcrash

You watched these clips and have not even a guess ? Is it any wonder it is difficult to explain to the average person in a short time what a bbs was. heh ;b

lordtalon69 1 year ago

nice doc. Im a bit young to have really used BBS much, but I did login to a few and play some MUDS, honestly don't remeber which. this was around 95-96...Stone Age

bottle2lip 3 years ago

This has been flagged as spam show

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collegencrazycutie26 3 years ago

I miss my 300baud manual modem and rotary dialling phone..... hooked to a commodore 64, of course :D

linuxpenguin73 3 years ago 2

me too! plugged into my pink tv!

this video makes me happy....

vikki23 3 years ago

how about those great hayes 400 baud 50kbs

biggdaddy2001 3 years ago

Search Webspin Online or Webspin BBS it's back up!

webspinonline 3 years ago

Started my first BBS in 1987 in Chicago!

webspinonline 3 years ago

While I would love to see another BBS Documentary go by, it's been 4 years and nobody has contacted me about doing one on 1990s and modern BBSes. I'm working on my next documentary (on text adventures), so it won't be me.

textfilesdotcom 3 years ago 2

I had a BBS... Also miss those days... :)

TricoL0rd 3 years ago

I've had this on my amazon wishlist forever...

I remember logging into BBS's when I as in high school. The locality of it kept people civil, fun and not foul mouthed like a large portion of users (in the present) who don't realize the value of communication (net or otherwise) today.

Thanks for sharing. Brings back good memories of exploring BBS's way back when.

wongjp 3 years ago

not really. Local BBSes had their share of foul-mouthed posts in their message bases just as much as these days. Of course I know this because I was one of the young dumbasses posting all of those obscenity-laced posts.

WORMH0LE 3 years ago 2