BBS: The Documentary
February 23rd, 2008“When I was a boy, we dialed into bulletin board systems,” I can imagine myself telling my son someday…
And we did! Monochrome green (or amber) text, slowly running across the screen, was pretty much it in those days. But, wow, there was an endless, mysterious world out there; in the machine. I don’t know why the machine world seemed so much more interesting than the real world, but it was to me. Maybe, computers just represented an alternative for those of us who didn’t have much interest in sports or school elections.
I think I was about eleven years old when I dialed into my first system, which, I can still remember, was CompuServe. I quickly learned about the BBS movement and started hanging out with a group of miscreants, slobs, weirdos and no-shit hardcore hackers who had day jobs as programmers or unix machine operators at defense companies, banks, game companies, etc. It was a weird mix, man. One guy was getting a PhD in math. Another guy, the best programmer of the bunch (who’s still writing games), didn’t graduate from high school. One dude was blind and had a Braille terminal. The amazing thing was, nobody gave a single, solitary rat’s ass about what “normal” people cared about; TV, sports, hygiene etc.
Decades later, here I am, still looking at a screen in the middle of the night, connected to something… out there, in the machine.
I’ve been watching parts of BBS: The Documentary online and it’s incredible how the film brings it all back. If you were a BBS head in the 1980s, you’ll see bits of yourself in the interviews and probably laugh your ass off remembering those days.
The film is pretty arcane. I don’t know how much it will resonate with people who weren’t involved. I think it would be worth checking out just for the entertainment value of the characters alone, but that’s just me. More normal people might recoil in horror and run from the room. Younger people, who take Internet based technologies for granted now, will get a kick out of how things used to be.
Amazon: BBS: The Documentary:
Before the Internet became the way to connect to the world through a computer, life had already started to move online. Throughout the planet, regular folks were taking their new home computers, connecting them to a modem and a phone line, and starting Bulletin Board Systems, or BBSes. Once numbering in the tens of thousands, these “Dial-up Bulletin Boards” have mostly disappeared and mostly been forgotten… except by the people who lived, loved and worked on them. Director Jason Scott travelled thousands of miles and filmed over 200 people about their stories of the BBS, resulting in this 8 episode, five and a half hour long mini-series. The three DVDs in the set are region free, copy protection free, and Creative Commons licensed. They’re also a lot of fun as the various episodes cover different aspects of the BBS Story. Episode titles include BAUD, ARTSCENE, SYSOPS AND USERS, NO CARRIER and MAKE IT PAY. “BBS: The Documentary” covers the era of the BBS, one caller at a time.
More: bbsdocumentary.com
Born in 1966. Father: engineer. Basement: small entrepreneurial traffic control engineering business building targeted long-needed test equipment for civic agencies and engineering firms. Garage: combination machine/wood/paint/metal shop for fabrication, with later addition for final assembly. Son: learned component soldering at four. Started earning pocket money at eight doing piece work (logic gates, display panels, cannon cables, etc.) for Dad. First online experience: Compuserve. 300 baud. Rotary phone. Demon dialer. Diablo printer/terminal combination. Colossal Cave. White on black, THEN green, eventually amber.
Major flashbacks Kev.
In the end though, I was always too entranced with the “great outdoors” and remote places like backcountry lakes and mountainsides and adventure, and so my burgeoning computer habit was tempered. I left the programming to guys like Kevin Brockschmidt (who ended up coding at M$), investing the bulk of my creative spirit in analog tech — from musical tools and toys to my trusty Nikon F and the darkrooms I called home. I loved production ortho work and layout and everything else that’s been largely subsumed by the digital mileiu these days.
Not that I’m complaining, being able to “process” my work via a cable and this very keyboard in a fraction of the time it took for even the simplest black-and-white processes.
One great side benefit was the odd mix of colleagues my Dad frequented via his unusual bridging position in a cottage trade, most of whom were engineering types and whose hobbies often included all manner of audio and visual equipment, which I availed myself of the chance to fiddle with at every possible opportunity.
Like the two dudes at the table, I too experienced Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” in all of it’s quadrophonic glory back in the day (wow), though just a young and formative miscreant in those days.
Interestingly, the Divine Mrs. A (my wife of six years and consort of eleven) and I first crossed paths via a Usenet group in 1994, though we’re a lousy example of online dating, not actually hooking up until after a small group of folks from the community had an actual gathering in 1996, in Santa Rosa, CA.
And here I am today, some thirty years between me and Colossal Cave, still plugged in… =)
Oh yes, Ive been watching that documentary now..
I never used BBSes myself, but a couple friends ran their own. One even had a several line multimachine pirate bbs 🙂
My first online experiences were with a 8088 PC (Hercules green/black display and DOS 🙂 with 2 floppy disks and a modem. At that time I had a Freenet account thru my school, and I could dial in to a number that would connect me to Freenet. There I could use Gopher and other text services, and chat..
When I was young we… [Even though my friends and I did the same, and MUCH worse, I’ve got to edit out that part. Sorry. —Kevin]
I always loved the net, its like a library with people..Libraries are great, and meeting people from around the world also..
nothing to add but thanks. i simply wanted to close out a comment in this fashion:
NO CARRIER
Lol @ edit 🙂
np…
What a silly thing to edit someone’s comment and fear something they said. RuralNinja, feel free to post the comment on a random story at my weblog, ascii.textfiles.com.
Generally, I find the film resonates with anyone who uses a computer to communicate. It also tends to work well with spouses of people really into computers, who discuss the series and parallels they see.
@ Jason Scott
It’s my sandbox. If you think anything that happens here is silly, go away.
I typically don’t post comments that are related to my editorial decisions, but since you’re obviously new here, I let it fly just this once.