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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With

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Speaker 1: text style from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,

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Speaker 1: welcome to text stuff. My name is Chris Poulett, and

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Speaker 1: I am an editor at how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: Sitting across from me, curiously as usual, is senior writer

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. Dust machine is niched for a finger, pokin

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Speaker 1: ont mitten grabbin, It's easy schnapping the spring work blow

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Speaker 1: and fuels in ont popping corkin Mitch spits and sparking.

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Speaker 1: Its niched for verkin by dust doom coffin, dust robin

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Speaker 1: nickensight zerin keeping hands in dust pockets, reluxant ont vatch

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Speaker 1: dust blinking lights. I love dust blinken lights. Shouldn't that

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Speaker 1: be de blinken lights. Well, I'm sorry that's the way

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Speaker 1: it was written. I know on what we are about

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Speaker 1: to talk about. UM, we have a little listener mail.

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Speaker 1: This listener mail comes from Patch, actually comes from several people,

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Speaker 1: but Patch wrote the first one. Hi, I found your

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Speaker 1: podcast a few days ago and really like it, and

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Speaker 1: I was wondering if you could do one on the

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Speaker 1: old b b s S. I'm building one myself. Thanks, Well, Patch,

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Speaker 1: we're going to talk about bbs is. And indeed, that

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Speaker 1: quote was not from a movie, It was not from

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Speaker 1: a song. That was a text file that was uploaded

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Speaker 1: to BBSs and made its way through various bbs is

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Speaker 1: in the in the eighties. Of course that was fake German.

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Speaker 1: It's not real German. Yeah, I remember frong leis And yeah, anyway,

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Speaker 1: I don't know what you would call it English, English, Deutsch,

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Speaker 1: in English, dout English, I don't know anyway. Um, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And it's funny because the old bbs is, what ever

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Speaker 1: happened to those? They're still around, not all of them,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, Patch is apparently trying to build an old BBS,

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Speaker 1: but then would be a new BBS. Just confused, that's

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Speaker 1: a good question. It stands for bulletin board System and

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Speaker 1: it really is sort of the computer version of the

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Speaker 1: old bulletin boards that you would see in dormitories or

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Speaker 1: office buildings or even homes where people would just put

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Speaker 1: up a little note and for other people to see,

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Speaker 1: maybe they had something that they wanted to sell or

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Speaker 1: they were looking to buy, or just a cute joke

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Speaker 1: or something you just want to pop it up there

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Speaker 1: on the bulletin board. Same sort of thing, except in

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Speaker 1: this case it's all going to be located on a computer. Now,

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Speaker 1: the important thing to remember is this is taking place

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Speaker 1: that the era of the BBS is takes place before

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Speaker 1: the public era of the internet. Right, So, uh, taking

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Speaker 1: it down to bare bones, basically, what you've got is

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Speaker 1: a computer running a piece of software. They will allow

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Speaker 1: you to post and read messages. That's that's the simplest

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Speaker 1: form of what a BBS is. You have had one

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Speaker 1: more element. It allows you allows remote users to post

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Speaker 1: and read message. I was going to add that, I

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Speaker 1: mean without without the modem attached to it and a

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Speaker 1: phone line. Yeah, it would just it's essentially yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean it's a bulletin board for one person, which is

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Speaker 1: kind of silly. But the BBS, Uh, yeah, you had

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Speaker 1: a computer that you could dial into so and and

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Speaker 1: the BBS is that I think of our sort of

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Speaker 1: if you will, hyperlocal. Yes, they didn't necessarily have to be,

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Speaker 1: but you know it would be you know, Bob's computer

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Speaker 1: over here. Remember Bob. We talked about Bob before. He's

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Speaker 1: very generous with the you know, allowing us to use this.

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Speaker 1: I've been told that I have to call him Robert. Now, yeah, okay,

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Speaker 1: So Robert has this computer and he's got a modem

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Speaker 1: and a phone line that you can use and h

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Speaker 1: Robert hosts messages about I don't know, role playing games

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Speaker 1: for example, and uh, well it's good because you have

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Speaker 1: your community that the people he wants to play with,

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Speaker 1: you know, and get together on Saturday night and spend

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Speaker 1: a couple of hours playing Dungeons and Dragons or uh,

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Speaker 1: ponds are blitz. That's not role playing game, but you know,

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Speaker 1: you could get people around the table to actually put Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that kind of thing. You have a group of people

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Speaker 1: who enthusiasts who want to play these games with you,

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Speaker 1: and you want to share tactics or messages about it

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Speaker 1: or body jokes. Right, dial up, We're not even there yet,

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Speaker 1: let's keep going anyway. So that's the thing he's got.

