1
Seasons

8
Episodes

May 21, 2005
Release Date

8.4

BBS: The Documentary (2005)

Name: BBS: The Documentary
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2005-05-21

37m

Running Time

1
Seasons

8
Episodes

May 21, 2005
Release Date

External Links & Social Media

Plot.

Long before the Internet escaped from the lab, connecting the planet and redefining what it meant to meant to be a computer user... ...there was a brave and pioneering band of hobbyists who spent their time, money and sanity setting up their home computers and phone lines to welcome anyone who called. By using a modem, anyone who knew the phone number of these machines could connect to them, leave messages, play games, send and receive files in a virtual community... and millions did. They called these places "Bulletin Board Systems", or BBSes. Their collections of messages, rants thoughts and dreams became the way that an entire generation learned about being online.

Where to Watch.

No streaming offers found

Cast & Crew.

Jason Scott

Creator / Director / Writer

Nicole Sparks

Producer

Vinton Cerf

Self

Ben Gardiner

Self

Deth Veggie

Self

Media.

Details.

Release Date
May 21, 2005

Status
Ended

Seasons
1

Episodes
8

Running Time
37m

Genres
Documentary

Last updated: 2025-02-14

Wiki.

BBS: The Documentary (commonly referred to as BBS Documentary) is a 3-disc, 8-episode documentary about the subculture born from the creation of the bulletin board system (BBS) filmed by computer historian Jason Scott of textfiles.com.

Production work began in July 2001, and completed in December 2004. The finished product began shipping in May 2005.

Although the documentary was released under the Creative Commons Attribute-ShareAlike 2.0 License and later under 3.0, meaning that anyone can legally download it for free, the author has made it known that the downloadable version is only a fraction of the available material and recommends that individuals purchase the documentary DVDs.