Today in 1978, the first public dial-up Bulletin Board System, the Computerized Bulletin Board System, or CBBS, went online.
Before the advent of the Web, Bulletin Board Systems served as the primary vehicle for creating online communities or, to use a later term, social networks. CCBS was developed by Ward Christensen and Randy Suess and reportedly connected more than 250,000 users before it was retired in the 1990s. In “Hobbyist Computerized Bulletin Board” (BYTE, November 1978), Christensen and Suess described CBBS—”conceived, designed, built, programmed, tested, and installed in a 30-day period (January 16 1978 to February 16 1978)”—sparking the creation of many tens of thousands of BBSes all over the world.
Early BBSes were often a local phenomenon, as one had to dial into a BBS with a phone line and would have to pay additional long distance charges for a BBS out of the local calling area. Thus, many users of a given BBS usually lived in the same area, and activities such as BBS Meets or Get Togethers, where many users of the board would gather and meet face to face, were common.