Bulletin Board Systems

A Bulletin Board System or BBS is a computer server running software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program.

A terminal emulator, terminal application, or term, is a computer program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture.

In computing, a server is a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called "clients".

A computer is a device that can be instructed to carry out an arbitrary set of arithmetic or logical operations automatically.

Retro Review - Computer Bulletin Board ( BBS ) Systems by Lon.TV

Once logged in, the user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging messages with other users through public message boards and sometimes via direct chatting.

In computer networks, to download is to receive data from a remote system, typically a server such as a web server, an FTP server, an email server, or other similar systems.

In computer networks, to upload is to send data to a remote system such as a server or another client so that the remote system can store a copy.

Connect: A Look At Bulletin Board Systems by dakroland

In the early 1980s, message networks such as FidoNet sprung up to provide services such as NetMail, which is similar to email.

Electronic mail is a method of exchanging messages between people using electronics.

Many BBSes also offer online games in which users can compete with each other.

BBSes with multiple phone lines often provide chat rooms, allowing users to interact with each other.

The term chat room, or chatroom, is primarily used to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing.

Bulletin board systems were in many ways a precursor to the modern form of the World Wide Web, social networks, and other aspects of the Internet.

The World Wide Web is an information space where documents and other web resources are identified by Uniform Resource Locators, interlinked by hypertext links, and can be accessed via the Internet.

The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that use the Internet protocol suite to link billions of devices worldwide.

Low-cost, high-performance modems drove the use of online services and BBSes through the early 1990s.

An online service provider can, for example, be an Internet service provider, an email provider, a news provider, an entertainment provider, a search engine, an e-commerce site, an online banking site, a health site, an official government site, social media, a wiki, or a Usenet newsgroup.

A modem is a hardware device that converts data into a format suitable for a transmission medium so that it can be transmitted from computer to computer.

Infoworld estimated that there were 60,000 BBSes serving 17 million users in the United States alone in 1994, a collective market much larger than major online services such as CompuServe.

CompuServe was the first major commercial online service provider in the United States.

The introduction of inexpensive dial-up internet service and the Mosaic web browser offered ease of use and global access that BBS and online systems did not provide, and led to a rapid crash in the market starting in 1994.

Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network to establish a connection to an Internet service provider by dialing a telephone number on a conventional telephone line.

Over the next year, many of the leading BBS software providers went bankrupt and tens of thousands of BBSes disappeared.

Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts.

Today, BBSing survives largely as a nostalgic hobby in most parts of the world, but it is still an extremely popular form of communication for Taiwanese youth.

Most surviving BBSes are accessible over Telnet and typically offer free email accounts, FTP services, IRC and all the protocols commonly used on the Internet.

Telnet is a protocol used on the Internet or local area network to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communication facility using a virtual terminal connection.

The File Transfer Protocol is a standard network protocol used for the transfer of computer files between a client and server on a computer network.

Some offer access through packet switched networks or packet radio connections.

Packet radio is a digital radio communications mode used to send packets of data.