Ask HN: What was it like to use BBS?
You can think of a BBS as a single web site that only one (or maybe a few) users can use at a time.<p>It is really slow, with a text user interface or menu driven interface.<p>It might have a forum or text-only email that does not get updated very fast.<p>There are some files that you can download, but not very many (maybe a hundred), but it takes several minutes to download one file.  You can upload files you want to share, but that takes several minutes per file as well.<p>There are some multiuser games, but in most cases only one or two users are playing at a time.  One of my favorite was Trade Wars 2002:  <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;wiki.classictw.com&#x2F;index.php?title=Jumpgate" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;wiki.classictw.com&#x2F;index.php?title=Jumpgate</a><p>It was not at all similiar to today&#x27;s web and social media because each BBS was local (who had the money to call long distance for far away BBSes?), and it was so much slower than today&#x27;s Internet speeds.<p>Seriously, BBSes over a 2400 baud or 9600 baud modem were so much slower than the data speeds that most cell networks offer today.<p>Another big factor was that calling BBSes used a phone line.  If your family had a single phone line, it was in use when using the modem.  No one could make or receive phone calls when you were online.  This meant that serious BBS users and sysops running BBSes had multiple phone lines.  Those who couldn&#x27;t afford multiple phone lines were calling late at night when no one else was using the phone.