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Speaker 1: Roberts got this computer with a modem, and so uh,

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Speaker 1: Jeff and Steve want to hook up well on onto

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Speaker 1: the bulletin board, so they Jeff calls in the number

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Speaker 1: for the modem on Robert's computer, so he dials in

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Speaker 1: and he can see anything that Steve or Robert have

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Speaker 1: posted on their Jeff is reading messages. Uh wants to

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Speaker 1: comment on something. You post a comment on there and

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Speaker 1: hangs up the modem and then you know, whomever else

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Speaker 1: is in this group can dial up and see what's

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Speaker 1: on the bulletin board and post messages. However, Uh, generally speaking,

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Speaker 1: I would I think you probably agree with me. Generally speaking,

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Speaker 1: we're talking one person at a time, Yeah, especially the

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Speaker 1: early bbs is where they were limited to a single

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Speaker 1: user at a time. So yeah, again, this is a

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Speaker 1: precursor to the Internet, so you don't have any Internet

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Speaker 1: that you can log into. Uh, this was kind of

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Speaker 1: these these regional networks really, and not even a network,

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Speaker 1: because you're talking about just a one single machine that

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Speaker 1: you could dial into. So I guess you could call

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Speaker 1: it a network of two machines at any given time. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because you have the one that is programmed to receive

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Speaker 1: the call. It's the host. Yeah, the host, which you know,

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Speaker 1: the client calls in and and and logs in with

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Speaker 1: the user name and password. Um, I'm assuming that you

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Speaker 1: would want to do that anyway, despite the fact that

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Speaker 1: as people aren't going to know how to do this,

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Speaker 1: you know how to do this let alone that. But

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Speaker 1: they're not gonna necessarily know where the BBS is and

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Speaker 1: what phone number to call to get there and have

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Speaker 1: the equipment to do it. But you still, you know,

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Speaker 1: have the client log into the host and check and

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Speaker 1: post most messages to it and in some cases files. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Do you know when the very first Bolton board system

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Speaker 1: launched or who did it? I do? I don't. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So I asked you a question, and I drop a

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Speaker 1: bomb on you and you have no way of answering it.

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Speaker 1: That's an awesome co host, Jonathan Um, I'm thinking it

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Speaker 1: probably now that I've actually looked at my notes, would

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Speaker 1: be in Yes, that's correct. Ward Christensen and Randy Seuss

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Speaker 1: built the first Bolton Board system as the computerized bolletin

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Speaker 1: Board System. They created it out of Chicago. Well they

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Speaker 1: built they took down Chicago and built a bulletin board system. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean, if you're gonna replace Chicago with some then anyway,

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Speaker 1: the Bolton Board System, well you know it's there, used

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Speaker 1: a smaller city to build a BBS anyway, Well they tried.

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Speaker 1: Never mind, I can't make jokes about that city anymore.

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Speaker 1: I was told not to. Uh. The so Chicago. Heck

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Speaker 1: of a town. Uh. The the these guys. What they

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Speaker 1: did was they built up the system. They designed a

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Speaker 1: program using assembly language actually eight assembly language. They designed

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Speaker 1: this program where it was it would allow people to

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Speaker 1: come in and post and read messages and that's essentially

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Speaker 1: all it could do when it first launched, and it

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Speaker 1: launched it was built in nineteen seventy eight, but it

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Speaker 1: launched in publicly in nineteen seventy nine, and um, well

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Speaker 1: there was. They did announce what they had done in

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Speaker 1: the UH and BITE magazine in November. Um so they

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Speaker 1: you know, Bite was. If you're not familiar with Bite,

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Speaker 1: how would you describe by I would say it's a

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Speaker 1: computer enthusiast magazine, but it was really um for serious

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Speaker 1: computer enthusiast. These are people who are interested in programming

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Speaker 1: and hacking in the classical I think these are the

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Speaker 1: same people who would order computer building kits that they

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Speaker 1: would build their own personal computers. Yeah. Sorry, I didn't

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Speaker 1: mean interruption. Go ahead, but it's not like, for example,

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Speaker 1: a PC world would be where you're reading about software

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Speaker 1: and things. These are people who would want to make

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Speaker 1: their own software and build their own It was it

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Speaker 1: was written by and four hackers. That's what you can say.

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Speaker 1: And we're talking about hackers in the sense of people

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Speaker 1: who programmed, not necessarily people who are trying to break

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Speaker 1: into security systems or create malware. UM. That's a that

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Speaker 1: was something that hacker came to be known for UM

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Speaker 1: later on. But originally hackers were programmers. There are guys

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Speaker 1: who were trying to end women, trying to figure out

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Speaker 1: how to make a computer program do a certain task.

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Speaker 1: And UM, they often weren't really worried about how pretty

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Speaker 1: it looked at the end of the day. So the

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Speaker 1: c b b S, which was the the Computer bulletin

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Speaker 1: Board System, UM, it launches it and and people users

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Speaker 1: think it's really cool, but it's it's in Chicago. It's

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Speaker 1: using you have to dial in, right, so unless you're

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Speaker 1: local to Chicago, it's a long distance call, so you

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Speaker 1: can't you know, you can't just call in and not

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Speaker 1: and not worry about charges. Uh. And it wasn't distributed.

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Speaker 1: It was just that, you know, they talked about how

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Speaker 1: they did it, and some people read it and thought, hey,

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Speaker 1: this is a great idea, and they attempted their own version.

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Speaker 1: And among those was a guy named Bill Blue. He

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Speaker 1: wrote a b B S really which one I don't know.

