What's a BBS? by Jon Larimore 2000 What's a "BBS"? A "BBS" is a "Bulletin Board System". BBSes are essentially the precursor of the Internet. They're a dial-up information and communications system you dial directly, usually with a local phone number, using standard (non-internet) communications software such as Procomm Plus, QModem, or Hyperterminal. At the time of this writing, there were many BBSes alive and well in most major US metro areas as well as a growing number in Europe, the Balkans, and the Middle and Far east. BBSes provide all the things you typically now find on the Internet, but usually in a friendlier, more local atmosphere, and all with just "one" piece of software - your basic communications program - rather than a separate "client" for each individual thing you want to do, as the Internet requires. Also, when you dial a BBS directly, you'll typically find it much "snappier" and more responsive than anything on the Internet. Thus, the BBS experience can not only be more personalized and friendlier than "The Net", it can be significantly less technically complicated. You can, in fact, log into most BBSes using older computers having no graphics capability at all. In addition to dialing directly, most of the larger and more successful BBSes can now also be reached via the Internet using the standard Internet "Telnet" client. You just aim Telnet at the name of the BBS you want to reach, and you're on. Unfortunately, many of the rather crude Telnet client supplied free with some versions of Windows cannot properly display the color graphics many BBSes offer; so for serious BBS use via Internet, one should upgrade to a later version of Hyperterminal or to a better Telnet package such as NetTerm (http://starbase.neosoft.com/~zkrr01/html/netterm.html), available as Shareware on The Net, as well as from most BBSes offering Shareware. Unfortunately, you'll sometimes find any BBS reached via the Internet significantly slower than it would be had you dialed it directly. Expect to find things on a large BBS such as: local and national news, weather, local and national communications and discussion services - usually in the form of public "forums" or message bases, personal/private e-mail - both local and international (often via the Internet), thousands of Shareware ("try before you buy") software programs, "matchmaking" and "In Search Of" services - often in the form of computerized matching programs, special-interest "SIGS" - "Special Interest Groups" - featuring and discussing an incredibly diverse range of subjects such as motorcycles, gardening, stamp collecting, travel and leisure, cooking, health, raising children, bars and restaurants, sports of all kinds, sexual orientation, marriage and relationship issues, and many of the kinkier things such as cross-dressing, sex toys, and fetishes. A huge percentage of the subjects now discussed in Usenet Newsgroups actually originated as BBS forums "many" years ago. Fact is, there are direct parallels to many of the things currently found on the Internet which originated with, and are currently part of BBSes: ON BULLETIN BOARD SYSTEMS ON THE INTERNET ------------------------------------------------------- Conferences, Forums, Message Bases = Usenet Newsgroups E-Mail ........................... = E-Mail Real-Time Multi-User Chat ........ = Internet Relay Chat Menus ............................ = Web Pages Shareware ........................ = Shareware Downloads/Uploads ................ = FTP On-Line Games .................... = On-Line Games Databases ........................ = Databases Search Engines ................... = Search Engines ... and all of these features and services on a BBS typically operate with only "one" simple software program - your standard communications utility - not the megabytes of separately-configured "clients" you need to access similar services on the Internet. Since 1986, CESF has operated a number of award-winning BBS] services, including GLIB - The Gay & Lesbian Information Bureau (now located on The Web at http://www.glib.org, and operating under web-based BBS software called "Discus"), a BBS for the Maryland Department of Health called "Maryland CARES", another for The National Association of People With AIDS called "NAPWA-Link", one for the Washington Metro gay/lesbian community, and one which originally supported ZZAPP!. These have ranged from huge systems with dozens of lines and thousands of files, to the simpler "support" BBS exemplified by the ZZAPP! BBS which originally offered the information, Shareware, and support for subscribers to the ZZAPP! Internet Service now found in the ZZAPP! (http://www.zzapp.org) web site. The world's first documented on-line information/communications system was created in 1978, when Ward Christensen set up a personal computer and modem with the object of replacing a cork buy/sell/trade bulletin board with an electronic model