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June 18, 2005

BBSs and History

A new documentary called BBS: The Documentary is out, and it inspired a retrospective on BBSs at Wired. I haven't seen the documentary yet, but the Wired article definitely took me back to my first flirtations with cyberspace.

I got online in 1991 and instantly fell in love. It led to my first law review article which, appropriately enough, discussed the legal treatment of BBSs--a topic that seemed so important then but of course now looks silly in the era of websites and blogs/RSS readers and wireless ubiquitious networks. I'm not sure the legal issues have changed radically; some issues (like the interplay between private property rights and free speech rights) will continue on into infinity regardless of the newest technological tools that create the conflict-du-jour.

I really don't miss the BBS era. It was chaotic and slow. Nevertheless, thinking about the era does make me a little nostaglic, just like other kinetic times in my life like adolescence/high school. We tend to suppress the bad and remember the good; and the good was pretty good, but there definitely was some bad mixed in. We do have it much better now.

Posted by Eric at June 18, 2005 01:55 PM | Internet History