Christensen, Suess Build First BBS in Snowstorm, Igniting Modem Era

BBS The Documentary: Episode 1 of 8: BAUD (The Beginning) — Jason Scott

Jason Scott

The global dial-up network emerged not from corporate labs or research committees, but from two snowbound hobbyists hacking telephone lines to share computer club newsletters.

AI-assisted summary of BBS The Documentary: Episode 1 of 8: BAUD (The Beginning) — original source. Check the original for full context.

Source published:

Key ideas

  • Ward Christensen and Randy Suess launched the first dial-up bulletin board, CBBS Chicago, on February 16, 1978, originally conceiving it simply as a tool for their computer club to draft newsletters. (10:04)
  • The BBS movement rapidly shifted from elite hardware hobbyists soldering kit computers to high school teenagers operating pre-assembled systems out of their bedrooms. (15:13)
  • Early telecommunications imposed steep financial burdens, with users navigating expensive hardware upgrades from 300 to 14.4k baud alongside monthly long-distance phone bills that regularly reached $500 to $650. (27:08)
  • Dial-up communities established intense 8-bit brand tribalism between Apple II, Atari, Commodore, and TRS-80 owners, often culminating in board access bans, retail floor arguments, and physical sabotage. (19:53)

Detailed notes

## Background Published on YouTube by computer historian Jason Scott on December 3, 2019, this video is the first episode ("BAUD: The Beginning") of his eight-part mini-series BBS: The Documentary. The episode chronicles the origins and antecedents of dial-up Bulletin Board Systems, highlighting in-depth interviews with early pioneers such as Ward Christensen and Randy Suess, who built the first dial-up board during the 1978 Chicago blizzard.

## TL;DR Tracing the human drive for remote community from 19th-century telegraph routing and sci-fi fanzines up to early public terminals like PLATO and Community Memory, the documentary details how Ward Christensen and Randy Suess created CBBS Chicago in 1978 to share club newsletters. As microcomputers hit mainstream consumer markets in the 1980s, the medium rapidly transformed from an elite realm of hardware hackers into a vibrant youth subculture populated by teenage bedroom sysops. The program explores the fierce 8-bit platform rivalries among Apple, Atari, and Commodore users, the mechanical crawl of 300-baud modems, and the crushing financial strain of long-distance phone bills, ultimately celebrating the improvised DIY spirit that accidentally laid the foundation for the modern online world.

## Atmosphere & style The documentary blends affectionate tech nostalgia with wry, self-deprecating humor and an authentic sense of technological archaeology. Watching it feels like descending into an eccentric enthusiast's basement shrine filled with floppy disk sleeves, buzzing monitors, and the mechanical clatter of disk drives, while weathered pioneers dig through dusty storage bins to uncover historic modem cards. The narrative arc moves from humorous memories of childhood obsessions and neighborhood turf wars to an emotional realization of how these slow, text-only dial-up connections fundamentally shaped lives and foretold the modern digital age.

## Bulletin - [10:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=604s) Ward Christensen and Randy Suess launched the first dial-up bulletin board, CBBS Chicago, on February 16, 1978, originally conceiving it simply as a tool for their computer club to draft newsletters. - [15:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=913s) The BBS movement rapidly shifted from elite hardware hobbyists soldering kit computers to high school teenagers operating pre-assembled systems out of their bedrooms. - [27:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=1628s) Early telecommunications imposed steep financial burdens, with users navigating expensive hardware upgrades from 300 to 14.4k baud alongside monthly long-distance phone bills that regularly reached $500 to $650. - [19:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=1193s) Dial-up communities established intense 8-bit brand tribalism between Apple II, Atari, Commodore, and TRS-80 owners, often culminating in board access bans, retail floor arguments, and physical sabotage.

## Key takeaways - [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=0s) Explaining dial-up bulletin boards to outsiders in the late 1970s was an exercise in bewilderment due to the delayed, text-only nature of the medium. - [02:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=140s) The BBS evolved from older communication traditions, including telegraph operators using paper tape lines for informal chat and science fiction fans exchanging mimeographed fanzines. - [04:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=258s) Early multi-user experiments like Control Data Corporation's PLATO and Lee Felsenstein's Community Memory in Berkeley laid the groundwork for public-access computer networks. - [06:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=392s) Severe hardware fragmentation among Altair, IMSAI, Cromemco, and Sol-20 systems prevented physical software sharing, making telecommunication an attractive solution. - [10:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=604s) The Great Blizzard of January 1978 trapped Christensen at home, leading to a two-week sprint with Suess to build the hardware and software for CBBS without committee interference. - [12:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=736s) CBBS gained nationwide traction through magazine write-ups, prompting regional boards and dial-up lists like Bill Blue's Bellflower RCP/M catalog to proliferate. - [15:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=913s) The transition from mail-order kit computers to off-the-shelf microcomputers lowered technical barriers, allowing teenagers to dominate the sysop landscape. - [16:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=990s) Every Christmas prompted a chaotic influx of young newcomers receiving computers and modems, often forcing established boards to freeze registrations through February. - [19:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=1193s) Bitter platform wars broke out across BBS message bases, leading Apple and Atari boards to enforce 'Commodore-free zones' and users to feud in physical retail shops. - [23:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=1400s) Neighborhood BBS rivalries occasionally escalated into real-world stalking and physical hardware sabotage, such as stealing the mouse ball from a store's host computer. - [27:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=1628s) Early hardware came at staggering costs, with multi-megabyte hard drives and 8-inch disk drive setups rivaling the price of used automobiles. - [28:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=1705s) Modem speed escalations from 300 baud to 14.4k fostered technical elitism, prompting sysops to lock out slow callers to free up scarce phone lines. - [31:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=1863s) Complex long-distance rate structures forced young users to map local telephone exchange bands and restrict dialing to late nights and early weekends to avoid devastating phone bills. - [35:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=2129s) Pioneers reflect on the early BBS era as a transformative, DIY movement that redirected personal lives and paved the way for modern online networking. - [37:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=2232s) The original CBBS machine ran continuously on a dedicated line for roughly 13 years, fulfilling its role far beyond its creators' initial expectations.

## Detailed walkthrough ### [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=0s) Explaining the Impossible: The Early BBS Experience

The emergence of modern connected computing did not happen overnight. As one commentator reflects, “We didn't just suddenly wake up one morning and we had the Xbox; we didn't wake up one morning and the Internet was there, you know—how did we get there, that's what you want to know about history for.” Standing beside the original hardware, Ward Christensen introduces his creation: “What I have next to me is the first bulletin board in the world: CBBS Chicago.” While many people later wondered whether the "C" stood for Christensen or Chicago, he clarifies that because bulletin boards did not exist yet, the acronym simply stood for Computerized Bulletin Board System.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, explaining dial-up bulletin boards to friends and relatives was an exercise in mutual bewilderment. Enthusiasts would enthusiastically describe dialing a phone number using their computer, typing text to leave messages, and waiting for others to dial in and leave replies. To outsiders, the concept seemed baffling and pointless. Relatives would look at the hobbyists as if they were suffering from a disease, unable to comprehend the appeal of text-only, delayed exchanges when they could just pick up a telephone. Users describe trying to explain it today by likening it to a drastically scaled-down America Online, or asking people to imagine instant messaging where the buddy list is perpetually empty, email does not exist, and carrying on a basic conversation across messages takes months. Reflecting on how utterly impractical it sounded to normal people at the time, one user admits, “It was like, 'Well, that's stupid'—I mean it is stupid, it was unbelievably stupid.”

- Ward Christensen's CBBS was designated as the "Computerized Bulletin Board System," not named after Christensen or Chicago. - The earliest online asynchronous interactions often took months to develop into coherent conversations due to low user call frequency.

---

[02:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=140s) Historical Precedents: From Telegraph Paper Tapes to Sci-Fi Fanzines

The human impulse to communicate across distances and find like-minded peers did not begin with the silicon chip; bulletin boards represented the next evolution of well-established traditions. In the era of the telegraph and early Western Union operations, customers would walk up to a counter and drop off handwritten messages. A clerk would manually punch the message into paper tape with two fingers. In the back rooms, these perforated paper tapes hung from coat racks like dog leashes. Operators gathered the tapes, fed them into mechanical readers, and manually routed them to destination offices based on short three-letter routing codes, such as "OAK" for Oakland. Behind the scenes, telegraph operators used the transmission streams to send unauthorized, personal inter-office messages to one another—chatting informally across the wire long before consumer chat rooms existed. As one historian observes of the telegraph operators, “How could they not chat, you know?”

