A Snowstorm and an Idea
On February 16, 1978, in Chicago, two computer hobbyists—Ward Christensen and Randy Suess—launched something that would change how people communicate forever. It was called CBBS: the Computerized Bulletin Board System. It was the first of its kind.
The idea had formed during a particularly harsh Chicago winter. A blizzard had buried the city. The Chicago Area Computer Hobbyists’ Exchange (CACHE), a club Christensen and Suess belonged to, couldn’t meet in person. They needed a way to share information without leaving their homes.
Christensen had already written a protocol for transferring files over phone lines—XMODEM, which would become a standard for years. Now he and Suess adapted it for something different: a digital bulletin board where users could leave messages for others to read later.
How It Worked
CBBS ran on an S-100 bus computer with a 64KB memory bank and an 8-inch floppy disk drive. A single Hayes Smartmodem, screaming at 300 bits per second, connected the machine to the phone line. One line. One user at a time.
If you wanted to use CBBS, you dialed the number and hoped. If the line was busy, you tried again. And again. If you got through, you could read messages, leave replies, or upload files. Then you disconnected so someone else could have a turn.
It was primitive. It was slow. It was magical.
The Culture
CBBS created a new kind of community—one defined not by geography but by interest. Early users were mostly computer hobbyists, sharing tips about hardware, software, and programming. But the concept spread rapidly. By the early 1980s, thousands of BBS systems had sprung up across America.
Each BBS was its own world, run by a “sysop” (system operator) who set the rules, curated the content, and decided who belonged. Some were general interest; others focused on specific topics—ham radio, gaming, politics, or the emerging art of digital graphics. Users adopted handles instead of real names. Online personas were born.
The Echoes
CBBS was the ancestor of everything that followed: Usenet, internet forums, AOL, social media. The DNA of Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and Discord can all be traced back to that Chicago basement in 1978, where two guys built a system for leaving messages on a computer.
The conventions of BBS culture persist today: screen names, threaded conversations, file sharing, online etiquette (and the violation of it). The thrill of connecting with a stranger across distance. The anxiety of waiting for a response. The drama of online communities.
The Legacy
Ward Christensen and Randy Suess didn’t patent their idea. They shared it freely. By 1995, at the peak of the BBS era, there were an estimated 60,000 systems worldwide, serving millions of users. The internet eventually eclipsed dial-up BBS systems, but for nearly two decades, they were the primary way ordinary people experienced networked communication.
Randy Suess passed away in 2019. Ward Christensen is still recognized as a pioneer of digital communication. On February 16, 1978, they didn’t know they were building the foundation for a revolution. They were just solving a problem: how to stay connected when the snow was too deep to go outside.
One computer. One phone line. One message at a time. And the world was never the same.
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