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Speaker 1: He wrote a b B S ABS and it was

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Speaker 1: it was kind of followed. It followed along with the

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Speaker 1: c BBS system. But he built it so that anyone

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Speaker 1: who had an Apple too, and anyone who had the

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Speaker 1: d C. Hayes m M modem very specif think, could

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Speaker 1: could run the the program. So the CBBS one was

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Speaker 1: particular to Chicago, but Bills was one that if you

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Speaker 1: got that code and you had an Apple computer and

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Speaker 1: you had this modem, you could run this and create

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Speaker 1: your own Bolton board system. And so people started to

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Speaker 1: do that. And uh, back in the day, you know

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Speaker 1: what the fastest or what was considered a fast modem

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Speaker 1: back then, right, Yeah, three D bad. If you don't

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Speaker 1: know what bad is, that means that it could transmit

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Speaker 1: three hundred symbols in a second. That's not fast people,

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Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's you can't and you can't easily translate

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Speaker 1: BAWD to bits per second. It it's not it's not

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Speaker 1: it's not analogous exactly. It's not analogous. But by the

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Speaker 1: by the time of the well actually that I guess

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Speaker 1: technically literally, the standard is still the same the fastest.

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Speaker 1: About the fastest you can go on a phone line

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Speaker 1: in the United States is uh yeah, is it fifty two? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because it was supposed to be fifty six, But there

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Speaker 1: is a legal limitation. I was about to say technical specification,

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Speaker 1: but it's not the actual speed. But yeah, when I

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Speaker 1: started using a dial up modems the standard and then

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Speaker 1: shortly after that, uh, back back when they stopped being

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Speaker 1: as common, probably in the late nineties early two thousand's,

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Speaker 1: modems hit a practical limitation that there's a limit to

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Speaker 1: the amount of bandwidth you can send over phone line

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Speaker 1: because it's using audio to do this rather than the

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Speaker 1: bandwidth on the other side of the audio space in

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Speaker 1: a phone line. So um, yeah, due to practical limitations.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, three bod that can you imagine trying to

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Speaker 1: transfer something like a YouTube video or a flash animation

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Speaker 1: at three You might not want to have anything scheduled

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Speaker 1: for the next year. It would take you a very

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Speaker 1: long time the and and that kind of brings us

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Speaker 1: to one of the reasons one of the limitations, or

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Speaker 1: if you will, one of the features of bbs is

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Speaker 1: they were text based. Yes, they had usually some sort

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Speaker 1: of file structure system that you can navigate so that

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Speaker 1: you could read things that are similar to today's message

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Speaker 1: boards on internet UH sites, websites, UM. So you had

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Speaker 1: the message boards where you could converse with other people

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Speaker 1: who would visit this BBS again, not in real time,

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Speaker 1: but for the most part, because usually at least for

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Speaker 1: the smaller bbs is, you're the only one on that system.

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Speaker 1: You might be on at the same time as the

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Speaker 1: system operator that's the owner uh systems. That's where sissop

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Speaker 1: comes from. If you've heard that term. It comes from

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Speaker 1: the old BBS days. Actually, a lot of the acronyms

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Speaker 1: and that we see online they have their origin back

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Speaker 1: in the old bbs is. So yeah, you you normally

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Speaker 1: would be having asynchronous conversations, right you would post something,

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Speaker 1: you would log off the BBS. You might check the

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Speaker 1: next day and see that someone's replied to you. It

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Speaker 1: wouldn't be this instant message uh that that we've become

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Speaker 1: used to on the internet. And now. Some bbs is

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Speaker 1: did eventually get to the point where they had multiple

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Speaker 1: phone lines. So if you would called one and got

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Speaker 1: a busy signal, you could call the next phone line

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Speaker 1: for the same BBS and connect to it and they

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Speaker 1: could actually have multiple users online at the same time,

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Speaker 1: but that that was not the case for your average

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Speaker 1: BBS because you know, if it was just some guy

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Speaker 1: running it out of his um, you know, his his den,

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Speaker 1: it may be that there's just one phone line that

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Speaker 1: he could even dedicate to it. And of course, if

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Speaker 1: if he's not there at the time, there's always the

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Speaker 1: chance that the BBS would crash. You would call, you

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Speaker 1: couldn't connect, and you know, you you'd be stuck without

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Speaker 1: that BBS until he came back home and fixed it

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Speaker 1: or she. I shouldn't just say he. I mean I

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Speaker 1: always say he because I think that's probably the majority

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Speaker 1: of the users, but it wasn't total all male. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And on these bbs is you could find things besides

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Speaker 1: the message boards. You could find other things like you

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Speaker 1: you mentioned files. That was That was a little later,

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Speaker 1: but not by much. We talked about shareware and how

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Speaker 1: that that model developed and how games used to spread

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Speaker 1: that way. Um. But yeah, I think that's true. I mean,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about again, we're talking about physical limitations, and

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties we're not talking about you know,

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Speaker 1: gigabyte hard drives or terabyte hard drives. Hard drives. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if there were hard drives at all. Um, so we're

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Speaker 1: not talking about anything too particularly large. But people did, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, share information and pirate software, pirate software uh

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Speaker 1: to to a lesser extent. I think that probably, I

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Speaker 1: think you're right. I think that was probably more along

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Speaker 1: the lines of when these systems became more sophisticated. But

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Speaker 1: you know the things that you do on for example,

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Speaker 1: use net groups or I r C now or even

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Speaker 1: back in the earlier days of public uh Internet, Um,

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Speaker 1: you know you didn't. You couldn't really do that because

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Speaker 1: you just didn't have the hardware to make that happen.

