The Concept Behind The Bulletin Board System

Added: 04/25/2007

The Bulletin Board System (BBS) saw the beginning of the modern day interactivity between Internet users. Successfully performing a social function in a virtual reality provided the impetus to improve and develop aspects of the Internet associated with this form of communications. The first Bulletin Board Systems began to emerge around the late 1970s with ideas and imagination motivating users who recognized their usefulness.

The Bulletin Board System was originally used to provide regional and international e-mail and message bases. Ostensibly the BBS set out as a Message Board System however demand for features motivated the introduction of forums, mazes and other online games. Although limited compared with the standards experienced today they provided the concept to create a mechanism by which communication on a visual scale and time frame that was almost unprecedented. The Bulletin Board System networks were not then linked in real-time, but would instead follow a dial up queue and/or a regional hub, at preset intervals in order to exchange files and messages.

Initially the Bulletin Board System comprised simple software applications that by the 1980s were being offered free or as shareware. An example is Fido, a system that was easy to configure and use. However for a feature laden Bulletin Board System one called Mustang stood out, although it came with a price, it proved more dependable than the free programs on offer at the time. The most used BBS was FidoNet, which continues to operate today. FidoNet spawned a host of other networks that used the same standards and software that targeted selected audiences. Interactivity between users was also common as many of the smaller networks were linked to FidoNet and other networks. However Event Horizons a commercial enterprise that ran for twelve years from 1983 proved that there was money to be made and in 1992 recorded a gross income of around $3m.

The majority of Bulletin Board Systems operated on DOS, largely due to the significant numbers of DOS machines available as opposed to the Graphical User Interface (GUI) design that has become more popular with the Internet today. Although during the 1990s a Bulletin Board System that had adopted GUI was offered but did not prove popular.

The BBS History reflects how its development forced the pace towards a more public and user friendly interface that we now have over the Internet. Online matchmaking is just one of the numerous scenarios that are now used daily to provide virtual interaction on an unprecedented scale. Online matchmaking simply through weight of numbers is arguably one of the biggest successes related to the original thinking behind the BBS. Online matchmaking as a process has opened up the possibilities that allow individuals to find a suitable partner with which to share their lives. Whether this kind of development was envisaged by the scientists who initially put the Bullten Board System together is unlikely however, they would have acknowledged the broadness of the range of issues that could be handled in such a way and thereby might have acknowledged the possibility of an online dating structure was at least feasible. Certainly at the time the main focus would have been towards research and advancing intellectual capacity rather than thought to a relationships perspective. However the BBS has spawned a host of mechanisms by which information whether that be personal or scientific can now easily be found and discussed oat an international level.

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