A Bulletin board system, or BBS, is a computer system running software that allows users to dial into the system over a phone line (or Telnet) and, using a terminal program, perform functions such as downloading software and data, uploading data, reading news, and exchanging messages with other users.

Before the mid nineties, BBSs were the servers & communication boards of the scene. With the rise of the internet in this period, the scene started to use IRC for communication, and FTP topsites as servers. The BBS scene was the base of the scene as it is nowadays. Many of the standards we take for granted these days were created during the time of the BBSs.

The first BBS program CBBS (Community Bulletin Board System) was created for the Altair 8080 computer in 1978. The program was slow, buggy, and message based only (hence the name). Eventually the program evolved and gained popularity but the major breakthrough was when this program and others allowed the transfer of files using the specifically designed X-Modem protocol. The protocol was created by Ward Christenson and Randy Suess (the creators of CBBS) and allowed for error-free file and data exchange between users of most common computer systems. No sooner then when this protocol was implemented there was exchanging of commercial 'illegal' software and eventually BBS's dedicated to piracy.

As BBSs started appearing in different cities, states, and countries. Users who were getting bored of their local area boards started trying these different long distance boards. Unfortunately boards located outside your phone area code usually attracted large phone bills from telecommunication companies. But resourceful people often found ways of tricking the phone networks into giving them free long distance calls. These tricks involved people using electronic devices, known as boxes4 that are designed to defeat long distance charges.

These days pre'ing releases (couriering a release before it's made public) is common practice, it wasn't so back then. Due to the limitations in speed and the fact that you had to dial into each BBS individually, releases took longer to spread. This ended up coining the one most famous of BBS phrases, "0 day warez". Zero day warez is when one gets the release on the same day as it was released, be it from the software company or from a group. The saying was often used to differentiate the good BBSs from the others and by suppliers for use on the status of software.

Now running a BBS that contained illegal software was a risky business. Unlike internet sites of today, a pirate BBS was usually based at the system operator's home. So it was never that hard for the police to find the addresses of BBS operators. The phone numbers used by the BBS for dial-in access would often be registered in the operators name at the phone company. For this reason the scene of this time was often very secretive and underground. Phone numbers and names were only traded with people you knew. And obtaining access to a new board usually required a system password, a new user password and then either a recommendation or a vote from existing users.

The death of the BBS one could say happened after Park Central in New York city closed down in 1996. This was at the time the most respected and well known bulletin board system in the world and was a central communication link for the scene. It was often used to prove which group won a release race¹, unofficially being the ring and the referee. But some groups got smart and started to avoid the BBS's all together and instead decided spread the release exclusively over the Internet. This left people a confusing situation of where there was one group winning the release on the BBS scene and the another winning on the internet. While the BBS scene had the prestige and the history, everyone knew it was a matter of time before everything would move over.

But the final nail in the coffin for the bulletin board system was the infamous Cyberstrike campaign of February 1997 where five major BBS's where busted in a single week. Operation Cyber Strike was an eight-month undercover investigation of pirate BBS's, run out of the FBI's International Computer Crime Squad in San Francisco. Search warrants were executed on ten large pirate BBS's around the US. It caused many BBS and some sites to close shop permanently in the fear of themselves being the next victims.