Bulletin board system

A mailbox outside the German language area bulletin board system (BBS ) called (English for board / bulletin board ), is a mostly privately operated computer system which can be used by remote data transmission (RDT ) for communication and data exchange. It was initially programmed in assembly language, later in Dbase, Pascal, C or Turbo Basic and established a comprehensive system of data communication similar to a modern server dar. Therefore, the simple mailbox name is derived from the original function and was transferred to the whole system.

The responsible operator has the status of the system operator ( sysop ), its remit is similar to an administrator. Each user ( users ) of the mailbox has its own mailbox, stored in the electronic messages for him and can be retrieved from it. In addition, there are usually public areas, often forums, boards or echoes called, in which the users can exchange information and discuss. These were usually called boards. An average mailbox offered an average of more than 300 boards, so news areas, in the read visitors ( users ) to write and could answer. Frequently mailboxes offered beyond an extensive download area for files or offer additional services such as online games (these additional services and online games were " Doors" called ). The graph was equal to that of the known from the television teletext ago. Examples of this can be seen on the homepage of the retrospective maxou BBS.

As a rule, were mailboxes, except for the actual call charges of the data line ( telephone line), free of charge.

Many mailboxes were linked to each other and exchanged at regular intervals their data among themselves. In the mailbox language, this process was also called pollen. In the initial period to 1990, she worked with an average of 300-2400, from 1992 and 14,400 in the final stages with 56,000 bits per second. In this way, users of different mailboxes could quickly and inexpensively communicate with each other. An average mailbox had around 1992 about 5,000 users, grew than this number, you put several modem lines next to each other. So some mailboxes came to more than 10,000 users. At the peak in 1995 there must have been in Germany about an estimated 1,000 mailboxes.

History

With the rapid spread of the first personal computer, especially the Apple II, and the first usable acoustic modems and the privately operated mailboxes emerged from the late 1970s, especially in the large cities of the United States. There then local calls were free, which accelerated the spread of mailboxes especially in metropolitan areas. In Germany, where the personal computer came up a little later, in 1980 under Postmaster General Kurt Gscheidle (SPD ), the timing for local calls has been introduced. In addition, in Germany, the admissions policy for modems was much stricter, so that the start of the scene was much slower and did not reach the American proportions. In West Berlin, where the timing was not until 31 August 1992 ( so you could for 23 Pfennig stay as long in the line), the mailbox density was significantly higher than in West Germany.

The world's largest private mailbox network FidoNet (short Fido ), in 1984, and quickly spread worldwide. A short time later in Germany were new mailbox networks such as the MausNet, Z -Net ( formerly Cerberus Network), Quick Power, GS -Net, T- grid, Amnet and the Ravenet, but found little or no international distribution. Political activists who considered themselves the new social movements, built on various mailbox networks; in German-speaking countries was the largest of the CL network. The Ecological- Democratic Party " ödp " used before its website since about 1989, based on Fido ödp Net.

Although the software used by the different networks was incompatible with each other, created between these networks quickly interfaces, called gateways, which over the network boundaries messages could be sent. These gateways also regulated the exchange of data with America, and in many mailboxes also English-language news and discussion levels were provided.

Between 1989 and 1996 the number of mailbox user peaked. It is estimated at about 1.56 million alone in FidoNet. With the increasing popularity of the Internet since the number of users but greatly declined.