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BBS The Documentary: Episode 1 of 8: BAUD (The Beginning)

BBS The Documentary: Episode 1 of 8: BAUD (The Beginning) on HackerTube: recommended by 4 Hacker News commenters across 4 separate months, 2019–2025.

Jason Scott

documentary · evergreen

Open on YouTube

The first episode of Jason Scott's eight-part BBS documentary, covering the predecessors and beginnings of the dial-up bulletin board system. It includes interviews with pioneers such as Ward Christensen and Randy Suess, who created the first dial-up BBS in 1978.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN commenters recommend the series as the definitive history of BBS culture and its Fidonet roots, especially for nostalgia and the origins of the demoscene.

people recommended it
4
separate months
4
strong recommendations
1
discussed on HN
2019–2025
“He also gave us the brilliant BBS: The Documentary”
— Eremotherium, Apr 2020, in “textfiles.com”

What HN commenters said

6 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.

EremotheriumApr 2020Strongly recommends

He also gave us the brilliant BBS: The Documentary ▶ this video GET LAMP: The Text Adventure Documentary (shot in 1080p) [link] and (apart from his many talks) his podcast "Jason Scott talks his way out of it" which is just gem after gem of documented tech ephemera. [link] It's baffingly hard to quantify how many people he (and all the other great people at the Internet Archive) has affected with his bullheaded conservation efforts.

in “textfiles.com” · View on HN

effektOct 2023Recommends

If you'd like to know where the demoscene came from, look no further than The BBS Documentary[1] The whole thing started w/ cracktros in the 80s and through the artscene it eventually evolved into its own scene that was entirely disconnected from its roots in piracy. 1. ▶ this video

in “What is the Demoscene? An obscure but influential art form” · View on HN

mwestDec 2022Recommends

Some great nostalgia reading this. If you want more, check out Jason Scott's "BBS: The Documentary": ▶ this video

in “My secret life as an 11-year-old BBS sysop” · View on HN

kbr2000Dec 2019Recommends

Well, thank you a lot Randy! Great idea, good times... In case this interests someone, I recommend you to check out Jason Scott's BBS Documentary [ [link] ], and while the DVDs sold out, it seems to be available on his youtube channel [ ▶ this video ]. PS. adding a trailing dot after .com in the article URL saves you some trouble :)

in “Randy Suess, computer bulletin board inventor, has died” · View on HN

DonHopkinsJan 2025Cites it

[link] >deepnet on Oct 6, 2022 | parent | context | favorite | on: Recording the Grateful Dead: The Culture of Tapers >The overlap between early nerd culture and The Grateful Dead was very significant. >Taping and sharing culture and its benefits were very apparent in many net forums. >As were democratisation of the new tools, public terminals with BBS access and the Deadheads community spirit exemplified on Usenet and Arpanet. >Look no further than John Perry Barlow, EFF co-founder and his Manifesto of Cyberspace - he was a Grateful Dead Lyricist ! [link] >Barlow's paradigm seems cheeky without awareness of the Net's public roots, how it came up through BBS and Fidonet culture, is forgotten by those who only saw the view of the Net as a gift from the ivory towers of academia and the military rather than bedroom z80 & 6502 modem culture. q.v. Fidonet BBS documentary ▶ this video DonHopkins on Oct 6, 2022 [–] >In another comment reply to Gumby, I mentioned how I often accidentally call them "Grateful Dead Conferences", because so many tech people I knew and worked with in Silicon Valley and the Free Software community and regularly saw at computer conferences and trade shows would show up at Dead shows. >The Raster Masters would lug enormous million dollar high end SGI workstations across North Shoreline Boulevard from SGI headquarters to Shoreline Amphitheater, and actually pack them into trucks and travel on tour with the Dead, performing live improvisational psychedelic graphics

in “Psychedelic Graphics 0: Introduction” · View on HN

deepnetOct 2022Cites it

The overlap between early nerd culture and The Grateful Dead was very significant. Taping and sharing culture and its benefits were very apparent in many net forums. As were democratisation of the new tools, public terminals with BBS access and the Deadheads community spirit exemplified on Usenet and Arpanet. Look no further than John Perry Barlow, EFF co-founder and his Manifesto of Cyberspace - he was a Grateful Dead Lyricist ! [link] Barlow's paradigm seems cheeky without awareness of the Net's public roots, how it came up through BBS and Fidonet culture, is forgotten by those who only saw the view of the Net as a gift from the ivory towers of academia and the military rather than bedroom z80 & 6502 modem culture. q.v. Fidonet BBS documentary ▶ this video

in “Recording the Grateful Dead: The Culture of Tapers” · View on HN

Topics & tags

History of computingInternet culture & memesDocumentaries & storytellingbulletin board systemsjason scottfidonetdial-upcomputer history