A parallel ancestor to the BBS arose in science fiction fandom during the 1930s. Isolated enthusiasts who felt like the only nerds in their local schools or neighborhoods turned to mimeograph and Ditto machines to self-publish fanzines. These amateur publications carried convention reports, book reviews, personal diary entries, and essays. Readers mailed back "letters of comment" (LoCs), which were printed in subsequent issues, sparking vibrant asynchronous debates and prompting readers to launch fanzines of their own. As a commentator summarizes, “It's just this innate human need to form communities and to find other people with your interests.”

```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Historical Evolution of Community Communication accDescr: Flowchart tracing community networks from telegraphs and fanzines up to the BBS.

subgraph TelegraphEra["19th & Early 20th Century: Telegraphy"] A["Customer Drops Off Message"] --> B["Clerk Punches Paper Tape"] B --> C["Tapes Hung on Racks Like Dog Leashes"] C --> D["Manual Routing by Destination Code"] D -.->|"Unofficial Chat"| E["Operator-to-Operator Messaging"] end

subgraph FandomEra["1930s-1970s: Science Fiction Fandom"] F["Isolated Hobbyists"] --> G["Mimeo & Ditto Fanzines"] G --> H["Letters of Comment (LoCs)"] H --> I["Decentralized Print Communities"] end

TelegraphEra --> J["Dial-Up BBS (CBBS, 1978)"] FandomEra --> J ```

- Early telegraph offices relied on physical tape racks where punched paper strips hung in rows before being routed to central offices. - Telegraph operators routinely bypassed official protocols to send personal banter across the data stream. - Science fiction fanzines created an asynchronous mailing network that established the social norms later seen in BBS message bases.

---

[04:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=258s) Pre-Microcomputer Networks: PLATO and Community Memory

Before personal computers entered ordinary homes, large-scale interactive systems gave early glimpses of computer-mediated collaboration. Control Data Corporation marketed PLATO, a highly interactive, graphics-based, individualized computer education system. Demonstrating the technology, Luba Levitsky, CDC’s educational programs marketing manager, explains how PLATO ran simulations of complex experiments, such as fractional distillation in a chemistry lab. Students touched the terminal screen to physically manipulate and assemble distillation apparatuses, heating stills to separate chemical compounds at their own pace. Although designed for structured corporate and university curricula, PLATO's interactive terminals fostered early multi-user online communities and message spaces.

In Berkeley, computer pioneer Lee Felsenstein—later known for designing the Osborne 1 portable computer—spearheaded the Community Memory project. Community Memory placed public computer terminals in accessible neighborhood spots, such as laundromats and record stores, offering free public access to a shared digital message board. It represented a deliberate social experiment to democratize computing tools and give the general public an unmediated, communal voice.

Reflecting on how such breakthroughs arise, a commentator notes that revolutionary technology is rarely conceived in complete isolation: “A lot of inventions aren't, you know, an invention where one person comes up with an idea and goes off and builds it; a lot of inventions are where there's some idea that's becoming current, the technology has gotten up to a point where it's going to support it, a lot of people know there's a problem, a lot of people are working on it in parallel, a couple of them will come up with solutions, one of them will be able to get commercial success out of it, and you know, so Thomas Edison's the one we know as the inventor of the light bulb—the other people who were working on it at the same time don't get remembered.”

- PLATO pioneered computer-based education through individualized, self-paced lessons and early touch-screen interfaces. - Community Memory set up public terminals in Berkeley laundromats, establishing the first public access computer bulletin board. - Lee Felsenstein served as a central figure connecting early public access systems to the emerging microcomputer revolution.

---

[06:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=392s) The Hobbyist Dawn and the Chaos of Incompatible Hardware

Ward Christensen first encountered microcomputers in 1974 when the Intel 8008 arrived on the market. Intrigued, he began studying digital electronics. When the January 1975 issue of *Popular Electronics* showcased the MITS Altair 8800 on its front cover, Christensen realized he no longer had to design an entire system from scratch; he could buy a kit. He held off initially because he did not want to be the only person owning one, but eventually purchased an Altair kit. He soon joined the Chicago Area Computer Hobbyist's Exchange (CACHE), where hobbyists gathered to show off homebrew machinery. It was at CACHE that Christensen met Randy Suess, an avid hardware enthusiast.

Suess was constantly searching for new hardware challenges. He had been tinkering with a Fairchild F8 development board—a bare circuit board with a processor that he hand-coded to execute simple addition, like adding 1 to 10 to reach 7. To the hobbyists, making a dedicated circuit perform basic math felt like magic. When Suess went to a computer trade show where Intel operated a booth, he purchased an Intel 8080 CPU chip directly off the floor for $300. He brought the chip home to show his wife, declaring with excitement what he could accomplish with it. As a commentator emphasizes, the allure of microcomputers was overwhelming: “You can see how seductive this must have been, because to have your own computer—I mean, it was really amazing, given that they were multi-million-dollar things that you had to share with everybody else, the idea of having your own was pretty seductive.”

Yet, as the hobbyist community expanded, it ran into a crippling bottleneck: fragmented hardware architectures. Machine architectures varied wildly, spanning Processor Technology Sol-20 systems, Altair 8800s, IMSAI 8080s, and Cromemco units. Every brand used different cassette tape standards, disk controller interfaces, and storage formats. As Suess recalls, “We had a unique problem amongst us that we couldn't exchange software through the various media formats that everybody had derived independently; there was not one standard available between things like Processor Technology Sols to Altairs to IMSAIs to Cromemcos—it was just chaos.”

- The January 1975 issue of *Popular Electronics* featuring the Altair 8800 sparked widespread hobbyist adoption of homebrew microcomputers. - CACHE (Chicago Area Computer Hobbyist's Exchange) served as the primary gathering hub for Chicago-area microcomputer builders. - Randy Suess bought an Intel 8080 processor directly from Intel’s booth at a computer exhibition for $300. - Hardware diversity among Altair, IMSAI, Cromemco, and Sol-20 systems created complete media incompatibility, making direct physical software exchange impossible.

---

[10:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=604s) The Blizzard of 1978 and the Two-Week Sprint to CBBS

On the morning of January 16, 1978, a ferocious snowstorm struck the Chicago metropolitan area. Christensen stepped outside to go to work, only to find the snow falling continuously. After shoveling his driveway for roughly two hours, he came back inside around 9:30 or 10:00 AM, realizing he was entirely snowed in. Stranded at home, he phoned Suess with a proposition. CACHE operated an automated telephone answering machine where members dialed in to hear when the next meeting was scheduled or to leave questions. Christensen proposed hooking an actual computer system to that phone line so club members could upload newsletter articles electronically.

```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: The Creation of CBBS in 1978 accDescr: Workflow of Christensen and Suess creating the Computerized Bulletin Board System during the 1978 blizzard.

subgraph Catalyst["The Blizzard (Jan 16, 1978)"] W1["Snowed-In Ward Christensen"] --> W2["Calls Randy Suess"] W2 --> W3["Proposes Club Answering Line Project"] end

subgraph Execution["Rapid Two-Person Execution"] S1["Suess Rejects Committee Rule"] --> S2["Division of Labor"] S2 --> H["Suess: Hardware & Phone Interface"] S2 --> S["Christensen: Software & Modems"] end

subgraph Launch["Deployment"] H --> L["Private Testing"] S --> L L --> GO["CBBS Goes Live (Feb 16, 1978)"] end

Catalyst --> Execution Execution --> Launch ```

Suess loved the concept, but immediately rejected running it through the hobbyist organization. Drawing on his military background, Suess insisted that committees only produced endless deliberation without results. Christensen recalls, “I remember he said essentially that that sounded like a neat idea, but forget the club, because you know what a committee-run something will be—it'll take forever to happen.” Suess took charge like a seasoned project manager: “I had too many years of the Navy to know, no, let's not talk about it, just do it—the two of us will do it, and you do the software and I'll do the hardware, and tell me when are you gonna have the software ready, like a project manager.”

The partnership worked seamlessly because both men understood their respective domains without stepping on each other's toes. Suess designed and assembled the custom hardware interface that controlled the telephone line, while Christensen wrote the BBS software. It took Christensen approximately two weeks to write a functional software build. By the end of January 1978, they began testing the setup privately, letting a small group of trusted friends dial in to offer feedback and uncover bugs. After refining the program for another two weeks, they officially brought the system online. The pair selected February 16, 1978—exactly one month after the blizzard—as the official birthdate of CBBS. Christensen credited Suess's decisive refusal to let the project bog down in a committee for its rapid completion, contrasting it with ARPANET-style efforts where people discussed great ideas for years without ever plugging in a soldering iron. In the end, the project achieved its goal: “The whole BBS thing was for our computer club to be able to produce newsletters; that was the whole idea of it, it worked.”

- The Great Blizzard of 1978 on January 16 trapped Ward Christensen at home, providing the time window to initiate CBBS. - Randy Suess's Navy background made him insist on a two-man project structure to bypass committee delays. - Software development took roughly two weeks, followed by two weeks of private alpha testing with close friends. - February 16, 1978, was established as the official public launch date of CBBS Chicago.

