Running a campus bulletin board system

Abstract

The Academic Computing Services Department at the California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) has been operating a Bulletin Board System (BBS or “board”) for approximately two years. In this time, the CSULB BBS has changed and progressed in several ways. Three different BBS software program, four different computers, and two different modems have been used. In addition, has changed hard disk drives, floppy disk drives, printers, video boards and monitors several times. Some of these changes have been by design while others were due to hardware or software incompatibilities or failures. Despite all this, it could be easily argued that the largest department expenditure has been the hundreds of man-hours devoted to setting up and running the BBS. Yet, the CSULB BBS has proven to be an invaluable resource to its users and probably worth the investment made. This paper will attempt to outline some of the considerations that should be made before and after setting up a campus bulletin board system.