BBS: The Documentary
Encyclopedia
BBS: The 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.
Although the documentary was released under the Creative Commons
Attribute-ShareAlike 2.0 License, meaning that anyone can legally download it for free, Jason Scott Sadofsky has made it known that the downloadable version is only a taste of the full experience and recommends that individuals purchase the documentary DVDs.
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 director's commentary
tracks. The Artscene episode is the only one to include subtitles translated into Russian
. All discs include hidden easter eggs.
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
about the subculture
Subculture
In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a group of people with a culture which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong.- Definition :...
born from the creation of the bulletin board system
Bulletin board system
A Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer system running software that allows users to connect and log in to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, a user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging...
(BBS) filmed by computer historian Jason Scott Sadofsky
Jason Scott Sadofsky
Jason Scott Sadofsky , more commonly known as Jason Scott, is an American archivist and historian of technology. He is the creator, owner and maintainer of textfiles.com, a web site which...
of textfiles.com
Textfiles.com
textfiles.com is a web site run by Jason Scott dedicated to preserving the digital documents that contain the history of the BBS world and various subcultures. The site categorises and stores thousands of ASCII files. It focuses on text files from the 1980s, but also contains some older files and...
.
Production work began in July 2001 and completed in December 2004. The finished product began shipping in May 2005.
Although the documentary was released under the Creative Commons
Creative Commons
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
Attribute-ShareAlike 2.0 License, meaning that anyone can legally download it for free, Jason Scott Sadofsky has made it known that the downloadable version is only a taste of the full experience and recommends that individuals purchase the documentary DVDs.
Disc 1
- BaudBaudIn telecommunications and electronics, baud is synonymous to symbols per second or pulses per second. It is the unit of symbol rate, also known as baud rate or modulation rate; the number of distinct symbol changes made to the transmission medium per second in a digitally modulated signal or a...
: the beginnings of the first BBSes, featuring Ward ChristensenWard ChristensenWard Christensen, born in West Bend, Wisconsin, U.S., is the founder of the CBBS bulletin board, the first bulletin board system ever brought online...
and Randy Suess [39:12] - SysOpSysOpA sysop is an administrator of a multi-user computer system, such as a bulletin board system or an online service virtual community. It may also be used to refer to administrators of other Internet-based network services....
s and UserUser (computing)A user is an agent, either a human agent or software agent, who uses a computer or network service. A user often has a user account and is identified by a username , screen name , nickname , or handle, which is derived from the identical Citizen's Band radio term.Users are...
s: experiences from those who used and operated BBSes [44:44]
Disc 2
- Make it Pay: the BBS industry of the 1980s and 90s [46:48]
- FidoNetFidoNetFidoNet is a worldwide computer network that is used for communication between bulletin board systems. It was most popular in the early to mid 1990s, prior to the introduction of easy and affordable access to the Internet...
: details the largest volunteer-run computer network in history [43:56] - ArtsceneComputer art sceneThe phrase computer art scene, or artscene for short, refers to a community of individuals and groups that are both interested and active in the creation of computer-based artwork.-Early computer art:...
: the history of the ANSI Art SceneANSI artANSI art is a computer art form that was widely used at one time on BBSes. It is similar to ASCII art, but constructed from a larger set of 256 letters, numbers, and symbols — all codes found in IBM code page 437, often referred to as extended ASCII and used in MS-DOS and Unix environments...
which thrived in the BBS world [42:41]
Disc 3
- HPAC (HackingHacker (computer security)In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...
PhreakingPhreakingPhreaking is a slang term coined to describe the activity of a culture of people who study, experiment with, or explore telecommunication systems, such as equipment and systems connected to public telephone networks. As telephone networks have become computerized, phreaking has become closely...
AnarchyAnarchismAnarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
CrackingSoftware crackingSoftware cracking is the modification of software to remove or disable features which are considered undesirable by the person cracking the software, usually related to protection methods: copy protection, trial/demo version, serial number, hardware key, date checks, CD check or software annoyances...
): hear from the users of "underground" BBSes [38:22] - No Carrier: the end of the dial-up BBS and its integration into the InternetInternetThe Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
[21:32] - CompressionData compressionIn computer science and information theory, data compression, source coding or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation would use....
: the story of the PKWAREPKZIPPKZIP is an archiving tool originally written by Phil Katz and marketed by his company PKWARE, Inc. The common "PK" prefix used in both PKZIP and PKWARE stands for "Phil Katz".-History:...
/SEA legal battle of the late 1980s [20:46]
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 director's commentary
Audio commentary
On disc-based video formats, an audio commentary is an additional audio track consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with video...
tracks. The Artscene episode is the only one to include subtitles translated into Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
. All discs include hidden easter eggs.