[12:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=736s) From Critical Mass to the Early Dial-Up Boom

The birth of the bulletin board system came out of an inevitable technological convergence rather than a single isolated genius. As early pioneers reflect, assembling the necessary hardware and software felt like bringing two halves of a critical mass together: once joined, the reaction was bound to occur. Enthusiasts first learned about Ward Christensen and Randy Suess's CBBS (Computer Bulletin Board System) in Chicago through computer publications like *InfoWorld* or religious reading of magazines like *80 Micro*. After discovering these write-ups, hobbyists called the original systems, experienced the novelty of dial-up communication, and took the ideas back to their local user groups and clubs. When new operators stood up their own systems, callers appeared almost instantaneously—often logging the very first inbound call on the day the line went live.

```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Spread of Early BBS Systems accDescr: Progression from media coverage of CBBS Chicago to dial-up calling lists across the country.

subgraph Discovery ["1. Awareness & Experimentation"] A["Ward & Randy's CBBS Chicago"] --> B["Magazine Coverage\n(InfoWorld, 80 Micro)"] B --> C["Local Computer Clubs"] end

subgraph Expansion ["2. Network Growth"] C --> D["New Regional Boards\n(e.g., CBBS Northwest)"] D --> E["Master Dial-Up Lists\n(Bill Blue's Bellflower RCP/M)"] E --> F["Rapid Scale\n(100 to 300+ phone numbers nationwide)"] end ```

Regional operators quickly claimed their geographic territories, sometimes facing lighthearted accusations of arrogance. When one sysop launched CBBS Northwest, peers questioned whether naming it after the entire Pacific Northwest was pretentious for an operator running a single machine out of Oregon. His defense was simple: at the time of launch, his machine was the only dial-up board in existence anywhere north of San Francisco. Dial-up lists became the lifeblood of long-distance exploration. Users dialed Bill Blue’s Bellflower RCP/M (Remote CP/M) system to download his master list of roughly one hundred bulletin boards across the country, dialing long-distance numbers at random just to see what would answer on the other end. Within two years, that catalog ballooned from a modest hundred systems to three hundred distinct dial-up numbers spanning RCP/M and custom BBS software.

- Early boards struggled initially for traffic; one CP/M operator celebrated reaching one hundred total calls after it took three full months because modems were prohibitively rare. - Early adopters were almost exclusively people working professionally in related technology industries or individuals with substantial disposable income to spend on telecom and hardware.

---

[15:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=913s) The Shift from Hobbyist Hardware Hackers to High School Sysops

In the earliest era, running or accessing a bulletin board required serious hardware dedication. Enthusiasts built their own computers from mail-order kits, spending $3,000 and six agonizing months soldering components together to assemble systems like the Altair 8800. These early operators were pure hardware tinkerers who took pride in “rolling your own” when specialized parts had not yet trickled down to storefronts like RadioShack.

A profound cultural transition soon followed as pre-assembled home computers hit the mainstream market. The user base broadened from hardware hackers who wrote assembly code to non-technical operators who simply purchased an off-the-shelf microcomputer, obtained pre-written BBS software, and connected a telephone line. As one veteran observed:

> “The interest had changed from computer hobbyists to computer users.”

Novice operators no longer needed to understand programming concepts. Anyone who owned a TRS-80 and could load a friend's software disk suddenly laid claim to being a sysop. Within a few short years, high schools across the country were filled with teenage sysops running dial-up boards out of their bedrooms.

---

[16:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=990s) Mass Marketing, Comic Books, and the Christmas Day Influx

Aggressive retail marketing fueled this home computer explosion. Regional electronics discount chains like Crazy Eddie saturated television and radio airwaves with breathless, high-energy sales pitches, boasting the absolute lowest prices on systems from Atari, Texas Instruments, Commodore, and the budget Timex Sinclair. Teenagers abandoned their savings plans for consumer audio equipment to buy computers instead. One user recalled saving money all summer for a portable boombox until he spotted a custom promotional comic insert inside an issue of *Superman*:

> “It was these two kids helping Superman fight some weather demon or something by using their TRS-80 Model 100 computer in some capacity to help them, and I came home and I said, ‘You know that computer you've been telling me you wanted? We're gonna get one now and I'm gonna put my money from the boombox towards this.’ And I just thought that was the coolest thing—that this computer actually was so powerful it helped Superman.”

Others sold off their Atari 2600 consoles and cartridge collections to buy a Commodore VIC-20, rationalizing to themselves and their parents that a computer was an investment in intellectual growth rather than a mere toy. Once these young users learned that trading copied games with friends could be expanded into finding free software on pirate BBSes, dial-up culture exploded.

This influx reliably crested every year on December 25th: - The day after Christmas brought an unmanageable wave of new users who had just unwrapped home computers and modems, swamping phone lines across the country. - Established sysops referred to this predictable winter flood as an invasion of clueless twelve-year-olds with modems. - Many long-running boards instituted defensive countermeasures, shutting down registrations entirely for the first two months of the new year and forcing newcomers to learn etiquette elsewhere. - Seasoned callers lamented that thoughtful, long-form discussions were suddenly drowned out by thousands of one-line “Van Halen rules” and “me too” messages left by kids who thrived on digital anarchy. - As one caller summarized the chaotic generational handoff: “You took sticks of dynamite and handed them to 12-year-olds and said, ‘Now if you can find the lighter, you can make this go boom.’ And well, we found the lighter.”

---

[19:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=1193s) The 8-Bit Computer Wars

The arrival of rival computer platforms ignited fierce tribalism among users, establishing bitter divisions that mirrored classic Detroit automotive rivalries. Sysops and users likened these disputes to vicious “Ford versus Chevy” arguments where users felt compelled to defend their chosen machine at all costs. Because computers required a significant personal investment and served as a direct extension of an owner's daily workflow, users took criticism of their chosen machine personally.

Each camp rallied behind its chosen hardware with unshakeable conviction: - **Atari** enthusiasts claimed their machines offered the highest-grade audiovisual capabilities and argued that Atari was synonymous with premium hardware quality. - **Apple II** partisans celebrated their machines as the ultimate open, hackable hardware platform, praising its reliable architecture and joking that broken systems would practically heal themselves if left in a closet. - **Commodore (PET, VIC-20, C64)** owners championed the sheer market ubiquity and value of their systems, boasting that Commodore did more to democratize home computing than any other brand on Earth. - **Tandy / TRS-80** fans rallied around platforms like the Color Computer (CoCo), while their detractors constantly derided them with the derogatory nickname “Trash-80.”

These platform wars raged across the bulletin board networks. Apple owners labeled their rivals with mocking insults, while Commodore users faced strict, institutionalized discrimination. Sysops running dedicated Apple or Atari boards established literal “Commodore-free zones,” refusing access to anyone admitting to owning a Commodore machine. Flame wars were not confined to screen messages; users stalked perceived rivals across multiple systems to hurl insults.

The conflict regularly spilled out into physical retail stores. Atari advocates would overhear a Commodore kid in a computer shop steering a prospective buyer away from an Atari by falsely claiming it lacked power or disk support. In response, Atari owners would step in and vigorously defend their platform, shouting technical rebuttals about robotic arms and Corvus hard disk drives. Across both dial-up message bases and brick-and-mortar storefronts, users consistently rationalized their brand loyalty by declaring every other microcomputer an inferior piece of junk.

[23:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=1400s) Store Rivalry, Sabotage, and the Packrat's Archive

Early BBS culture often had intense neighborhood rivalries and personal territorialism. In one town, an electronics shop ran a BBS on an Amiga right out of the store, which infuriated a local teenager. To take the rival board offline, people would physically visit the shop and sabotage the host PC—such as secretly popping the mouse ball out of the mouse so the staff could no longer operate the interface. The teenager went even further, stalking the store's sysop and threatening him from his car on his way home from work, insisting that “you got to take your board down or you know something bad is going to happen.” The sysop was left posting desperate public pleas on his own BBS: “anybody who knows where a mouse ball is please let me have it back,” because replacement parts were almost impossible to find at the time.

```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: BBS Rivalry and Sabotage Flow accDescr: Diagram illustrating the escalation from store BBS operation to physical sabotage and recovery pleas. subgraph Store["Store BBS Host"] A["Store runs BBS on Amiga/PC"] B["Physical sabotage: remove mouse ball"] end subgraph Harassment["Escalation"] C["Threatening employee outside work"] D["Sysop posts BBS plea for spare mouse ball"] end A --> B B --> C B --> D ```

A dedicated user gives a tour of his personal computing shrine. Calling himself a “natural packrat” who hates throwing anything away because paying or putting in effort to discard things hurts, he shows off decades of meticulously saved software manuals, printouts of documentation for his most-used shareware tools, and his original Signalman 300 baud modem. Used with a Kaypro, the 300 baud unit matched his 30 character-per-second printer, so it felt perfectly acceptable for years until 1200 baud devices came down in cost.

Next to the desk sits a custom-built cabinet holding dozens of boxes, each containing 70 floppy disks spanning the shift from 360K to 1.2MB formats. Numbered sequentially from 1 to 1,800, the disks hold pure DOS shareware harvested across years of calling dial-up systems—an entire collection that now fits comfortably onto just two CD-ROMs. Because downloading at slow speeds was like “watching a dryer dry clothes, watching the numbers count,” his basement setup had a small television set and a printer tucked alongside it, giving him a cozy haven away from household commotion upstairs. When asked how much he spent assembling the entire setup over the years, he laughs and replies: “you know I don't want to know that.”

[27:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=1628s) The Crushing Cost of Early Hardware

Early personal computing and telecommunications demanded immense financial sacrifices. Vintage magazine clippings from the era highlighted this reality, noting that “when a 20 megabyte drive for an IBM PC can be bought for under $1,000, the $2,195 HyperDrive seems woefully overpriced.” Users recall jaw-dropping equipment costs from the early 1980s:

- A school district's first 5-megabyte hard drive for a TRS-80 Model III cost roughly $3,000 directly from RadioShack. - A pair of 8-inch double-sided floppy disk drives cost enough that the buyer realized while loading them into his trunk: “the amount of money I spent on these double-sided 8-inch floppy drives I could have bought a car with—not a very good one, but a car.” - An Apple II bundle consisting of the computer, a monitor, and a printer ran $3,600, prompting a user to reflect that with that same money today, “I could you know run half the country on the kind of computer you can buy for $3,600 now.” - Another contributor worked shifts at Carl's Jr. and took odd jobs as a teenager specifically to choose between buying a car or buying a computer; he chose the computer, declaring: “and I mean the rest is history after that.”

