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                               The USBBS LIST

                                Final Edition

                   A List of Computer Bulletin Board Systems

                                www.usbbs.org

                   Editor:  Pete Olympia    (1984-1988)
                   Editor:  Meade Frierson  (1988-1992)
                   Editor:  Bob Breedlove   (1992-1997)
                   Editor:  Brent Yandell   (1997-2004)

                         Published since June, 1984
                   (C)  Copyright 1997-2013  Brent Yandell
                             All Rights Reserved

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The USBBS List was a list of Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) published for twenty
years from 1984 to 2004.  The USBBS List contained listings of:
                 
*  Systems with a dial-up telephone number (1984 - 2004).
*  Systems with Telnet access (1997 - 2004).
*  Systems with Web access log-ins (1999 - 2004).

The USBBS List had two missions:

(1) The first mission was to be a starting point for someone looking for a BBS
to call. It was never the ambition of the USBBS List to list every BBS in 
existence or to include everything there was to know about a BBS which was 
listed. Such an attempt would have been futile at best.

(2) The second mission was that USBBS was always an absolutely free service to
the BBS community, both for BBS Sysops and for BBS users. There was never a 
charge for a BBS to be listed on the USBBS List, and there was never a charge
for a caller to use the USBBS List.

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                          *  A Brief USBBS History  *

1984: Pete Olympia, USBBS founder and first editor, started the "RBBS List" 
and later changed the name to "USBBS". For many years it was often (mistakenly)
called "Darwin's List" after the Darwin BBS run by Pete, which was the first
home of the USBBS List.

1986: Meade Frierson became a USBBS co-editor, handling most of the BBS 
verifications and all of the "PC-Pursuit" designations in USBBS. PC-Pursuit was
a service of US Sprint which allowed callers to dial systems in and around major
cities for a monthly fee.

1987: PCBoard became the most listed BBS software in USBBS. Previously the most
listed was RBBS. PCBoard remained the most listed software type in the USBBS 
List for the next twelve years. USBBSDoor 1.0 was released by Brent Yandell.

1988: Meade Frierson became the second USBBS editor. Robert Blacher dedicated
a node of his Computer Connections BBS to being the USBBS home BBS. The number 
of systems listed in USBBS topped 1000.

1991: Meade began accepting USBBS updates at his Compuserve mail account
(a very early sign of the times to come?).

1992: Bob Breedlove became the third USBBS editor. Bob added a news file to
the USBBS archive, the first time USBBS was distributed with more than one 
file in the ZIP. The number of systems listed in USBBS topped 2000. The 100th 
edition of the USBBS List was published.  Brent Yandell's BBS became a remote
update site for collecting BBS updates from Sysops. 

1993: The number of systems listed in USBBS topped 3000.

1994: Bob began distributing USBBS on the Internet, first in Usenet then
as a FTP download. The number of systems listed in USBBS topped 4000.

1995: Bob began the first USBBS web site under the Channel 1 BBS domain,
with access and hosting space provided by Brian and Tess Miller.

1996: The number of listings topped 5000 in the USBBS List in June.

1997: Brent Yandell became the fourth USBBS editor, and immediately added
a Telnet address field to the USBBS List for systems accessible via Telnet.

1999:  Brent obtained the "www.usbbs.org" URL, and moved the web site to
hosting space provided by Roy Timberman, a former Sysop. Web BBS Log-in 
addresses are added to the USBBS List. Wildcat/WinServer software became
the most listed BBS software in USBBS.

2001: The 200th edition of the USBBS List was published. Meade Frierson,
the USBBS List's second editor, passed away in September of 2001.

2002: The 215th edition in April would be the last monthly edition of USBBS.
The Internet had been taking its toll on BBS's since the late 1990's. As of
this edition, the USBBS List contained 609 entries, just slightly more than
one-tenth of the over 5000 listings the USBBS List once contained.

2004: As of June, USBBS had been published for 20 years. Synchronet became 
the most listed BBS software in USBBS. There were only 438 systems listed now
and 136 of those had been flagged as not responding and were scheduled to be 
deleted for the next edition. This would bring the number of listings down
to 302 in the next edition, plus any new listings. Over the next few months
only a few new listings were received for the list. During this time the
demographics of the listings were reviewed. There were 24 systems in Canada,
leaving 278 listings in the US. This broke down to 10 states with 141 listings,
over half of the US listings. The converse of that figure is there were only
137 listings in 40 states. Additionally there were 25 states where the number
of listings would total 52, about 2 per state. The grand old USBBS List
had basically become a BBS list for about 10 states, instead of a National
(or North American) list. Those numbers of course would only decline. Sadly,
the time had come, the 20th anniversary publication of the USBBS List was also
the last time the USBBS List was published.


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