4 ms·

How were the files compiled and distributed before they ended up on this website? How did your opportunity to contribute to them come about?

billyhoffman 4y ago
The vast majority of files on Textfiles.com came from BBSs in the 1980s and early 90s. The founder, Jason Scott made an awesome documentary about the BBS days. Steven Levy also covers the time and the scene somewhat towards the end of his fantastically detailed book “Hackers”
- joezydeco 4y ago
  The Jason Scott documentary is highly recommended. I knew Ward Christensen and Randy Suess, they were pretty interesting people. (RIP Randy, he passed away near the end of 2019)
- cbm-vic-20 4y ago
  Jason regularly streams his archiving activity on Twitch under the username "textfiles". It's usually a quiet stream- he's been digitizing a lot of videotapes recently.
joezydeco 4y ago
I wrote it by myself, there was a certain program I was using (pirating) and nobody else had the manual for it. And you really didn't scan things into PDFs back then. A disk only held 140KB. So I spent a weekend and figured things out by trial-and-error and wrote it up. Did it in a text editor and uploaded it to my favorite BBS. Distribution happened lots of ways. A BBS might trade files with a friendly BBS somewhere else. Some people collected them like Pokemon and traded them. Having something valuable that others wanted was a currency. Maybe I sent you my G-File collection and you sent me Dr J vs Larry Bird. Eventually these files diffused all over the planet and wound up in collections on the internet and CD-ROMs at hamfests. They will spring up in the most unlikely of places. It's fun to look back on it now, but it wasn't always wonderful. Calling BBSes could get expensive, transmitting files tied up your system for an entire night (no multitasking!) for something that took up less space than a Facebook tracking cookie. The hardware and bandwidth I'm using now would have been incomprehensible back then.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  I also authored some of these in the 1980s (before PDF, CDs, OCR, and scanners in the home). Typed into word processor software (that can save as text files, not binary) or just a text editor. Mine and many others were distributed on file sharing sites called AE Servers. And yes, BBSs, too. Some of the more popular files were the ones typed up from The Anarchist’s Cookbook, and peoples’ variations on those (bomb making, lock picking, etc). I never knew that was a real book until many years later.
  - joezydeco 4y ago
    Files from Anarchist's Cookbook were always a hit with the kids. Imagine all the rebellion and havoc you could cause! I tried some of the recipes and nothing ever really worked. But it was a lot of fun to read.
- jve 4y ago
  I didn't know what BBS was until I Googled. So to save a question/google: A bulletin board system (BBS), also called computer bulletin board service (CBBS),[1] is a computer server running software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging messages with other users through public message boards and sometimes via direct chatting. In the early 1980s, message networks such as FidoNet were developed to provide services such as NetMail, which is similar to internet-based email.[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system
  - dcminter 4y ago
    The sharp intake of breath you hear is a bunch of us oldies being reminded we're old... By the by, in the UK local calls were billed, whereas (I think) they are/were free in the US so BBSs were much thinner on the ground as they were so much more expensive to connect to - and to run if the owner offered FidoNet etc.

billyhoffman 4y ago

The vast majority of files on Textfiles.com came from BBSs in the 1980s and early 90s. The founder, Jason Scott made an awesome documentary about the BBS days. Steven Levy also covers the time and the scene somewhat towards the end of his fantastically detailed book “Hackers”

joezydeco 4y ago
The Jason Scott documentary is highly recommended. I knew Ward Christensen and Randy Suess, they were pretty interesting people. (RIP Randy, he passed away near the end of 2019)
cbm-vic-20 4y ago
Jason regularly streams his archiving activity on Twitch under the username "textfiles". It's usually a quiet stream- he's been digitizing a lot of videotapes recently.

joezydeco 4y ago

I wrote it by myself, there was a certain program I was using (pirating) and nobody else had the manual for it. And you really didn't scan things into PDFs back then. A disk only held 140KB. So I spent a weekend and figured things out by trial-and-error and wrote it up. Did it in a text editor and uploaded it to my favorite BBS. Distribution happened lots of ways. A BBS might trade files with a friendly BBS somewhere else. Some people collected them like Pokemon and traded them. Having something valuable that others wanted was a currency. Maybe I sent you my G-File collection and you sent me Dr J vs Larry Bird. Eventually these files diffused all over the planet and wound up in collections on the internet and CD-ROMs at hamfests. They will spring up in the most unlikely of places. It's fun to look back on it now, but it wasn't always wonderful. Calling BBSes could get expensive, transmitting files tied up your system for an entire night (no multitasking!) for something that took up less space than a Facebook tracking cookie. The hardware and bandwidth I'm using now would have been incomprehensible back then.

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
I also authored some of these in the 1980s (before PDF, CDs, OCR, and scanners in the home). Typed into word processor software (that can save as text files, not binary) or just a text editor. Mine and many others were distributed on file sharing sites called AE Servers. And yes, BBSs, too. Some of the more popular files were the ones typed up from The Anarchist’s Cookbook, and peoples’ variations on those (bomb making, lock picking, etc). I never knew that was a real book until many years later.
- joezydeco 4y ago
  Files from Anarchist's Cookbook were always a hit with the kids. Imagine all the rebellion and havoc you could cause! I tried some of the recipes and nothing ever really worked. But it was a lot of fun to read.
jve 4y ago
I didn't know what BBS was until I Googled. So to save a question/google: A bulletin board system (BBS), also called computer bulletin board service (CBBS),[1] is a computer server running software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging messages with other users through public message boards and sometimes via direct chatting. In the early 1980s, message networks such as FidoNet were developed to provide services such as NetMail, which is similar to internet-based email.[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system
- dcminter 4y ago
  The sharp intake of breath you hear is a bunch of us oldies being reminded we're old... By the by, in the UK local calls were billed, whereas (I think) they are/were free in the US so BBSs were much thinner on the ground as they were so much more expensive to connect to - and to run if the owner offered FidoNet etc.