anyone could access from anywhere. Since then, tens of thousands of what quickly became known as "Bulletin Board Systems" have been created worldwide, running on every imaginable type of computer, and under software ranging from "home-brewed", through "freeware" given away with modems, to highly sophisticated and very expensive multi-threaded multi-line systems published by a dozen or more commercial software publishers. The size of Bulletin Board Systems has ranged from simple setups operating part-time on the owner's personal computer and his home phone line, to large commercial BBSes offering hundreds of incoming lines populated by tens of thousands of members. Large internationally networked on-line services such as CompuServe, Delphi, Prodigy, and AOL were the direct outgrowths of local BBSes. In September of 1984, a few years after Ward Christensen's initial effort, an international network of BBSes sprang up called "FidoNet" (http://www.ahandyguide.com/cat1/f/f273.htm). During the following ten years, this brainchild of Tom Jennings in San Francisco quickly grew to become one of the world's first successful international e-mail networks - a dynamic "store and forward" network linking thousands of Bulletin Board Systems worldwide. Some of FidoNet's most recent growth has occurred in Europe, the Middle East, and newly-emerging countries. Originally the Network Startup Resource Center (http://www.nsrc.org) acted as FidoNet gateway to many of them. Their web site still offers an archive of FidoNet documentation and software links. (Search on "fidonet" with their site search engine). FidoNet operates as a cooperative in which each BBS is automated to call and exchange messages and files with one or more other BBSes each day, usually during the wee morning hours, passing e-mail, discussion messages and files along in a "bucket brigade" fashion around the world. Several other similar networks have also found success, including RIME and a number of smaller special-interest nets which regularly spring up and vanish. In addition to ever faster modems and more sophisticated BBS software, several specific technical developments most significantly stimulated the growth of BBSes, and ultimately on-line communications in general: 1. File compression/archive technology, most popularized by Phil Katz' "PKZIP" (http://www.pkware.com) concept, but actually having originated with Systems Enhancement Associates' "ARC" utility. 2. Error-correcting data transmission technology, best known by the XModem, SeaLink, Kermit, and ZModem protocols, each developed by different software authors over a number of years in efforts to improve upon what had gone before. 3. ANSI Graphics: A standard of sorts developed by the then "American National Standards Institute" ... this enabled the transmission of colors and simple graphics to enhance what had previously been monochromatic "typewriter text" screens. Although a limited and rather crude implementation of "graphics", BBS "Sysops" (SYStem OPerators) were quick to jump on it, and developed incredibly ingenious and attractive BBS screen presentations, including the very first modem-transmitted animation. Several more sophisticated BBS graphics techniques followed. These generally required a proprietary "client" communications program running on the caller's computer which translated and displayed the transmitted color and graphics codes. These, in fact, were some of the first "client" software programs to be used for on-line communications, and were the forerunners of the graphic techniques ultimately used by the larger commercial services such as Prodigy and AOL. Today, while somewhat diminished by the onslaught of "The Net", and most commercial BBS software publishers have bitten the dust, Bulletin Board Systems continue to thrive as an interesting and vital alternative to the impersonal, distant, and often dreadfully slow nature of the Internet (as well as providing on-line communications for those technically or financially unable to access the Internet). As always, the most successful BBSes tend to have found a "niche" in which they can cater to callers generally interested in a particular subject or point of view ... those BBSes which tried to be "all things to all people" having long ago generally surrendered to CompuServe and AOL. There are lots of BBSes out there, many undoubtedly within a free local call from your modem. So give a BBS or two a call. You might be surprised by what you find there. There are many lists of BBS phone numbers published these days for most geographic areas, the "Focke List" (http://www.gsp.com/bbdc) being the one for our Metro Washington DC area. You'll find it at: http://www.gsp.com/bbdc Happy BBS'ing! Jon Larimore Systems Administrator, ZZAPP! (http://www.zzapp.org) (And a BBS Sysop from 'way back) Copyright 2000 by CESF - All Rights Reserved. ref: http://www2.zzapp.org/forms/whatbbs.htm