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Speaker 1: It was on a much smaller scale now. They didn't

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Speaker 1: have games. Um, there are a lot of games that

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Speaker 1: you could play on a BBS Many of them had

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Speaker 1: specific limitations on how long you could play, because you

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Speaker 1: don't want to have one user dominate that phone line,

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Speaker 1: right right, So most of the time these bbs is

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Speaker 1: would have a as a timer, and once you exceeded

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Speaker 1: the limit on that timer, you would get disconnected and

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Speaker 1: someone else could call in sorry go ahead. Um No.

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Speaker 1: There were also turn based games, if I'm not mistaken, um,

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Speaker 1: where you could you know, log in, play your turn,

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Speaker 1: and log back out and wait for somebody else to

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Speaker 1: the I mean chess was very popular on bbs is.

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Speaker 1: But one of the games that is incredibly popular in

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Speaker 1: bbs is And yes I did play this game, Legend

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Speaker 1: of the Red Dragon, which was often known as just

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Speaker 1: Lord l O R d UM. It was created by

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Speaker 1: Seth Robinson and it was It was a game where

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Speaker 1: you created a character that um developed skills and prowess,

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Speaker 1: and the goal was to defeat the Red Dragon that

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Speaker 1: is terrorizing this one town. And the way the game

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Speaker 1: worked was it would work in cycles. The game would

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Speaker 1: start and everybody would be on equal ground, and all

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Speaker 1: the people who are playing the game have the same goal.

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Speaker 1: They want to be the one to defeat the dragon.

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Speaker 1: When a player got to the point where he or

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Speaker 1: she could defeat the dragon and the dragons defeated, new game,

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Speaker 1: I see and everyone starts again at the bottom. Uh.

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Speaker 1: It had other features in it where you could challenge

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Speaker 1: other players to fight, but they were um they were

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Speaker 1: usually it was automated, so when you weren't online and

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Speaker 1: someone else was playing, they could challenge your character to

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Speaker 1: a duel and the computer would run your character as

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Speaker 1: if you know you were doing it. Uh. You could

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Speaker 1: also flirt with other characters, and there were consequences to flirting,

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Speaker 1: including things like you might be greeted with a child

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Speaker 1: within the game. I won't go into any more detail

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Speaker 1: on that. Yeah, So anyway, it was actually kind of interesting.

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Speaker 1: I had a little bit of a complex social structure

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Speaker 1: to it. Um And some of the other games were

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Speaker 1: really cool too, like the Trade Wars twenty twenty two

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Speaker 1: or two thousand two. That was a good one. Barren

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Speaker 1: Realms Elite was amazing, really. Yeah. Barren Realms Elite was

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Speaker 1: a multiplayer strategy game and if you could have twenty

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Speaker 1: five people playing this game, and the way the game

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Speaker 1: worked was that would pitt bbs is against each other.

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Speaker 1: Each BBS would essentially be a planet in a in

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Speaker 1: a galaxy of planets, and so you were trying to

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Speaker 1: have your planet come out on top of all the

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Speaker 1: other planets. So it was this neat competition between BBS

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Speaker 1: is UM And I'm sorry, go ahead, I was gonna

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Speaker 1: say just that that that was kind of interesting because

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Speaker 1: you could you know, BBS is not like the Internet.

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Speaker 1: You know, you log into the Internet. The Internet is

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Speaker 1: one gigantic network you could visit as many bbs is

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Speaker 1: as you liked. Uh, we were really only limited by

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Speaker 1: your phone bill and the amount of time you had

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Speaker 1: at your disposal. Because each bbs was its own distinct

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Speaker 1: thing with its own community, and some of the communities

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Speaker 1: had multiple liked, some of the communities overlapped, right, and

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Speaker 1: you would find the same people going to maybe three

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Speaker 1: or four of the bbs is in their local area,

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Speaker 1: but some of them would be more niche oriented, and

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Speaker 1: you would really just see a certain group of people

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Speaker 1: just stay there, like especially the ones that were centered

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Speaker 1: around a very specific topic like dungeons and dragons, right,

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Speaker 1: and yeah, there are a lot of the bbs is

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Speaker 1: that I was familiar with had a specific slant to them,

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Speaker 1: like they were specifically geared toward a particular interest. Um.

