---
title: "BBSes and blogs"
url: https://campbell-online.com/blog/2006/04/07/bbses-and-blogs/
description: "A great question over at MetaTalk brings the BBSers out of the woodwork: “Were you a BBSer? Did you run a BBS?” The person asking the question has noted some."
published: 2006-04-07
updated: 2006-04-07
---

# BBSes and blogs

Published 2006-04-07

April 7, 2006 · [Blog notes](https://campbell-online.com/blog/category/blog-notes/)

A great question over at MetaTalk brings the BBSers out of the woodwork: [“Were you a BBSer? Did you run a BBS?”](http://metatalk.metafilter.com/mefi/11602) The person asking the question has noted some similarities between BBS culture and blog culture, and I think that’s a very good observation.

For those of you who weren’t around or weren’t paying attention in the early 1980s to mid-1990s, a [computer Bulletin Board System (BBS)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system) was

> …a [computer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer) system running [software](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_software) that allows users to dial into the system over a [phone line](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_switched_telephone_network) and, using a [terminal program](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_program), perform functions such as downloading software and data, uploading data, playing games, reading news, and exchanging [messages](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message) with other [users](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_%28computing%29). During their heyday (from the early [1980s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980s) to the mid [1990s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990s)), many BBSes were run as a [hobby](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobby) free of charge by the “[SysOp](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SysOp)” (system operator), while other BBSes charged their users a subscription fee for access.

(Thanks, Wikipedia! Like many of their articles on technical topics, the [Wikipedia article on BBSes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system) is almost mindsnappingly good and extremely detailed.)

I must confess that I was a rabid BBS user back in the day, and wound up owning and running not one but *two* of the beasts. I ran Homestead BBS, a Wildcat board, out of my apartment in Chapel Hill, NC for a couple of years in the late 1980s, and then I ran one of the first public Usenet boards in North Carolina, “Chatham Host,” after sweet-talking a friend at Duke University into providing me with a Usenet feed.

 [“Were you a BBSer? Did you ever run a BBS?” | MetaTalk](http://metatalk.metafilter.com/mefi/11602)

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