The Chicagoland legend who invented the BBS has passed. Plenty of late nights dialing into Zeller Zone or Bear Whiz listening to Wax Trax! records pressed in the Windy City. I was always an Illinois Boy. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/10/ward-christensen-bbs-inventor-and-architect-of-our-online-age-dies-at-age-78/
@schmudde All respect to him, but I don’t like seeing this BBS claim repeated. Five years earlier (1973) a group of Bay Area radicals created the first BBS in a Berkeley record store:
@computersandblues @schmudde St Jude was absolutely a real one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jude_Milhon
@jack What a life! Didn't connect Mondo 2000 to St. Jude until right now.
(cc: @computersandblues )
@jack Fair - mainly because the history of technology, science, art, etc... has taught us that the notion of "first" is a pretty silly concept.
But to be silly for a moment, Community Memory was absolutely the first BBS. What was created in Chicagoland was the first of something else in concept and practice... that happened to also be called a BBS.
So we are simply impoverished for words. This isn't like someone claiming that Shiva Ayyadurai invented email.
@jack Speaking of the silly "first" designation, the Plato system in Illinois could conceivably make the BBS claim even before Community Memory.
Thinking out loud, that gives Illinois these "firsts":
- Homebrew BBS
- Mainframe BBS
- Graphics-enabled web browser
- Ebook
- HAL
Illinois is truly in first place among the 50 states when it comes to squandering the fruits of great inventions.