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Speaker 1: I know, I know there were plenty of general topic

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Speaker 1: bbs is, but it's you know, the ones that I

334
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Speaker 1: was familiar with. Now, I didn't I admit I never

335
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Speaker 1: actually dialed into a bbs I was, um just I

336
00:19:24,400 --> 00:19:27,080
Speaker 1: didn't really become aware of it until after I had

337
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Speaker 1: already started using the Internet or actually bitten net technically. Um,

338
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Speaker 1: And you know, I was vaguely aware of it, but

339
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Speaker 1: I didn't have a modem, so I didn't really participate

340
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Speaker 1: for about five or six that I used to lug

341
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Speaker 1: into pretty regularly. But um, yeah, I mean and in

342
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Speaker 1: a lot of cases, I think this is this is

343
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Speaker 1: sort of what evolved into the online service provider was,

344
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Speaker 1: you know, the the gradual interest in people of logging

345
00:19:54,080 --> 00:19:57,399
Speaker 1: into these systems and they became more complex. Uh, we

346
00:19:57,520 --> 00:20:01,240
Speaker 1: had lots more people than you have companies looking to

347
00:20:02,240 --> 00:20:05,879
Speaker 1: uh develop something more robust like a CompuServe or in

348
00:20:05,960 --> 00:20:10,040
Speaker 1: America online before you know, the Internet became more of

349
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Speaker 1: a public sphere when it was still dominated by government

350
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Speaker 1: and academic interests, and you also had at this point

351
00:20:16,720 --> 00:20:20,320
Speaker 1: the technology for modems has evolved as well, so that

352
00:20:20,760 --> 00:20:24,040
Speaker 1: you could include things like some graphics in your in

353
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Speaker 1: your system, like as we said before with BBS, as

354
00:20:27,680 --> 00:20:30,760
Speaker 1: it was mostly text based or symbol based stuff because

355
00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:34,520
Speaker 1: the well, for multiple reasons, One you have limited amount

356
00:20:34,560 --> 00:20:38,399
Speaker 1: space on the computer that's hosting the BBS, but for another,

357
00:20:38,560 --> 00:20:41,919
Speaker 1: it's just the limitation of how fast your modem can

358
00:20:42,440 --> 00:20:46,760
Speaker 1: can conduct data through it. And at that speed you

359
00:20:46,840 --> 00:20:50,959
Speaker 1: just couldn't do graphics. Um, that didn't stop people from

360
00:20:51,000 --> 00:20:53,320
Speaker 1: creating as key art. They started doing that. They would

361
00:20:53,400 --> 00:20:58,080
Speaker 1: use as key symbols to create uh uh sketches. Really

362
00:20:58,440 --> 00:21:00,879
Speaker 1: I love as art. Well is interesting is they kind

363
00:21:00,920 --> 00:21:04,159
Speaker 1: of became a currency on bbs is. People would build

364
00:21:04,320 --> 00:21:08,640
Speaker 1: a design and they could trade it for other designs

365
00:21:08,800 --> 00:21:11,480
Speaker 1: or sometimes for other programs things like that. It was

366
00:21:11,560 --> 00:21:14,879
Speaker 1: kind of interesting that that became currency on BBSs or

367
00:21:14,960 --> 00:21:18,560
Speaker 1: magic beans or magic beans. I wanted to read a

368
00:21:18,560 --> 00:21:20,800
Speaker 1: little bit or or refer a little bit to an

369
00:21:20,840 --> 00:21:24,880
Speaker 1: interesting document I found at text files dot com, which

370
00:21:24,920 --> 00:21:29,280
Speaker 1: is a it's an archive of BBS text files. This

371
00:21:29,359 --> 00:21:33,040
Speaker 1: is a text file called what has Killed BBS Systems.

372
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Speaker 1: What I find interesting about this is that it was

373
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Speaker 1: written in nineteen eighty two eight two What has Killed

374
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Speaker 1: BBS Systems? That, keeping in mind the first public bbs

375
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Speaker 1: is nineteen seventy nine. Yes, it did not take long

376
00:21:49,080 --> 00:21:51,880
Speaker 1: to kill the bbs is according to this guy, Well, yes,

377
00:21:51,920 --> 00:21:53,840
Speaker 1: but I I have a theory on this, but go

378
00:21:53,880 --> 00:21:56,600
Speaker 1: ahead and make here. So the points that he made

379
00:21:56,720 --> 00:21:59,920
Speaker 1: was that he said that the uploading and downloading program

380
00:22:00,119 --> 00:22:02,359
Speaker 1: was killing bbs is because people would just come in,

381
00:22:02,760 --> 00:22:05,159
Speaker 1: get whatever they wanted, and go, and they wouldn't they

382
00:22:05,160 --> 00:22:09,320
Speaker 1: wouldn't participate in the community. Um. They said that there

383
00:22:09,359 --> 00:22:11,800
Speaker 1: was a retaliation that was getting very cliquish, and people

384
00:22:11,800 --> 00:22:16,680
Speaker 1: were retaliating against folks who were there just to communicate

385
00:22:16,800 --> 00:22:21,800
Speaker 1: and to make friends and to exchange information. UH. He

386
00:22:21,920 --> 00:22:25,919
Speaker 1: also blamed the proliferation of bbs is in a single area,

387
00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:28,800
Speaker 1: in any given area. That was one of the things

388
00:22:28,840 --> 00:22:31,040
Speaker 1: I talked about. How you could be on several bbs is,

389
00:22:31,119 --> 00:22:32,840
Speaker 1: you know, you would go from one to the other.

