The History of the BBS is relatively easy in and of itself to track down. However, it's very difficult to find something with associated dates. Anybody with an important event in BBSing and a date (or approximate) for that occurance, please This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it   so that we can add it.

1962

• AT&T introduces the first modem the Bell 103(at 300 baud).

1977

• April: Dennis C. Hayes begins selling PC modem products.
• August: Ward Christensen writes MODEM.ASM, which becomes XMODEM, the first binary file
      transfer protocol.

1978

• February 16: The first known BBS came into being in Chicago, Illinois.  Originally called a 
      Computerized Bulletin Board System (CBBS) run by Ward Christensen.

1982

• System/80 goes online in San Leandro, California.  System/80's code base was written from scratch 
      in BASIC by Cathleen "Cat" Miller, who also SysOp'd System/80.  She is the first female SysOP.

1983

• March: WWIV BBS Software was released to the public.

1984

• June: Fidonet appears in a primitive form.
• December: Wayne Bell puts up the first WWIV BBS System, running version 1.0 of WWIV.

1985

• July 4: Tim Stryker starts Galacticomm and releases MajorBBS.

1986

• Telegard Apears

1988

• The LORD (Legend of the Red Dragon) doorgame was released to the public.
• October 14: Chuck Forsberg releases his specification for ZMODEM.

1990

• Virtual Bulletin Board System (VBBS) 1.0 was released by Roland De Graaf.  Total configuration of
      the system was done through scripts.  Could be ran stand-alone or as a WWIV door.
• January 24: RemoteAccess BBS Software first released by Andrew Milner and Phil MacKay.

1993

• Renegade BBS Software becomes the most popular BBS Software in use by SysOps.
• August 1: Scott Brown and Roland Baroni form NulQ Software, Inc. and release Powerboard BBS.
• September 9: AdventureNET started.

1994

• This was the peak of the dialup BBS scene.  With more than 1000 dialup BBS's available in any
      highly populated city.
• The LORD II (Legend of the Red Dragon II) doorgame was released to the public.
• Xpresit Net (originally StarNet), a free speech network, was created.

1995

• Infinet, a free speech network, was created.
• August 15: MirageNet Started.
• October 25: Nexux BBS Software is released to the public.

1996

• As the Internet and the World Wide Web become more popular, you start to see more and more
     BBS Support websites popping up all over the web.  SysOp's also start offering email, newsgroups,
     and other types of Internet access to their dialup users.
• Infinet II was created after the disollution of Infinet.
• Virtual Advanced BBS (VADV) v1.0 was released by Roland De Graaf.  Successor to the VBBS
      software.  Allowed Internet connectivity, such as Internet Email, NNTP newsgroups, and IRC chat.
• July: NulQ Software/Powerboard BBS cease operation and transfer customer base to Jim Harrer's
      Mustang Software (producers of the Wildcat! Interactive Net Server).

1997

• PPPBBS v1.0 was released by Roland De Graaf.  A complete ISP solution.  Could be ran as a
      standalone BBS or as a frontend for other BBS software.  Allowed callers to connect to the internet via
      PPP connection.  Built-in SMTP/POP 3, WWW and FTP servers also.
• Nexus BBS Software stops being supported by its author.
• Mystic BBS software is being released to the public.
• CCi (CyberCrime International) was created as an underground network.
• April 23: Cott Lang turns Renegade development over to Patrick Spence.
• December: Andrew Milner sells RemoteAccess to Bruce Morse.
• Decembe 1: Internet Rex is released to the public, allowing for echomail and netmail transfers via
      FTP, POP3, or BlinkP.  This accomplishment eliminated the need for long distance telephone
      transfers of echomail as long as you had an internet account.

1998

• January 1: Wayne Bell sells WWIV to WWIV Software Services.

1999

• The dialup BBS Scene declines and moves to the Internet.  More and more telnetable BBS's start to
      emerge.
• January 6: Hayes Microcomputer shuts down operations.

2000

• All of the BBS Software still supported by their authors release Y2K Compliant versions.
• Nexus BS Software is once again supported by its author.  New versions are created with continual
      upgrades.
• Mystic BBS releases a Win32 version, equipped with a built in telnet server.
• The authors of Renegade and Telegard BBS Softwares drop of the face of the earth, and no longer
      support their software.
• FidoNET changes it's policies to allow nodes to transfer echomail via the Internet.  Hubs and Hosts
      still are required to have a dialup feed available.
• Infinet II and CCi, both of which were created by the same person, were both left for dead.
• January 16: Patrick Spence hands Renegade off to Jeff Herrings.

2001

• Door32 makes its way to becomming a standard for Win32 BBS Doors.
• Mystic BBS and Synchronet BBS softwares become the most popular BBS Software used by Sysops.
• January: Jeff Herrings picks up with Renegade where Patrick Spence left off.
• July 16: WebJammer goes into public beta.  WebJammer is a software that allows any BBS that
      supports Jam, HUDSON, and SQUISH message bases to have their message bases accessed via the
      web.
• October 7: Jeff Herrings puts Renegade to rest.

2002

• September 14: Corey Snow takes over the Renegade BBS codebase with plans to rewrite the
      software from the ground up in C as opposed to Pascal.  The new and improved Renegade will be
      supported byWin9x, Win2k, WinXP, OS2, and various flavours of Linux.

2003

• November 14: T.J. McMillen & Chris Hoppman received the Renegade source code.