{ I am too young to remember this shit so I'm just writing what I've read on the web. ~drummyfish }
Bulletin board system (BBS) is, or rather used to be, a kind of [server](server.md) that hosts a community of users who connect to it via [terminal](terminal.md), who exchange messages, files, play [games](game.md) and otherwise interact -- BBSes were mainly popular before the invention of [web](www.md), i.e. from about 1978 to mid 1990s, however some still exist today. BBSes are powered by special BBS [software](software.md) and the people who run them are called sysops.
Back then people connected to BBSes via dial-up [modems](modem.md) and connecting was much more complicated than connecting to a server today: you had to literally dial the number of the BBS and you could only connect if the BBS had a free line. **Early BBSes weren't normally connected through Internet** but rather through other networks like [UUCP](uucp.md) working through phone lines. I.e. a BBS would have a certain number of modems that defined how many people could connect at once. It was also expensive to make calls into other countries so BBSes were more of a local thing, people would connect to their local BBSes. Furthermore these things ran often on non-[multitasking](multitasking.md) systems like [DOS](dos.md) so allowing multiple users meant the need for having multiple computers. The boomers who used BBSes talk about great adventure and a sense of intimacy, connecting to a BBS meant the sysop would see you connecting, he might start chatting with you etc. Nowadays the few existing BBSes use protocols such as [telnet](telnet.md), nevertheless there are apparently about 20 known dial-up ones in north America. Some BBSes evolved into more modern communities based e.g. on [public access Unix](pubnix.md) systems -- for example [SDF](sdf.md).
A BBS was usually focused on a certain topic such as technology, fantasy [roleplay](rolaplay.md), dating, [warez](warez.md) etc., they would typically greet the users with a custom themed [ANSI art](ansi_art.md) welcome page upon login -- it was pretty cool.
{ There's some documentary on BBS that's upposed to give you an insight into this shit, called literally *BBS: The documentary*. It's about 5 hours long tho. ~drummyfish }
The first BBS was CBBS (computerized bulletin board system) created by Ward Christensen and Randy Suess in 1978 during a blizzard storm -- it was pretty primitive, e.g. it only allowed one user to be connected at the time. The ideas evolved from those of [time sharing](time_sharing.md) computers such as those running [Unix](unix.md), BBS just tried to make them more "user friendly" and so bring in more public to where there were mostly just professionals before, kind of an ancient [Facebook](facebook.md)-like mini revolution. After publication of their invention, BBSes became quite popular and the number of them grew to many thousands -- later there was even a magazine solely focused on BBSes (*BBS Magazine*). BBSes would later group into larger networks that allowed e.g. interchange of mail. The biggest such network was [FidoNet](fidonet.md) which at its peak hosted about 35000 nodes.