390
00:22:33,280 --> 00:22:36,399
Speaker 1: He he was saying that that's a problem. Um. He

391
00:22:36,440 --> 00:22:38,760
Speaker 1: says that in places where there were only a couple

392
00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:42,400
Speaker 1: of bbs is, things were going great. UM. He said

393
00:22:42,440 --> 00:22:44,920
Speaker 1: that the loss of anonymity was a big problem, which

394
00:22:44,960 --> 00:22:47,560
Speaker 1: is interesting because that's something that you hear on internet

395
00:22:47,560 --> 00:22:53,120
Speaker 1: forums where people are reluctant to tie their own name

396
00:22:53,359 --> 00:22:57,080
Speaker 1: to an online handle. You know that there's a lot

397
00:22:57,119 --> 00:23:01,320
Speaker 1: of that still going on today. UM. The anti hacker movement,

398
00:23:01,359 --> 00:23:03,680
Speaker 1: he said, was a big problem, which was the whole

399
00:23:03,720 --> 00:23:08,160
Speaker 1: idea of UH. The hacker in the sense of programmer,

400
00:23:08,280 --> 00:23:11,879
Speaker 1: not in the sense of phone freaker or or malicious hacker.

401
00:23:12,680 --> 00:23:16,359
Speaker 1: He says that that whole uh turning the word hacker

402
00:23:16,400 --> 00:23:19,800
Speaker 1: into something bad was part of what was killing BBS is. Uh,

403
00:23:19,880 --> 00:23:22,000
Speaker 1: they said that the press is ignorance of the BBS

404
00:23:22,040 --> 00:23:26,119
Speaker 1: community was a problem. Sissop ignorance, which he said that

405
00:23:26,240 --> 00:23:29,560
Speaker 1: because it became so easy to host a BBS, people

406
00:23:29,560 --> 00:23:32,239
Speaker 1: who had no business hosting them were doing so, and

407
00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:35,119
Speaker 1: that was killing the BBS is. You could argue the

408
00:23:35,160 --> 00:23:37,520
Speaker 1: same thing for web pages today. I would assume like

409
00:23:37,600 --> 00:23:40,000
Speaker 1: web administrators would probably say the same sort of thing.

410
00:23:40,160 --> 00:23:44,120
Speaker 1: People who run really good websites might really complain about

411
00:23:44,160 --> 00:23:47,600
Speaker 1: folks who don't run such great websites. Um. So, yeah,

412
00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:50,920
Speaker 1: it's just interesting to see that these complaints came out

413
00:23:51,000 --> 00:23:53,440
Speaker 1: as early as a D two and and his his

414
00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 1: text file is much longer than what I've indicated. But um,

415
00:23:58,280 --> 00:24:00,840
Speaker 1: bbs is of course kept on going throughout the eighties

416
00:24:00,840 --> 00:24:03,760
Speaker 1: and into the nineties, and as we've said, they're still

417
00:24:03,800 --> 00:24:05,840
Speaker 1: out there today. It's just there're no what we're near

418
00:24:05,840 --> 00:24:09,040
Speaker 1: as prevalent as they used to be right now. Uh. True,

419
00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:13,360
Speaker 1: BBS is not on the Internet. It's not you know

420
00:24:13,520 --> 00:24:16,719
Speaker 1: there there are there are approximations. I mean, you can

421
00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:20,639
Speaker 1: think about this that the Internet is basically a gigantic

422
00:24:20,760 --> 00:24:24,480
Speaker 1: form of this. But because they're all kinds of message

423
00:24:24,520 --> 00:24:27,080
Speaker 1: boards that you can post too, in places to upload

424
00:24:27,119 --> 00:24:31,120
Speaker 1: and download files from and and online communities. But uh,

425
00:24:31,160 --> 00:24:35,520
Speaker 1: you know, a BBS itself is a very limited uh world,

426
00:24:35,760 --> 00:24:38,280
Speaker 1: if you will, if you'll accept that as a term there,

427
00:24:38,560 --> 00:24:42,399
Speaker 1: and um, yeah, I think that for for the poster

428
00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:46,400
Speaker 1: of that post, Um, it's obviously something. It was obviously

429
00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:50,200
Speaker 1: something very special. He liked that community, uh, and that

430
00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:53,919
Speaker 1: particular environment. And the more people it's like you you

431
00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:57,080
Speaker 1: have your uh, your band, your favorite indie band, and

432
00:24:57,080 --> 00:24:59,520
Speaker 1: then they finally get you complain that nobody ever likes

433
00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:02,640
Speaker 1: them in everyone likes and they totally sold out exactly.

434
00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:06,560
Speaker 1: Super Chunk was on NPR. What is up with that? Dude?

