BBS's are most certainly not the internet. They were most often stand-alone and independent, with offline networking in the form of FidoNet ("offline" in that F

BBS's are most certainly not the internet. They were most often stand-alone and independent, with offline networking in the form of FidoNet ("offline" in that FidoNet boards would dial up at regular times to transmit and receive messages from other nodes). BBS's entirely predate the Internet's general availability (although of course the Internet is older than most people realize).