Precursors
A precursor to the public bulletin board system was Community Memory, which started in August 1973 in Berkeley, California See more

Since most early BBSes were run by computer hobbyists, content was largely technical, with user communities revolving around hardware … See more

Much of the shareware movement was started via user distribution of software through BBSes. A notable example was Phil Katz's PKARC (and later PKZIP, using the same ".zip" See more

A classic BBS had:
• A computer
• One or more modems
• One or more phone lines, with more allowing for increased concurrent users
• A BBS software package See more

Unlike modern websites and online services that are typically hosted by third-party companies in commercial data centers, … See more

BBSes were generally text-based, rather than GUI-based, and early BBSes conversed using the simple ASCII character set. … See more

Most early BBSes operated as individual systems. Information contained on that BBS never left the system, and users would only interact with the information and user community on that BBS alone. However, as BBSes became more widespread, there … See more