[28:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=1705s) The Baud Rate Escalation: From 300 to 14.4k

The most visceral divide between eras was the sheer slowness of early telecommunications. Users remember running acoustic couplers at 110 baud or an agonizing 300 baud (roughly 30 characters per second). Logging in meant watching characters slowly trickle across the screen one letter at a time: `login username:`, waiting through a noticeable pause after hitting return, and waiting again as the word `password:` rendered character by character. When 1200 baud arrived, many users were skeptical at first, insisting that 300 baud was already matching human reading speed and that nothing faster was needed. But once users experienced 1200 baud, going backward was unthinkable.

The progression of speeds brought new levels of elitism and user hierarchy:

```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: Dial-Up Modem Speed Evolution accDescr: Sequence showing modem baud speed jumps from 110/300 baud acoustic couplers up to 14.4k modems. A["110 / 300 Baud\n(Acoustic Couplers)"] --> B["1200 Baud\n('Reading Speed')"] B --> C["2400 Baud\n(High-speed Boards)"] C --> D["9600 Baud\n($650+ Upgrades)"] D --> E["14.4k Baud\n(Doom / Big Downloads)"] ```

Callers deliberately hunted down the few boards in town capable of handling 2400 baud just to see how blindingly fast the text flew across the terminal: “even if the place sucked, it was just like, whoa, but look how much faster it's going through, this is so cool.” Some sysops would ban slower connections from their boards to save phone line time, labeling multi-speed boards with tags like `300/1200/2400`. One caller remembers getting pulled into a sysop chat only to be mocked: “I got this new 9600 baud modem man, and like you're still 2400, sad, what's wrong with you?” To keep pace, another user pooled $800 of his Bar Mitzvah money and spent $650 of it on a single 9600 baud modem, which promptly dropped in price shortly after. By the time 14.4k modems arrived, users were using the bandwidth to transfer shareware games like *Doom* overnight just to have a partner to play against across the phone lines.

[31:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=1863s) Long Distance Nightmares and the Art of Band Charts

Before deregulation and flat-rate data plans, making calls outside one's immediate municipal exchange was financially dangerous. Long-distance daytime rates to places like California frequently exceeded a dollar a minute. A user finding a rare file hosted on an out-of-state board faced a high-stakes calculation: download it across long distance now, or risk waiting to see if someone mirrored it locally. If a download stalled or ran long, users woke up to discover their modems had stayed online all night, racking up catastrophic bills.

Enormous telephone bills became a rite of passage for young BBSers. Monthly bills of $500 to $650 routinely blindsided families, leading to grounded teenagers and disconnected home lines. Callers did not realize that calling numbers within their own area code (such as Chicago's 312) could still count as regional toll calls:

- One father gave his child a gentle reprieve, deciding it was a valuable “learning experience” on two conditions: “you're not calling during you know prime time anymore, first of all; you're not staying online for eight hours anymore, second of all.” - Users transformed themselves into amateur telephone utility experts, pulling out page 17 of the Yellow Pages in Massachusetts to study exchange prefix tables. - Callers cross-referenced their friends' numbers and local exchanges to calculate the exact overlapping bubbles of toll-free calling territory. - Users contacted their telcos—such as calling Illinois Bell directly—to request specialized “band charts” to determine toll boundaries down to the specific three-digit exchange prefix (e.g., verifying if a `376` prefix was a toll-free call). - Daily routines revolved around rate changes: calling strictly local BBSes after dinner, waiting until the lower rate kicked in at 8:00 PM to dial cross-town boards, and waking up before 8:00 AM on weekends to squeeze in long-distance connections before daytime rates resumed.

[34:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=2078s) Looking Back at the Hardware Revolution

Reflecting on the leap from early microcomputers to modern hardware, interviewees express astonishment that complex digital communities ever functioned on machines like the 8-bit Apple II. Back then, system architectures ran at single-digit megahertz clock rates rather than gigahertz speeds, making the creation and maintenance of a functional community feel like a technical miracle. As one user observes: “computers today are too much like a computer and less like a typewriter like it was back then.” The craft transitioned from the sheer wonder of making a finicky machine operate at all to treating hardware as a ubiquitous, aesthetic appliance, marking what they recognize as the true starting point of an all-encompassing digital revolution.

[35:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=2129s) The Pioneer Spirit and Life-Changing Technology

Reflecting on the early era of computing and modem communication, the pioneers compare the DIY grit of the late 1970s and 1980s to old-fashioned photography before modern digital gear like FireWire-connected cameras came along. The driving force was an overwhelming sense of exploration, repurposing off-the-shelf microcomputer hardware for tasks nobody had ever conceived. When attempting to explain this pre-web landscape to modern audiences, the reaction is almost universal disbelief: people find it astonishing that an intricate, nationwide digital culture thrived long before the World Wide Web. As one commentator memorably frames the risk-taking nature of the movement, “You know the definition of a pioneer? That's the guy with all the arrows in his back. Well, that's that's the way it was for the BBS guys; they broke new ground, they really blaze—they created a new empire.”

Beyond technical experimentation, getting absorbed in the BBS scene was deeply transformative on a personal level. One interviewee candidly recalls that discovering microcomputers quite literally saved his life by consuming every cent and waking moment he had: “If it hadn't been for computers and technology, I would have probably died 20 years, 25 years ago wrapping my car around a bridge abutment somewhere in Texas from drinking and driving or drugging and driving.” Pouring resources into hardware left no disposable income for self-destructive habits, setting him on a decades-long career path. Another veteran marvels at the strange foresight of dialing into an early system for the very first time, realizing in retrospect that encountering that screen was an encounter with his own destiny: “I remember the first time I logged into a BBS and thought, you know, what the hell is this? And the answer was standing right behind my back; it was me 30 years later going, this is your life.”

[37:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=2232s) Surviving Hardware: CBBS Northwest and Humble Beginnings

Tucked away in storage, Randy Suess digs out the surviving physical remains of the original CBBS machine, joking that searching through the back stacks requires an explorer like Indiana Jones. He points out the historic chassis of the CBBS Northwest installation. While the computer is no longer assembled in its operational setup, he still retains the original circuit cards, including the legendary PMMI (Potomac Micro-Magic, Inc.) internal modem card tucked away inside a parts box. Despite its unassuming look, that single computer enclosure served as a cornerstone of early online communication, running continuously on a dedicated phone line: “That box, you know, for 13 years just sat there pretty much happily and took phone calls.”

```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Evolution of CBBS Purpose accDescr: Diagram showing how a simple computer club newsletter utility evolved into the global BBS dial-up movement.

subgraph ClubProblem ["Local Club Need (1978)"] A["Chicago Area Computer Hobbyists' Exchange (CACHE)"] --> B["Need quick way to share & compose newsletter articles"] end

subgraph Creation ["Hardware & Software Innovation"] B --> C["Ward Christensen & Randy Suess write CBBS"] C --> D["S-100 Bus machine + PMMI modem answer phone line"] end

subgraph RippleEffect ["Unintended Cultural Revolution"] D --> E["CBBS runs 24/7 for over a decade"] E --> F["Blueprint for thousands of independent dial-up BBSes worldwide"] end ```

Looking back across the entire history of the medium, Ward Christensen underscores just how modest their original expectations were during that snowy Chicago winter in 1978. They were never attempting to launch a multi-million-dollar industry or invent cyberspace; they simply wanted an automated clearinghouse for their local computer club's articles: “The whole BBS thing was for our computer club to be able to produce newsletters, that was a whole idea of it. It worked, so wherever it went from then...” From that utilitarian utility, an entire era of human telecommunication was born.

- Randy Suess preserved the original CBBS hardware components, including the internal PMMI modem card and S-100 bus components. - The original CBBS chassis operated as an automated dial-up node for roughly 13 years. - Ward Christensen emphasizes that CBBS was conceived strictly as an internal message exchange for CACHE (Chicago Area Computer Hobbyists' Exchange) members to assemble club newsletters.

[38:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=2309s) Loading the Past: Closing Coda

The episode concludes with the distinctive mechanical clatter of an early 8-bit disk drive as a sysop boots up a system and remarks, “I just loaded the BBS.” A brief, humorous memory captures the stark contrast between home computers of the late 1970s and 1980s and the instant gratification of plug-and-play home video game consoles: “My brother used to say, 'Oh, are we gonna play loading again?' He was used to his Intellivision where he just pops the cartridge.” For early computer operators, however, the agonizing minutes spent waiting for magnetic tape or floppy disks to load were simply part of the ritual of pioneering a new digital frontier.

## Notable quotes > [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=0s) We didn't just suddenly wake up one morning and we had the Xbox; we didn't wake up one morning and the Internet was there, you know—how did we get there, that's what you want to know about history for.

> [34:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU&t=2078s) Computers today are too much like a computer and less like a typewriter like it was back then.

## Mentioned Ward Christensen, Randy Suess, Lee Felsenstein, Luba Levitsky, Bill Blue, Jason Scott, CBBS Chicago, CBBS Northwest, Bellflower RCP/M, Community Memory, PLATO, Control Data Corporation, Intel 8008, Intel 8080, Fairchild F8, MITS Altair 8800, IMSAI 8080, Processor Technology Sol-20, Cromemco, TRS-80, TRS-80 Model III, TRS-80 Model 100, Apple II, Commodore PET, Commodore VIC-20, Commodore 64, Amiga, Kaypro, Timex Sinclair, Texas Instruments, Crazy Eddie, PMMI, Corvus, RadioShack, Illinois Bell, Western Union, CACHE, InfoWorld, 80 Micro, Popular Electronics, Doom, Superman, Intellivision

## Video description Episode 1 of 8 of the BBS Documentary, a mini-series by Jason Scott.

This episode covers the predecessors and the beginnings of the Dial-Up Bulletin Board System (BBS), with historical information as well as interviews with the pioneers and experimenters at the dawn of the home information access age.

