IMDB BBC
This is THE history of online piracy. twenty years ago, before bit torrent, before napster 1.0, even before irc- there was BBS. text files were exchanged, ascii pr0n was swapped, and a great time was had by all. or was it? watch this 8 episode documentary to find out where warez piracy FIRST came from- and perhaps even get an opportunity to get back to your piracy roots.
Long before the Internet escaped from the lab, connected the planet and redefined what it meant to use a computer...
....there was a brave and pioneering band of computer users who spent their time, money and sanity setting up their home computers and phone lines to welcome anyone who called. By using a modem, anyone else who knew the phone number of these computers could connect to them, leave messages, send and recieve files.... and millions did.
They called these places "Bulletin Board Systems", or BBSes. And their collections of messages, rants, thoughts and dreams became the way that an entire generation learned about being online.
When the Internet grew in popularity in the early 1990s, the world of the BBS faded, changed, and became a part of the present networked world.. but it wasn't the same.
In the Summer of 2001, Jason Scott, a computer historian (and proprietor of the textfiles.com history site) wondered if anyone had made a film about these BBSes. They hadn't, so he decided he would.
Four years, thousands of miles of travelling, and over 200 interviews later, "BBS: The Documentary", a mini-series of 8 episodes about the history of the BBS, is now available. Spanning 3 DVDs and totalling five and a half hours, this documentary is actually eight documentaries about different aspects of this important story in the annals of computer history.
* Baud introduces the story of the beginning of the BBS, including interviews with Ward Christensen and Randy Suess, who used a snowstorm as an inspiration to change the world.
* Sysops and Users introduces the stories of the people who used BBSes, and lets them tell their own stories of living in this new world.
* Make it Pay covers the BBS industry that rose in the 1980's and grew to fantastic heights before disappearing almost overnight.
* Fidonet covers the largest volunteer-run computer network in history, and the people who made it a joy and a political nightmare.
* Artscene tells the rarely-heard history of the ANSI Art Scene that thrived in the BBS world, where art was currency and battles waged over nothing more than pure talent.
* HPAC (Hacking Phreaking Anarchy Cracking) hears from some of the users of "underground" BBSes and their unique view of the world of information and computers.
* Compression tells the story of the PKWARE/SEA legal battle of the late 1980s and how a fight that broke out over something as simple as data compression resulted in waylaid lives and lost opportunity.
* No Carrier wishes a fond farewell to the dial-up BBS and its integration into the Internet.
Ideal as either a teaching tool or a reminder of your own memories, the BBS Documentary Collection brings back this nearly-forgotten time in a way that will tell the story... one caller at a time
Video : XviD MPEG-4 codec, 624x480, 23,98 FPS, 1054 Kbps
Audio : MP3, 2 channel, 44100 Hz, 128 Kbps
ed2k: BBS.-.Part.1.-.BAUD.avi [332.43 Mb] [Stats]
ed2k: BBS.-.Part.2.-.Sysops.and.Users.avi [336.06 Mb] [Stats]
ed2k: BBS.-.Part.3.-.Make.it.Pay.avi [338.75 Mb] [Stats]
ed2k: BBS.-.Part.4.-.Fidonet.avi [319.56 Mb] [Stats]
ed2k: BBS.-.Part.5.-.Art.Scene.avi [345.08 Mb] [Stats]
ed2k: BBS.-.Part.6.-.HPAC.avi [346.56 Mb] [Stats]
ed2k: BBS.-.Part.7.-.No.Carrier.avi [182.17 Mb] [Stats]
ed2k: BBS.-.Part.8.-.Compression.avi [153.85 Mb] [Stats]
torrents @ TPB
http://thepiratebay.org/search.php?q=BBS+DOCUMENTARY
RESEED REQUEST THREAD
http://www.mvgroup.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=8789
and posted to usenet (20 jan)
in the groups alt.binaries.multimedia, alt.binaries.documentaries, alt.binaries.tv
nzb: BBS_The_Documentary_*COMPLETE*.nzb
be warned it's totally geeky
Also I will post a copy of this here; kudos to him,
Jason Scott @ MVGroup forums on June 12, 2005 wrote:Hi there!
This is Jason Scott, director, editor, cameraman, interviewer and general creator of BBS: The Documentary, which is the .torrent in question in this thread.
The documentary took about 4 years to make, requiring about 20,000 miles in travel, 200 interviews, 8 months of editing and a bunch of other sweat equity. It was a ton of fun and it was incredible to meet the heroes of my own past in person, ask them questions, and generally have a great time. I wouldn't trade any of it.
In the world as we have it today, digital media is easily copied, easily transferred, and from the point of view of someone who doesn't spend a lot of money on digital media, it makes no sense to purchase something you can get for free.
Recognizing this, I released the BBS Documentary under a Creative Commons, Attribute-Sharealike 2.0 license. This license is explained over at the CreativeCommons.Org website in greater detail, but it basically says that you can, with proper attribution, copy, share, mix, rip, change, reference and generally do with the BBS Documentary DVD anything you want. You can even charge money for what you do with it.
I wrote a essay on my weblog about my choice to do this, but I can summarize it this way:
- I made a kickass product, and worked hard on the packaging and DVD features
- I loathe threatening people with laws and stupid rules for digital media
- I realize some people will not pay, and I will not punish everyone for that
I mention this also because you have to realize the DVD set (there's 3 DVDs with 8 episodes) are released with no copy protection, no region encoding, and no silly menus you can't break out of. So INFOFALLOUT talking with pride about their "release" is not unlike someone delighted how much he saved on food because he was able to bring home two handfuls of sugar packets and ketchup from the local McDonalds. Bon Appetit!
The license means this creation really can't be "pirated" or "warezed"; it was released to the world generally.
So why would you buy it?
Well, for one thing, the packaging is absolutely kickass. On the ordering page for the documentary, you can see some of the package; it looks great.
Also, there are a ton of features this "release" is not giving you, besides the obvious ease of popping in the DVDs and getting some great episodes. There are subtitles on all the material, so you can understand people more easily. There are commentary tracks by myself for every episode as well (although later ones are mostly 10 minute "statement of purpose" commentary, since I figured 5 hours of commentary would be a bit much). There's also additional subtitle tracks with "non-technical" information on what people are saying. The people in this forum might not be interested in that, but it makes it easier to explain to the family what you're watching.
Finally, there are over 70 minutes of bonus footage across the three DVDs, including easter eggs and hidden tracks and all that. AND, there's a DVD-ROM section on the third Disc with additional interviews, photos, and artifacts you won't get with just the ripped films. And it's a good price for all this.. $50!
So enjoy the work; I spent a lot of time making it the best I could.
I noticed lots of bits and pieces for DL here
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... 20Scott%22
[ Add all 8 links to your ed2k client ]