435
00:25:06,600 --> 00:25:10,280
Speaker 1: I saw super Chunk in nineteen nine. Okay, I'm getting

436
00:25:10,280 --> 00:25:13,359
Speaker 1: a little ahead of it. Yeah, I'm getting off topic anyhow,

437
00:25:13,400 --> 00:25:15,520
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's it was. It was that kind of

438
00:25:16,040 --> 00:25:21,080
Speaker 1: loyalty and interest in the BBS world that I think

439
00:25:21,080 --> 00:25:23,359
Speaker 1: inspired that, and I mean causes a lot of people

440
00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:27,959
Speaker 1: now to think back on it, uh favorably. In fact, Um,

441
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:31,400
Speaker 1: you know, Jason Scott, did you see this the BBS

442
00:25:31,520 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 1: documentary called the documentary? I saw that it was, Um,

443
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:39,000
Speaker 1: I saw the website for it. Of course, don't have

444
00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:41,680
Speaker 1: access to the documentary, so I didn't get to watch it. Yeah,

445
00:25:41,840 --> 00:25:46,480
Speaker 1: they they, I think, get into much more granular detail

446
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:51,000
Speaker 1: on bbs IS and and the whole culture. Eight different episodes, right, Yeah,

447
00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:54,520
Speaker 1: it's on several so you know, I'm sure it would

448
00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:56,399
Speaker 1: be fascinating. I just didn't have time to check it

449
00:25:56,440 --> 00:25:59,640
Speaker 1: out before. But but yeah, I mean, so there's there's

450
00:25:59,680 --> 00:26:03,639
Speaker 1: a lot to it, but those are those are the basics. Yeah,

451
00:26:03,760 --> 00:26:06,800
Speaker 1: and and some of the people who are really doing

452
00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:10,280
Speaker 1: important work in technology today, we're big into bbs IS

453
00:26:10,320 --> 00:26:13,160
Speaker 1: back in the eighties. So for example, well, I mean

454
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:18,119
Speaker 1: there's the laws. Yes, Wozniak he uh, Steve Wozniac he

455
00:26:18,359 --> 00:26:22,000
Speaker 1: one of the founders of Apple. He was a big

456
00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:23,960
Speaker 1: proponent of bbs IS back in the day. And of

457
00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:27,440
Speaker 1: course he even used it to help people figure out

458
00:26:27,440 --> 00:26:31,199
Speaker 1: how to phone freak. He may remember our phone freaking

459
00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 1: episode from several months back. But also there was a

460
00:26:34,760 --> 00:26:37,920
Speaker 1: guy who wrote a document on bbs as that got

461
00:26:38,240 --> 00:26:41,000
Speaker 1: spread around quite a bit. The document called the Bill

462
00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:45,560
Speaker 1: of Rights Light l i t E. Which was a

463
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:50,720
Speaker 1: rephrased bill of rights that were It was designed to

464
00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:55,040
Speaker 1: kind of point out the issues that were surrounding um computer,

465
00:26:55,960 --> 00:27:00,280
Speaker 1: uh technology and how that relates to constitutional it's and

466
00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:03,879
Speaker 1: how it's a complicated issue, kind of really looking ahead

467
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:09,000
Speaker 1: to see how the digital age is conflicting with basic

468
00:27:09,119 --> 00:27:11,320
Speaker 1: rights and and like how does it fit and where

469
00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:12,800
Speaker 1: does it not fit and where do we need to

470
00:27:12,800 --> 00:27:15,719
Speaker 1: tweak it so that it works properly. Was written by

471
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:21,360
Speaker 1: a guy named John Perry Barlow. UH. Barlow is one

472
00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:26,440
Speaker 1: of the founders of the Electronic Freedom Foundation the e F. Yes,

473
00:27:26,880 --> 00:27:30,720
Speaker 1: so the e F continues today to try and and

474
00:27:30,880 --> 00:27:36,000
Speaker 1: shape public policy so that internet freedoms, things like net

475
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:42,480
Speaker 1: neutrality remain untouched. They advocate for uh for net neutrality,

476
00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:47,000
Speaker 1: among other policies. So, uh, some people who are really

477
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:49,800
Speaker 1: you know, movers and shakers in the technology world, we're

478
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:53,600
Speaker 1: big into bbs IS back in the day. Yeah, that's uh,

479
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:57,400
Speaker 1: that's definitely true, and um, you know, and and other

480
00:27:57,440 --> 00:28:00,080
Speaker 1: people knew it too as well, because the government of

481
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:02,920
Speaker 1: the federal government in the United States had its I

482
00:28:03,200 --> 00:28:07,080
Speaker 1: on bbs IS And we're watching to see who was

483
00:28:07,119 --> 00:28:11,359
Speaker 1: on the different uh bulletin boards. I know that Steve

484
00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:14,960
Speaker 1: Jackson Games, which is an office favorite among uh some

485
00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:18,960
Speaker 1: gamers here at how stuffworks dot com. Their offices were

486
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:21,240
Speaker 1: rated because they were hosting a bbs and the Secret

487
00:28:21,280 --> 00:28:26,120
Speaker 1: Service thought there was some illicit material on there about

488
00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:30,120
Speaker 1: hacking in computer networks. As it turns out there wasn't. Yeah,

489
00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:34,919
Speaker 1: but but BBSs did. Yeah, BBSs did provide some people

490
00:28:35,119 --> 00:28:39,600
Speaker 1: the ability to to either share tips on how to

491
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:46,080
Speaker 1: pirate software or actually would include pirated software as a download. Um,

492
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:49,920
Speaker 1: there were hackers specific bbs is. Uh. In fact, a

493
00:28:49,960 --> 00:28:52,440
Speaker 1: lot of the early ones were hackers specific. We're not

494
00:28:52,520 --> 00:28:55,120
Speaker 1: just not just hackers as in programmers, but hackers asn't

495
00:28:55,160 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 1: the people who enjoy breaking into systems, learning how they

496
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:04,000
Speaker 1: work than exploiting them. So yeah about them, Yeah I

497
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:08,440
Speaker 1: should Hey wait a minute, anyway, Yeah, there there were

498
00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:10,960
Speaker 1: there were some kind of shady bbs is out there,

499
00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:13,640
Speaker 1: and even some of the general purpose bbs has had

500
00:29:13,680 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 1: some material on it that probably wasn't appropriate for all eyes.

