Bulletin Board
A bulletin board (sometimes called a bboard, pronounced BEE-board) is a computerized meeting, announcement, and message forum that enables remote users to exchange e-mail, post and read public messages, converse with others in real time by typing messages (i.e., to chat), play interactive games, download and upload files and software, and archive files, and which provides whatever other services and activities its operator sees fit. Electronic bulletin boards recall the physical boards on which people post handwritten paper messages for public perusal. Electronic bulletin boards were popular even before the World Wide Web, functioning somewhat like stand-alone web sites without graphics. However, unlike a web site, each bulletin board had its own dial-in telephone number.
A computerized bulletin board system (BBS) basically consists of a computer to act as a central server, one or more modems or other means of network access through which the server can be contacted, and a number of user's computers running appropriate communications software and attached to telephone lines. A general-purpose communications program such as Crosstalk or Qmodem Pro is used to access a BBS. Users generally dial into a BBS with their modems and post messages to other BBS users in special areas devoted to a particular topic (special interest groups).
Tens of thousands of local BBSs are in operation throughout the world, especially where there is little direct Internet access. Typically BBSs are informal virtual communities that are operated mostly for fun by amateurs out of their homes and usually organized around a favorite topic such as science fiction, movies, software, or entertainment. Most BBSs are open to the public; access may be free, fee-based, or a combination of the two.
Although hobbyists have traditionally dominated BBSs, today a BBS may take the form of a specialized Internet site operated by a governmental, research, or educational institution. Many software and hardware companies run proprietary BBSs for the use of their customers with respect to such topics as technical support, sales information, and software upgrades and patches.
FidoNet (Framework for Interdisciplinary Design Optimization Network) is a worldwide computer network of BBSs that use the same format for addresses and that can automatically distribute and exchange information (e-mail, newsgroup postings, and files) over a system of computers networked via telephone lines. This allows a person using a local BBS to interact with other BBSs. The protocol (set of communication rules enabling computers to understand one another) used by FidoNet originated on the Fido BBS initiated in 1984 by Tom Jennings. FidoNet was the first popular method of providing e-mail and file transfer across multiple BBSs. The Newton BBS is a bulletin board system presently popular for teachers and students in the physical sciences, mathematics, and computer science that is operated by the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago, Illinois. It provides a means for people interested in the sciences to obtain useful information and post questions to scientists regarding astronomy, botany, molecular biology, zoology, chemistry, computers, and weather.
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