Interviews include Ward Christensen and Randy Suess, who created what is considered the first dial-up bulletin board in 1978.

BBS Documentary Information:

Long before the Internet escaped from the lab, connected the planet and redefined what it meant to use a computer...there was a brave and pioneering band of computer users who spent their time, money and sanity setting up their home computers and phone lines to welcome anyone who called. By using a modem, anyone else who knew the phone number of these computers could connect to them, leave messages, send and recieve files.... and millions did.

They called these places "Bulletin Board Systems", or BBSes. And their collections of messages, rants, thoughts and dreams became the way that an entire generation learned about being online.

When the Internet grew in popularity in the early 1990s, the world of the BBS faded, changed, and became a part of the present networked world.. but it wasn't the same.

In the Summer of 2001, Jason Scott, a computer historian (and proprietor of the textfiles.com history site) wondered if anyone had made a film about these BBSes. They hadn't, so he decided he would.

Four years, thousands of miles of travelling, and over 200 interviews later, "BBS: The Documentary", a mini-series of 8 episodes about the history of the BBS, is now available. Spanning 3 DVDs and totalling five and a half hours, this documentary is actually eight documentaries about different aspects of this important story in the annals of computer history.

Baud introduces the story of the beginning of the BBS, including interviews with Ward Christensen and Randy Suess, who used a snowstorm as an inspiration to change the world. Sysops and Users introduces the stories of the people who used BBSes, and lets them tell their own stories of living in this new world. Make it Pay covers the BBS industry that rose in the 1980's and grew to fantastic heights before disappearing almost overnight. Fidonet covers the largest volunteer-run computer network in history, and the people who made it a joy and a political nightmare. Artscene tells the rarely-heard history of the ANSI Art Scene that thrived in the BBS world, where art was currency and battles waged over nothing more than pure talent. HPAC (Hacking Phreaking Anarchy Cracking) hears from some of the users of "underground" BBSes and their unique view of the world of information and computers. Compression tells the story of the PKWARE/SEA legal battle of the late 1980s and how a fight that broke out over something as simple as data compression resulted in waylaid lives and lost opportunity. No Carrier wishes a fond farewell to the dial-up BBS and its integration into the Internet.

Ideal as either a teaching tool or a reminder of your own memories, the BBS Documentary Collection brings back this nearly-forgotten time in a way that will tell the story... one caller at a time.

[Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU)

中文简报

克里斯滕森与苏斯在暴风雪中建立首个BBS，点燃调制解调器时代 全球拨号网络并非诞生于企业实验室或研究委员会，而是源自两名被大雪围困的爱好者破解电话线以分享计算机俱乐部简报。 纪录片追溯了人类对远程社群的渴望——从19世纪的电报线路规划与科幻同人志，一直到PLATO和Community Memory等早期公共终端，详细讲述了沃德·克里斯滕森（Ward Christensen）和兰迪·苏斯（Randy Suess）如何在1978年创建芝加哥CBBS以分享俱乐部简报。随着微型计算机在20世纪80年代进入主流消费市场，这一媒介迅速从硬件黑客的精英圈子转变为由卧室里的青少年系统管理员主导的充满活力的青年亚文化。该节目探讨了苹果、雅达利和Commodore用户之间激烈的8位平台竞争、300波特率调制解调器的机械般迟缓，以及长途电话费带来的沉重经济负担，最终颂扬了这种在无意间为现代网络世界奠定基础的即兴DIY精神。 沃德·克里斯滕森和兰迪·苏斯于1978年2月16日推出了首个拨号公告板系统芝加哥CBBS，最初的构想仅仅是将其作为计算机俱乐部起草简报的工具。 (10:04) BBS运动迅速从焊接组装套件计算机的精英硬件爱好者，转向了在自己卧室里操作预装系统的高中青少年。 (15:13) 早期的远程通信带来了高昂的经济负担，用户不仅要应对从300波特升级到14.4k波特的昂贵硬件花销，还要面对每月经常高达500至650美元的长途电话费账单。 (27:08) 拨号社群在Apple II、雅达利、Commodore和TRS-80用户之间形成了强烈的8位品牌阵营对立，往往演变成论坛访问封禁、零售店面争吵甚至实体破坏。 (19:53)

Source quotes

[0:00] We didn't just suddenly wake up one morning and we had the Xbox; we didn't wake up one morning and the Internet was there, you know—how did we get there, that's what you want to know about history for. [34:38] Computers today are too much like a computer and less like a typewriter like it was back then.

