BBS: The Documentary

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 Sadofsky of textfiles.com.

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

Episodes

Disc 1

Baud: the beginnings of the first BBSes, featuring Ward Christensen and Randy Suess
SysOps and Users: experiences from those who used and operated BBSes

Disc 2

Make it Pay: the BBS industry of the 1980s and 90s
FidoNet: details the largest volunteer-run computer network in history
Artscene: the history of the ANSI Art Scene which thrived in the BBS world

Disc 3

HPAC (Hacking Phreaking Anarchy Cracking): hear from the users of "underground" BBSes
No Carrier: the end of the dial-up BBS and its integration into the Internet
Compression: the story of the PKWARE/SEA legal battle of the late 1980s

Disc 3 also serves as a DVD-ROM which contains thousands of photographs from the 200 interviews recorded during the 4-year production of the film. All of the episodes are subtitled in English and include directory commentary tracks. The Artscene episode is the only one to include subtitles translated into Russian. All discs include hidden easter eggs, one of which features Grandmaster Ratte' taking a bubble bath.

External links

The documentary was released under a Creative Commons license^*, so anyone can legally download it for free.

Disc 1 - DivX, 710 MB: ed2k://|file|BBS Documentary 1 of 3.avi|741480448|7EBAB211387D0B64B3488D5A4BE90209|/
Disc 2 - DivX, 710 MB: ed2k://|file|BBS Documentary 2 of 3.avi|743921664|AED46AF6428A926A1E517681C3EB5F97|/
Disc 3 - DivX, 710 MB: ed2k://|file|BBS Documentary 3 of 3.avi|741027840|2A0CC52EA75BC61D3B96CA686BFDD674|/

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Episodes

Disc 1

Disc 2

Disc 3

External links