Jason Scotts BBS documentary.. \ VOGONS

Jason Scotts BBS documentary..

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First post, by Iris030380

Posted on 2011-01-15, 22:14

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Have you all seen it?

If not, I HIGHLY reccomend it. Jason Scott did a great job making the film, going into depth and covering a great deal of the story of the rise and fall of BBS'es. I was a youngster when the BBS was in it's prime, and only got a PC in 1994 (starting from scratch and learning as I went, back then the best I could do was unzip/zip a file and add a line or two to the AUTOEXEC.bat to make a game work). But I do remember an older friend talking about BBS'es. Needless to say, I was an internet child (I got wired in early '95 through AOL) so this documentary still made a lot of sense to me. I grew up not too far (chronologically) from what is being discussed, and the film not only filled in a lot of blanks but it's great fun to watch as well. No doubt you older geeks will understand a lot more, or may even have ran BBS'es. Either way if you haven't seen it WATCH IT. I don't know where you'll get it...

If you have already seen it, what did you think of it? 🤣

Reply 1 of 6, by DosFreak

Posted on 2011-01-15, 22:56

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Started using BBS's in Okinawa, Japan back in 1990. Been meaning to watch this but haven't gotten around to it yet.

Playing the Door games back then is the only real multiplayer gaming I've ever bothered with (except for LAN gaming).

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Reply 2 of 6, by dacow

Posted on 2011-01-17, 11:05

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Yeah I watched that documentary. Good times good times, infact I just restored my old BBS onto a Pentium I just aquired. LORD seems to still function although BRE (barren realms elite) seems broken. I've even got my old NightOwl CD's which used to be the file repository in those days for who logged in to download files 😁

Reply 3 of 6, by Jorpho

Posted on 2011-01-17, 17:19

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I would like to see this film eventually (as well as Get Lamp, the text adventure documentary), but I don't really want to pay fifty bucks to do so. Maybe there will be a local screening someday.

Reply 4 of 6, by valnar

Posted on 2011-01-17, 20:41

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Yep, I watched it too. I remember all those times and those BBS's. I met a couple of the big Sysops back then.

Reply 5 of 6, by konc

Posted on 2020-10-02, 13:38

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Resurrecting this for a good reason, quoting from http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/order/

"After 10 years, the BBS Documentary DVDs are no longer for sale. We sold over 7000 copies of the movies across that decade, and they're in the hands of many happy people. Thank you!
The BBS Documentary was released under Creative Commons, and can be passed around and given away, screened, even sold with my complete blessing."

I don't know when exactly this happened but now they have the 3 DVD images available for download, as well as a youtube playlist. For anyone who hasn't seen this and has even the slightest idea what a BBS is, it's highly recommended. I'd say a must-see.

Reply 6 of 6, by firage

Posted on 2020-10-02, 15:05

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Thanks for bringing this back. Will check it out for sure. Lucky, I guess, to have had the chance to still experience the local BBS's over here at the end of the 90's.

BBS Documentary episodes on Youtube in a playlist

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