Original transcript

[0:00] [Music] [0:20] we didn't just suddenly wake up one [0:23] morning and we had the Xbox we didn't [0:25] wake up one morning and the Internet was [0:27] there you know how did we get there [0:30] that's what you want to know about [0:31] history for [0:33] nor are we ready to roll you know what I [0:38] have next to me is the first bulletin [0:41] board in the world CBS Chicago people [0:45] wondered if the C stood for kristensen [0:48] or Chicago or whatever and no it didn't [0:51] because there was no such thing as a VBS [0:53] so it was a computerized bulletin board [0:55] system I would I would Susie asked to [1:05] describe it to everybody every telling [1:07] me all my relatives alike so this is I [1:10] would dial up and I'd be talking to [1:12] other people online but not really [1:13] talking I'd be typing and and leave the [1:15] messages and then later I can read more [1:17] messages and they all go oh okay and [1:21] they look like you've got some sort of [1:23] disease or something I say it's kind of [1:24] America online but really scaled down [1:29] it's not an easy thing to explain with [1:31] this program you'd have on your computer [1:33] you dial a number and you can enter your [1:36] name and password it would say hello and [1:38] then you can go to the messages and you [1:39] can read these messages and then you [1:41] could add one and if you waited long [1:44] enough [1:44] and I had to say months other people [1:48] would have called in and left missus [1:50] isn't after a few months you have a [1:52] conversation and they're like why yeah [1:59] you know they're all really 20s it was [2:01] like well that's stupid [2:03] I mean it is stupid it was unbelievably [2:05] stupid I tried telling it to people now [2:07] I'm like imagine yeah you know hey I'm [2:10] is down and all of your buddies are gone [2:12] your buddy list is empty and you can't [2:14] talk to anybody and there's no email and [2:16] people don't quite get [2:20] and in a way it's it's the next [2:23] generation of things that have always [2:24] been around the way the early Telegraph [2:28] stuff worked was they would have up [2:30] people walk you into the counter and [2:32] they're leaving all these messages [2:33] Henrick message and someone goes over to [2:34] the punch and they with two fingers [2:38] punch a tape that's got the message and [2:40] then the guy in the back room of the [2:42] office it's a little hitter on it I've [2:45] seen pictures of his Iraq with the tapes [2:47] hanging from them like dog leashes oh no [2:50] no coat Iraq and they take them all [2:52] together and they put them into readers [2:54] and they're all transmitted over to some [2:55] central routing place and then they look [2:58] at the numbers and they see all this one [2:59] it's got a little the funny little codes [3:01] that says Oh a k4 Oakland one so then [3:02] they would put the tape in the right [3:03] wieder and they'd route so they doing [3:04] manual routing so yeah there's hardly [3:07] any new things I'm sure these guys were [3:09] Cindy stuff not for customer consumption [3:12] because we know because I have we have a [3:15] lot of teletype in Western Union [3:17] documentation and machinery and we know [3:19] that they had started interoffice [3:21] messaging in the stream there's made of [3:23] messages in the stream between how could [3:26] they not chat you know science fiction [3:30] fandom going back to the 30s people [3:32] would use mimeo or ditto to publish [3:34] fanzines to publish their own [3:36] newsletters with reports of conventions [3:38] they went to or book reviews or just [3:40] what's happening in their life to talk [3:42] to other people who are similar who have [3:45] similar interests but night might not be [3:47] around them you know one of the few [3:49] really nerdy science fiction fans in [3:52] your school well there's not many other [3:54] people you can talk to but if you find [3:56] that there are people somewhere else [3:58] that you can talk to and you subscribe [4:00] to their their fanzine and then you [4:02] start writing letters a comment back to [4:04] it and then you decide you want to start [4:06] publishing your own because you've got a [4:08] lot to say and it's just this innate [4:11] human need to form communities and to [4:15] find other people with your interests [4:18] joining us now in the studio is Luba [4:20] Levitsky educational programs marketing [4:22] manager with control Data Corporation [4:24] Lou but we've heard about the Plato [4:26] system from control data for a long time [4:28] what is Plato give us a little [4:29] background on it basically Plato is a [4:31] highly interactive [4:32] traffic based individualized [4:34] computer-based education system and by [4:36] individualized I mean self-paced and and [4:39] the instruction is tailored to the needs [4:40] of each individual student okay you're [4:43] online now with with Plato and I on a [4:46] chemistry lab experiment of some sort [4:47] and show me what this does basically [4:50] this is this is a simulation of a [4:51] fractional distillation experiment and [4:53] it simulates operations and processes of [4:55] an actual experiment prior to this [4:57] screen the student has already touched [4:59] the screen and assembled the [5:01] distillation apparatus as they would in [5:02] a regular experiment the objective is to [5:05] heat the still and to obtain a pure [5:08] mixture of two chemical compounds li [5:11] Felson stein who was essentially the [5:13] inventor of the portable computer ran [5:18] this project in berkeley called [5:20] community memory which was essentially a [5:24] free BBS that you know was available in [5:29] laundromats and things like that and it [5:32] was a real meaningful attempt at giving [5:39] the population at large a way to [5:41] communicate and you know online [5:47] a lot of inventions aren't you know an [5:59] invention where one person comes up with [6:01] an idea and goes off and builds it a lot [6:03] of inventions are where there's some [6:06] idea that's becoming current the [6:08] technology has gotten up to a point [6:10] where it's going to support it a lot of [6:12] people know there's a problem a lot of [6:13] people are working on it in parallel a [6:14] couple of them will come up with [6:16] solutions one of them will be able to [6:18] get commercial success out of it and you [6:21] know so Thomas Edison's the one we know [6:23] is the inventor of the light bulb the [6:24] other people who were working on it the [6:26] same time don't get remembered [6:32] Randee Seuss and Ward Kristensen were we [6:39] think as far as we know the first ones [6:43] to establish a bulletin board 1974 I [6:47] learned about micro computers and the [6:49] 8008 was out at the time and asked what [6:51] I needed to know and got into digital [6:53] electronics and in 1975 the January [6:57] issue of popular electronics had the [6:59] Altair computer on the front cover and I [7:01] thought oh boy I don't have to design [7:03] and build my own computer from scratch I [7:05] can actually buy a kit and have the [7:07] fundamentals and I didn't do it right [7:10] away because I didn't want to be the [7:11] only person with one hard to believe [7:13] that that's now as universal as they are [7:16] so I went ahead and bought an Altair [7:19] there was this computer club that was [7:22] meeting in the Chicago area and cash [7:23] that Chicago a computer hobbyists [7:25] exchange and that's where I where I met [7:28] Randy and he was the real hardware job I [7:31] was looking for something more to do and [7:33] then this damn thing called a computer [7:35] he loved [7:36] I had a f8 development kit this is back [7:40] before there's any idea of there being a [7:43] personal computer it was a little [7:45] circuit board with a processor I hand [7:47] coded things that would add a 1/2 tanh [7:49] 2/7 was just absolutely amazing that you [7:52] could make this little thing do that we [7:55] said we had our own computer Wow [7:58] everybody's jaw dropped I went to a [8:01] Comdex show where Intel had a booth and [8:03] for $300 we could buy a 8080 [8:07] CPU right off the floor and I took that [8:11] home and showed it to my wife and I said [8:12] honey look look at this do you realize [8:15] what I can do that you can you can see [8:17] how seductive this must have been [8:19] because to have your own computer I mean [8:22] it was really amazing given that they [8:24] were multi-million dollar things that [8:26] you had to share with everybody else the [8:29] idea of having your own was pretty [8:31] seductive [8:36] we had a unique problem amongst us that [8:40] we couldn't exchange software through [8:43] the various media formats that everybody [8:46] had derived independently there was not [8:49] one standard available between things [8:53] like processor technology solves to [8:55] Altair's to em sighs to Chrome em cuz it [8:58] was just chaos [8:59] [Music] [9:06] [Music] [9:39] [Music] [9:47] [Music] [9:59] you [10:04] January 16th 1978 I went out to go to [10:07] work and it had been snowing most of the [10:09] night and I was unable to to get out [10:13] because it just kept snowing and kept [10:15] snowing so I think I shoveled for like [10:17] two hours and probably came in at like [10:19] 9:30 10 o'clock and and realized I was [10:21] not going to work that date so I called [10:24] Randy and I said you know I've got the [10:26] computer club recorder where people can [10:29] call to find out when the next meeting [10:30] is and to leave questions and things [10:32] like that and why not take that line and [10:34] put a system on it that people could [10:36] upload newsletters and things like that [10:39] newsletter articles and so on and we [10:41] could do a club project and I remember [10:44] he said essentially that that was [10:46] sounded like a neat idea but forget the [10:47] club because you know what what a [10:49] committee run something will be it'll [10:51] take it forever to happen I had too many [10:53] years of the Navy to - no no let's not [10:57] let's not talk about just do it the two [11:01] of us will do it and you do the software [11:04] and I'll do the hardware and tell me [11:06] where you know when are you gonna have [11:08] the software ready you know like a [11:09] project manager you're the reason [11:11] everything worked out so well is that we [11:14] just kind of inherently understood each [11:16] other he let me do what I did and I [11:19] can't do what he did it took me about [11:22] two weeks probably about the end of the [11:24] month before I had some software ready [11:27] to test and a little bit of playing [11:30] around and a lot a few friends know what [11:32] was there and try it and get some early [11:34] feedback on things that it needed and [11:35] and basically after after the two weeks [11:39] of designing and testing and put it [11:42] online and refined it a little and we [11:44] called it a month so February 16th [11:47] became the sort of arbitrary birthdate [11:49] of it and and it happened so quickly [11:51] because of Randy's a brilliant [11:54] initiative in pulling it back from being [11:56] a club project which would take forever [11:57] and and would be something more like the [11:59] ARPANET that I had been in which had a [12:01] lot of people talking about a lot of [12:02] good ideas but nobody was just getting [12:04] down and actually turning plugging in [12:06] their soldering irons so it wasn't [12:08] happening [12:08] the whole BBS thing was for our computer [12:12] club to be able to produce newsletters [12:14] that was the whole idea of it it worked [12:16] from wherever it went from then [12:18] right and and that's how this beast came [12:23] out of it [12:23] and ran for many years and I don't I [12:28] don't claim to have done anything [12:30] special and it was sort of like if you [12:33] bring to more than half critical masses [12:37] together it's going to happen and that [12:39] was what was happening to the technology [12:41] at the time [12:41] [Music] [12:48] [Music] [13:00] [Music] [13:18] you [13:19] [Music] [13:22] I found ward system originally CBS [13:26] Chicago mentioned in an article I if I [13:29] recall it was an info world and I went [13:32] that's cool [13:33] and I called it and played around on it [13:37] and went that's really cool we used to [13:40] read 80 micro magazine religiously every [13:43] month and one month they brought out an [13:45] article on bulletin board we talked [13:47] about a lot at the local computer Club [13:49] and a lot of it had had seen the stories [13:53] on onboard system it seemed like same [13:57] day we turned the thing on it got its [13:59] first phone call and from there just you [14:04] know kept going see BBS North West isn't [14:08] that a little pretentious you're kind of [14:10] client kind of claim in this whole [14:11] region and you're know you're well this [14:13] one system and this you know put on you [14:15] know section of Oregon oh I said well [14:18] hey you know when I named it I was all [14:21] there was you know this side of San [14:23] Francisco so that's when I got up on [14:27] Bill Blue's Bellflower RC p.m. and he [14:30] had the big bulletin board list which at [14:32] that time was about a hundred bulletin [14:34] boards downloaded that list and started [14:38] calling bulletin boards around the [14:40] country and it was always exciting you [14:41] never knew what was going come up within [14:44] two years it was easily 200 to 300 phone [14:46] numbers that you could call into the RCP [14:51] MCR BBS's [14:52] the CPM that guys you know we've [14:56] celebrated a hundred calls it took us [14:58] almost three months to get a hundred [14:59] calls on the bulletin board because [15:01] there's nobody had modems very few [15:03] people were in it and let's say either [15:06] were active professionally in a related [15:09] industry or perhaps he'll of spare money [15:13] in the first phase everybody was a [15:16] computer hobbyist you know I'm one of [15:19] these guys that my first computer came [15:22] in a kit cost me three thousand dollars [15:25] and six months to put together inch [15:27] ahead and roll your own back in those [15:29] days and altair 8800 really boy that was [15:34] on the [15:35] to build from scratch it started [15:39] becoming a surprise when I could find [15:41] some of the parts that used to go into [15:44] computers that show up a radio show Wow [15:46] you know what's the world coming to or [15:49] the system operators intent were not [15:51] computer hobbyists anymore they were [15:53] just they would go out and buy or [15:55] download a program put the thing up they [15:57] had no idea how to program they weren't [16:00] interested in programming which is fine [16:02] that was the interest had changed from [16:06] computer hobbyists to computer users you [16:10] could buy a trs-80 download your friends [16:13] software onto it now I'm a BBS no they [16:17] didn't have a no damn thing all they had [16:19] to do was have a phone line and they [16:21] could say they were sysout high schools [16:24] were full of sis ops [16:30] it's crazy Eddie's greatest home [16:32] computer sale ever and crazy and he's [16:33] going home computer crazy with the [16:35] absolute lowest prices anywhere on [16:36] anything and everything in home [16:37] computers Atari Texas Instruments [16:39] Commodore even the new low-priced time [16:41] XM player crazy and he's got them all [16:43] all the latest software to shop around [16:45] get the best prices you can find on home [16:47] computers then go to crazy at the end [16:48] he'll Batum it's crazy at his greatest [16:50] home computer sale ever and crazy and [16:52] he's going home computer crazy crazy [16:54] Eddie his home computer sale prices are [16:56] insane all right one summer I'm saving [17:01] up my money for a jam box you know [17:02] because I'm a teen and that's what you [17:03] do and I had a friend who took me to [17:05] play computer games at this comic book [17:07] store I was a big comic book collector [17:09] and I read in a Superman comic where [17:12] they had one of these sponsored insert [17:14] comics inside the comic book it was [17:16] these two kids helping Superman fight [17:18] some weather demon or something by using [17:21] their trs-80 model 100 computer in some [17:24] capacity to help them and I came home [17:26] and I said you know that computer you've [17:28] been telling me you wanted we're gonna [17:30] get one now and I'm gonna put my money [17:31] from the jam box towards this and I just [17:34] thought that was the coolest thing that [17:35] this computer actually was so powerful [17:37] it helps Superman I sold my Atari 2600 [17:41] and a box of cartridges to get my vic-20 [17:44] and because of that well you know I can [17:46] invest in video games forever but this [17:48] is a computer I think my dad got it [17:50] because it made him feel like my kids [17:53] are smart and so instead of getting toys [17:55] for Christmas I should get them this I [17:57] used to copy and trade video games with [18:01] my friends which led to one of my buddy [18:05] saying hey did you know what a BBS is [18:08] and and they're you know you can get [18:09] games for free and all this stuff on [18:11] these boards I mean all I know is pirate [18:13] BBS's [18:14] I'm just like the idea of like I'm [18:16] talking to people and they could be [18:18] anywhere and I don't know who they are [18:19] that's really me even if a lot of them [18:22] turned out to be really boring the [18:25] evening of December 25th you could you [18:28] know for years you could see you know [18:30] this some of the birds just got [18:32] clobbered oh my god forgot it's the day [18:37] after Christmas [18:39] we're not gonna get on any boards today [18:42] at all the in fact I think a lot of [18:45] people will actually use this as one [18:46] word 12 year olds with our motor purpose [18:48] you had this massive new callers that [18:52] had no clue and I know a lot of boards [18:56] mind included in a couple of years we'd [18:58] actually closed the system down to new [19:00] users for the first two months out of [19:02] the year go cut your teeth someplace [19:04] else we don't want a hassle for those of [19:07] us who'd been there for many years who'd [19:08] had lengthy conversations as well as all [19:11] the different types of interaction that [19:13] have happened there the the sudden [19:15] influx of Van Halen rules messages and [19:19] and the message counts just went through [19:20] the roof because they were all very [19:22] short one sentence me to kind of [19:24] messages their behavior just wasn't very [19:27] adult-like and they really melt off and [19:30] bash people and steal their code and [19:32] yeah a lot of them was just pure inner [19:34] kiss too you know they just loved [19:35] creating chaos [19:36] it gave us a voice that no one had [19:38] before we had no idea what to do with it [19:40] you took sticks of dynamite and handed [19:42] them to 12 year olds and said now if you [19:44] can find the lighter you can make this [19:45] go boom and well we found the lighter [19:53] there was a serious rift between any of [19:56] the 8-bit users between Apple between [19:58] Atari between Commodore I I refer to [20:01] them as Ford versus Chevy arguments [20:03] there was always this big argument [20:05] between people who thought Chevy was the [20:07] best car making people who thought Ford [20:09] was the best car make and there were [20:10] always this rivalry and this fight [20:13] between them for what seemed like a [20:16] completely pointless thing people get [20:18] really really heated they get very very [20:20] defensive of their computers it's it's [20:23] not like you go and you buy a stereo or [20:25] you buy a blender or a toaster a [20:26] computer is a very very personal thing [20:29] it's it's it's an expression of how you [20:31] want to work how you want to do things [20:32] it becomes an extension of yourself and [20:34] you tend to protect your your your young [20:37] your own each have their own group of [20:39] followers each group of followers was [20:40] very faithful to the company they chose [20:42] well Atari's we're the best computers [20:45] ever made let's forget it it's the Apple [20:48] to was the only software thing in town [20:50] the Commodore [20:51] I think did more to get people into [20:54] computers than anything else on the [20:56] planet when you thought of Atari you [20:58] thought of the highest quality you know [21:00] the best games the best you know the [21:02] best of everything so it made sense that [21:04] you know if they come out with a [21:05] computer god it's got to be the best [21:06] thing around the Apple was the ultimate [21:10] hackable piece of hardware the Lisa was [21:13] beautiful so I fell in love with Lisa [21:15] Tandy did have a great computer which [21:17] you maybe talk about the cocoa the color [21:21] computer 64 it was everywhere they're [21:25] great because they're the coolest you [21:26] understand what's going on with a NAPA - [21:28] it's not gonna trick you okay listen [21:31] Sneaky's gonna happen on alpha 2 they [21:33] break down you put it in the closet and [21:35] they heal themselves the commoner is [21:37] definitely the one that I have like 10 [21:40] of them at home just in case I'll have [21:42] one till the day I die and so they would [21:45] invent in their own minds any [21:46] justification to show that the other [21:48] computer was a piece of crap we used to [21:52] call the Apple people the Blockheads [21:53] because oh gosh we hated trash 80 and a [22:01] trs-80 guy would never own an Apple and [22:03] an apple guy would never own a trs-80 I [22:05] think [22:06] like the Commodores just the way they [22:07] were shaped actually IBM was kind of [22:10] like the enemy the trash cities were [22:14] retire [22:16] seeing people you know viciously [22:18] attacking people non-stop in the message [22:21] boards they were people that I would [22:22] actually follow a guy around and keep an [22:24] eye on him and keep lashing out at him [22:26] and on multiple you know bulletin boards [22:28] I mean really it got that serious if you [22:31] were a Commodore user and you were on [22:33] our bulletin board it had to be because [22:35] you told us you had an Atari or an apple [22:37] or a PC we had zero tolerance for [22:40] Commodore and not for any practical [22:42] reason except for the fact that you have [22:44] to delineate yourself with somebody else [22:46] where the Commodore free zone so that's [22:48] what we were so that was probably where [22:50] a lot of the emotion came from it's like [22:51] why are you making fun of my computer [22:53] you know it's a computer just like yours [22:54] is but this extended off of the bulletin [22:57] boards these these these Wars because [22:59] you would walk into a store and you [23:00] would hear some commodore kid that would [23:03] see somebody looking at an Atari [23:04] computer getting ready to bind they go [23:05] you don't want that it's it's not [23:07] powerful enough they can't even run a [23:08] disk drive it can't ready this and I [23:10] remember myself personally stepping up [23:12] and going you know and getting involved [23:13] in that and saying you don't know what [23:15] you're talking about you know we have [23:17] robotic arms we have Corbis disk drives [23:19] we have this we have that we have all [23:20] these floats the things and you'd see [23:21] the two people that were kind of looked [23:23] at the computer to be kind of like you [23:24] know stepping back something I like it [23:25] okay let's listen let's get out of here [23:27] one of the local electronics stores had [23:30] set up a BBS and they were running out [23:32] of their electronic store on this Amiga [23:34] and well that just would not do and so [23:38] various people at various times would go [23:40] up to the store and they would have this [23:42] BBS versus running on this PC and they [23:45] would disable that BBS you know just [23:49] remove the mouse ball set it aside and [23:52] do something so now they can't do [23:53] anything on there I remember him making [23:55] threats against the SIS off of that now [23:58] he was 16 probably and the SIS OP was an [24:01] employee of the store and he's like you [24:03] got to take your board down or you know [24:05] something bad is going to happen I [24:06] remember him coming home and say I just [24:08] followed the guy home from work and I [24:11] threatened him from my car and told them [24:13] you know you got to take your board [24:14] there and I'm like what are you doing [24:17] and so then [24:20] the mouse ball from this computer and he [24:21] posts this plea on the bulletin board [24:25] because this is a time when you can't [24:27] get replacement parts for the mouse [24:28] balls [24:29] anybody who knows where a mouse ball is [24:31] please let me have it back you know [24:33] the biggest advantage it had you know I [24:35] couldn't I couldn't put this to words [24:36] then but the biggest advantage was I had [24:38] one [24:42] being a pet natural packrat I got a [24:45] fundamental problem with pain to throw [24:47] things away it's bad enough to actually [24:49] get