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Comment by matt_heimer | Hacker News Reader

In practice I think access to BBS systems came before Usenet for many of us. I didn't have Usenet access until I had internet access (through a BBS). And I didn't have a good nntp server until I had a dedicated ISP many years after accessing dialup, non-internet BBS systems.

I remember reporting a PINE newsgroup thread bug at the height of my nntp usage and several of the local BBS systems had started dying off by then.

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Yes, PC-based BBS systems BBS systems were quite widespread going back to at least the early eighties. (BBSs existed before that but were often pretty primitive--e.g. a personal computer with a floppy drive and a 300 baud modem. You had a sort of parallel version of Usenet because in addition to the local BBS you had PCRelay, FIDOnet, and possibly other message exchanges between systems.

Especially the commercial BBSs could have quite a few systems and phone lines and, as you say the bigger BBSs often became the first ISP that consumers had access to if they didn't have access through their company or university.

You also had the big commercial services like Compuserve, AOL, Bix, Delphi, and so forth.

There were also a number of Usenet <-> FidoNet/echomail gateways. This was especially useful for local BBS users that weren’t affiliated with any university computing facilities.

The opposite is also true for many, namely, lots of university students who were on usenet in the computer labs, and maybe had a TRS-80 in the dorm connected to nothing.

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