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Message: <blockquote data-quote="aramis erak" data-source="post: 9615854" data-attributes="member: 6779310">In re Forums...Back in the dial-in BBS days (mid 80s to late 90s), most BBSs were single line or dual line (plus console access), served from the home, and the popular software was discussion boards that looked not too different from modern BBS internet, save for being all monospaced font text - sometimes with colors.vBulletin and XenForo are modern implementations with graphics and nicely tuned stylesheets, but the basic forums functionality goes back 40+ years.Chat based "BBS" systems (Galacticom being the big local-hosting one in the 90's) were usually 8-16 line, pay for access. National level BBS/Email systems were early 80s onward: Compuserve Information Service (CIS or CI$), GEnie, later AOL added internet connectivity in the early 90's - CIS was routing into Fidonet, and Fidonet was connected to ARPANet/DARPANet.Internet BBSs go back to about 1990... but you had to use Telnet, not HTTP. Many of the 90's were actually on FidoNet, and you could dial in directly, or take your chances getting the needed real time upconnect for telnet, but either way, the experience was similar once connected.UseNet goes back to the 1980's... and still is going, but the portals now seem to want to get paid. I started on UseNet in 1989 through non-live portals at my uni... especially alt.rec.frp.misc. It's not so easily used, but some BBSs in the dialup boards were likewise just a singular board without individual forums within. (Imagine the kind of content of just TTRPG-General here, but all the posts in one big thread, by time they hit the system.EMail Lists were (and still are) single-forum stream, with threads ID'd by title and reply-to fields. I was on several in 1989, as well. The nicest thing about 90's BBSing was the .QWK "Quick Packet" - you'd log into the BBS, upload any replies/new posts you made since last packet, download your subscribed forums new content, and get off line. Repeat daily, or if time essential, later that day. BBSs have been a backbone (pun intended) of online communications since the late 80's. Email lists similarly.I'll note that a bunch of dialup BBSs from the 90s were relaunched from archives in the 2000's and 2010s as telnet login systems. (IIRC, WWIVnet added internet connectivity in about 1997; Galacticom in about 1991 as an experimental capability.)</blockquote>

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