501
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:22,120
Speaker 1: I can actually, I won't say maybe definitely. I was

502
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:24,200
Speaker 1: a kid and I was on those bbs is, and

503
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:26,840
Speaker 1: I know that there was material A lot of them

504
00:29:26,880 --> 00:29:31,800
Speaker 1: actually had. UM, had ways of of making you talk. No,

505
00:29:32,320 --> 00:29:35,000
Speaker 1: they had ways to to guard against that. You had

506
00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:38,240
Speaker 1: to use a like a credit card to um access

507
00:29:38,280 --> 00:29:41,480
Speaker 1: certain parts of the BBS. And it wasn't necessarily that

508
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:43,520
Speaker 1: they would charge you, but they wanted the credit card

509
00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:45,880
Speaker 1: to to prove that you're an adult. Right, if you're

510
00:29:45,880 --> 00:29:47,520
Speaker 1: old enough to have a credit card, then you're old

511
00:29:47,600 --> 00:29:51,000
Speaker 1: enough to get access to this material. And uh, you know,

512
00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:53,240
Speaker 1: some of them followed that and some didn't. And yes,

513
00:29:53,320 --> 00:29:55,680
Speaker 1: you can build your own BBS even to this day.

514
00:29:56,120 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 1: You can either use a dial up modem and have

515
00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:03,240
Speaker 1: people call in physically to that machine and explore your BBS,

516
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:06,120
Speaker 1: or you can use a tell net client and have

517
00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:10,640
Speaker 1: people tell net into it. Um. But the you know,

518
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:13,160
Speaker 1: the era of the BBS is is. I mean, there's

519
00:30:13,160 --> 00:30:14,960
Speaker 1: still a few out there that are still that still

520
00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:19,040
Speaker 1: have their die hard fans who who contribute and are

521
00:30:19,800 --> 00:30:23,360
Speaker 1: big into that community, but the Internet is really um

522
00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:26,240
Speaker 1: appropriated a lot of that. Yeah. It's kind of ironic

523
00:30:26,280 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 1: too in a way that as popular as electronic communication

524
00:30:31,200 --> 00:30:35,120
Speaker 1: is now, the BBS surged in popularity and has now

525
00:30:35,280 --> 00:30:38,280
Speaker 1: receded to the point where people like the one you

526
00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:40,840
Speaker 1: quoted a few minutes ago are probably happy again because

527
00:30:41,560 --> 00:30:43,920
Speaker 1: just the you know, they're still back to the original

528
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:47,600
Speaker 1: little communities of people little pockets of people. Yeah maybe,

529
00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:49,800
Speaker 1: um yeah, because I I often will think of a

530
00:30:49,840 --> 00:30:52,440
Speaker 1: BBS as if you it's sort of similar to what

531
00:30:52,520 --> 00:30:54,920
Speaker 1: would happen if you grabbed a web server and then

532
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:57,800
Speaker 1: you severed its connection to the rest of the Internet,

533
00:30:58,240 --> 00:31:00,640
Speaker 1: so you could connect directly to the at web server,

534
00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:03,200
Speaker 1: but you could not connect to any other web page,

535
00:31:03,320 --> 00:31:06,000
Speaker 1: like you couldn't go outside the boundaries of that server,

536
00:31:07,080 --> 00:31:09,440
Speaker 1: say somewhere kind of things. And again we're talking about

537
00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:14,960
Speaker 1: you know, text based stuff, right and and interesting askey art. Okay,

538
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:18,480
Speaker 1: well that wraps up this discussion on bulletin board Systems

539
00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 1: b b S. I hope you enjoyed it this little

540
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:27,200
Speaker 1: walk down Internet memory lane or network memory lane, body

541
00:31:27,720 --> 00:31:31,560
Speaker 1: memory lane. To bring back that joke. If you have

542
00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:34,200
Speaker 1: any topics you would specifically like us to cover, you

543
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:36,920
Speaker 1: can let us know on Facebook or Twitter are handle

544
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:40,360
Speaker 1: there is tech stuff HS double you or you can

545
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:44,560
Speaker 1: shoot us an email. That address is tech stuff at

546
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:47,000
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com and Chris and I will

547
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:51,480
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon for more on this

548
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:54,040
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works

549
00:31:54,080 --> 00:31:56,720
Speaker 1: dot com. So learn more about the podcast click on

550
00:31:56,760 --> 00:31:59,720
Speaker 1: the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our homepage.

551
00:32:00,840 --> 00:32:03,960
Speaker 1: The House Shtufforks iPhone app has arrived. Download it today

552
00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:11,600
Speaker 1: on iTunes, brought to you by the reinvented two thousand

553
00:32:11,680 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 1: twelve camera. It's ready, are you