Your Weekend Blast From The Past

Back before the days of the Internet, we had something called a BBS (Bulletin Board System). A BBS was a site usually run out of someone’s basement that had chat rooms, freeware, games, news, and jokes. You didn’t have web browsers and high-speed connections – just a terminal program and a modem. To access a BBS, you dialed a phone number and logged in. Bored with that BBS? Log out and disconnect and dial the phone number of another. There was no such thing as HTML or Java, a BBS had a spectrum of colors – usually a blue background with white letters. Some of the “advanced” BBS’ had maybe three or four colors. Now that’s living large!

I remember spending many a Friday night connecting to different BBS’ with my 2400 baud modem (high technology for the time) chatting and downloading games. Many of you young whipper snappers may not appreciate what you have in this here Internet. Fortunately, there is a QuickTime video available that simulates a connection to a BBS over a 300 baud modem. You can view it here.

One day I will get to tell my grandkids, “When I was your age…”