around to finding throwing something [24:50] away but the pain to throw it away that [24:53] just hurts let me play Christie's you [24:55] kept the manuals all this time oh yes of [24:57] course [24:58] what is it without manuals about all the [25:00] manuals up there oh my god you know [25:03] printed out jobs to my most used [25:05] shareware stuff oh yeah [25:08] keep the manuals from where this thing [25:11] got deposited gee 10 or 15 years ago it [25:15] no no no no 15 or 20 years ago more [25:18] likely but to work with my caper oh my [25:21] signalmen 300 baud modem which when I [25:23] got it I thought was the greatest thing [25:25] going and even the speed didn't seem to [25:28] slow since the printer I had at that [25:30] time was a thirty character per second [25:32] printer so they were both about the same [25:34] speed and I used this for a couple years [25:37] until 12 hundreds finally became [25:39] affordable ok you want to describe what [25:42] this is yeah well this actually was a [25:44] custom cabinet a friend built for me I [25:46] had all these boxes of floppy disks each [25:49] of these uh each of these boxes holds 70 [25:52] disks somewhere around here or so they [25:58] changed from 360 Kay's to 1.2 Meg's and [26:03] basically these discs here which numbers [26:08] from 1 to 1800 are all shareware this is [26:12] all DOS very little windows almost all [26:15] das shareware [26:16] that I collected from BBS's now the [26:21] entire contents here fits on actually [26:24] fits on two CDs I've put it on two CDs [26:26] this station was about the most [26:28] comfortable station for doing BBS's [26:30] cousin the slow BBS days it wasn't that [26:33] interesting watching about editions [26:35] watching a dryer dry clothes watching [26:36] the numbers count so my little TV set [26:38] was over there so the children were [26:41] younger then and it was hectic upstairs [26:43] this was a place to get away from it all [26:45] and do my my BBS scene with the printer [26:49] right there and TV right there and just [26:52] sort of [26:53] out of everybody's way but how much [26:56] would you say you spend on this setup [26:58] you know I don't want to know that [27:08] listen to this when a 20 megabyte drive [27:12] for an IBM PC can be bought for under [27:14] $1,000 the 2195 hyperdrive seems [27:19] woefully overpriced the first hard drive [27:23] that we purchased in our school system [27:25] was a 5 megabyte hard drive from [27:29] RadioShack for a trs-80 model 3 and of [27:32] course $3,000 5 make yeah yeah I [27:38] remember buying 2 of these things and I [27:43] remember as I put them into my car after [27:45] coming from the store I thought well the [27:47] amount of money I spend on these [27:49] double-sided 8-inch floppy drives I [27:51] could have bought a car with not a very [27:53] good one but a car I still have the [27:56] paperwork on that Apple and I look back [27:57] at it it's like we paid $3,600 for an [28:01] Apple 2 and a printer and a monitor and [28:03] I am just like $3,600 now I could you [28:06] know run half the country on the kind of [28:08] computer you can buy for $3,600 now I [28:10] went to work at Carl's jr. I mean I I [28:13] hustled on all sorts of jobs and I had [28:15] the choice of getting a car or getting a [28:17] computer and I got a computer and I mean [28:21] the rest is history after that the first [28:25] difference the huge difference that's [28:27] not it would be you'd be trivializing it [28:29] to overlook is the huge difference in [28:32] speed we're talking 300 baud 300 baud [28:36] I'm glad I will never have to again and [28:40] by saying this I'm cursing myself I'll [28:42] never have to deal with 300 baud again [28:45] in the bad old days an acoustic coupler [28:49] had two speeds there was 110 baud and [28:53] there was a whopping [28:55] 30 characters a second 300 baud and we [29:00] thought that was pretty good 300 baud [29:02] the screen wouldn't you know you stuff [29:06] would you log into a BBS a bee-like [29:08] [Applause] [29:10] login username : and you type user name [29:14] hit return and be a positive go to [29:17] password and just that's how long it [29:21] took to draw that's [29:22] alone because of the speed issues was [29:25] torture [29:26] when 1200 baud modems came along the [29:29] user is all saying you need to go to [29:31] 1200 baht and I said 300 baud that's [29:33] reading speed you know we don't need [29:35] anything faster then and I was running [29:38] at 1200 baud baud modem on a my my [29:41] just did not stink [29:43] it's amazing when you actually connected [29:46] 1200 it was absolutely amazing called [29:48] one of the few in town that supported [29:50] 2400 baud on the few boards in town and [29:53] it was awesome you would actually seek [29:55] out the police that I had 2400 baud so [29:57] you could take advantage of this high [29:58] speed that you had even if the place [30:00] sucked it was just like whoa but look [30:02] how much fast it's going through this is [30:03] so cool but I was always three lower [30:06] case o lower case o / 12 lower case o [30:10] lower case o / 24 - okay so lower case o [30:12] because I remembered the early days when [30:15] I wasn't allowed on to some boards [30:16] because I didn't have high enough baud [30:18] rate I remember the first time when I [30:20] called up to a board and a sister pulled [30:23] me in a Chan says I got this new 9600 [30:26] baud modem man and like you're still [30:29] 2400 sad what's wrong with you I [30:32] probably got like $800 for my bar mitzva [30:37] from various people and added up to 800 [30:39] bucks I spent 650 of it on a 9600 baud [30:43] modem which I thought was a good [30:46] investment 650 bucks for a 93 baud modem [30:49] which of course as soon as I bought that [30:50] they dropped down in price and when I [30:53] could get a 14-4 modem and download doom [30:57] to play with a kid who ran a BBS because [31:00] he couldn't find anybody to play doom [31:01] with him that was just a wonderous [31:03] device one particular sign I don't know [31:05] if I get any company at the house with [31:07] playing cards or whatever this guy [31:09] called me born he's offloading something [31:11] or other and the next morning I woke up [31:13] and he was still up walking same program [31:16] when you found the big file and it was [31:20] across the country you really thought [31:22] about it whether you want to download it [31:24] now or take a chance on finding it [31:26] locally absolutely anybody who is [31:29] probably under the age of 30 or 25 these [31:31] days has no concept [31:34] what the phone companies used to [31:35] absolutely rape you for for calling long [31:38] distance I mean quite commonly to call [31:40] California during the day would cost you [31:42] upwards of a dollar a minute and that [31:44] was in the deflated dollars of the day I [31:47] think the first month I got really into [31:49] D dialling we got a $500 phone bill a [31:51] lot of people like me did that and then [31:53] ended up losing their telephone for a [31:55] while because of things the the 650 [31:57] dollar phone bill for one month I mean I [32:00] never knew right I didn't know that uh [32:02] BBS is that we're also in three one two [32:04] could possibly cost any more money than [32:07] one that another one that was in three [32:09] one two till we got the first phone bill [32:11] my dad was very nice he said okay this [32:14] is a learning experience but you're not [32:17] calling during you know prime time [32:19] anymore first of all you're not staying [32:21] online for eight hours anymore second of [32:23] all I mean I was the expert on what the [32:26] phone book in the yellow pages if you [32:29] turn to the front of the yellow pages [32:30] they had all the plans laid out that you [32:32] could get in Massachusetts so we [32:34] actually spent time say okay you can [32:36] call where and where can I call okay now [32:39] that means we now have a combined [32:41] calling area of this much pulled out [32:43] page 17 from the yellow pages would say [32:45] okay if you live in this town here's the [32:48] you know this is what phone numbers [32:50] start with you know that are local to [32:52] you so we used to figure out exactly [32:54] where the bubbles lied and where they [32:56] overlapped so that we could make those [32:58] calls so okay well here's a page long of [33:02] you know numbers which I've got all [33:04] right this one is three seven six okay [33:07] that one's good you know mark been off [33:08] and I would call that one up and I [33:11] actually had to call Illinois Bell when [33:14] they were Illinois Bell and asked them [33:15] for what they call a band chart after [33:17] dinner I would go to my little hideaway [33:19] downstairs do my BBS into the local BBS [33:22] is waiting for 8 o'clock then I'd hit [33:24] the Crosstown ones on the weekends I'd [33:27] get up before a when it before it went [33:29] back and do a couple oh yeah [33:44] [Music] [34:28] you [34:38] it certainly has been it's just been fun [34:41] seeing the seeing the progression at [34:43] this time I can't believe BBS has ever [34:45] ran on Apple two machines like wow the [34:49] machine had like a mega hearse not like [34:51] a gigahertz like a megahertz like what [34:54] you know is that I wrote you I mean [34:57] today it's almost like it's too easy [35:00] computer today computers are too much [35:03] like a computer and less like a [35:04] typewriter like it was back then some [35:06] and you know I look this way I miss a [35:08] something that you know you're typing [35:10] you know when you're typing it's gone [35:12] from just going a computer that works is [35:15] it's an amazing thing to oh yeah I can [35:18] build a computer I want to make one that [35:19] looks neat well it was the beginning of [35:22] a revolution yeah really well [35:24] everything's been revolutionized since [35:26] then we don't types it that we used we [35:28] used to typeset we don't do photography [35:29] the way we used to do photography [35:31] you got this fancy xo1 camera with [35:33] firewire and all its good stuff I mean [35:35] it's it's I think there was a whole [35:38] sense of adventure we were doing [35:40] something that had never been done [35:41] before we were taking hardware that had [35:44] never been used for this kind of purpose [35:47] and using it and when I go into it [35:50] explaining it explaining what the BBS [35:52] was about why it existed and what there [35:55] was before the internet everyone's just [35:58] in awe they're like wait a minute there [36:00] was something before the internet like [36:02] this just didn't happen and and it [36:05] really just um is a great way it was a [36:08] great way to spend hours and hours of [36:13] you time just doing it you know the [36:19] definition of a pioneer that's the guy [36:21] with all the arrows in his back well [36:23] that's that's the way it was for the BBS [36:25] guys they broke new ground they really [36:29] blaze they created a new empire if it [36:32] hadn't been for computers and technology [36:34] I would have probably died 20 years 25 [36:38] years ago wrapping my car around a [36:41] bridge abutment somewhere in Texas from [36:43] drinking and driving or drugging and [36:45] driving [36:46] I got into technology and I didn't have [36:48] any more money for booze and for drugs [36:52] those decisions have treated me very [36:55] very well I remember the first time I [36:59] logged into a BBS and thought you know [37:01] what the hell is this and the answer was [37:04] standing right behind my back it was me [37:06] 30 years later going this is your life [37:12] often doodler hope you're Indiana Jones [37:19] turns up today but very back here is the [37:29] original CBS Northwest system not in its [37:34] original configuration right at the [37:35] moment I mean I I've still got all the [37:37] cards all the original cards even the PM [37:39] are my modem card is still rattling [37:41] around in box but the original CPU the [37:44] whole thing that that box you know for [37:47] 13 years just sat there pretty much [37:50] happily and took phone calls it [37:55] certainly has been it's just been fun [37:56] seeing the seeing the progression the [37:59] whole BBS thing was for our computer [38:02] club to be able to produce newsletters [38:04] that was a whole idea of it it worked [38:06] so wherever it went from then [38:12] [Music] [38:16] [Applause] [38:19] [Music] [38:29] I just loaded the BBS [39:07] my brother used to say Oh are we gonna [39:09] play loading again he was used to his in [39:12] television where he just pops the [39:13] curtain