RIP: Ward Christensen, aged 78

[thewayne]

And everybody is asking who the heck is Ward Christensen?

Ward invented, or co-invented, two little computer programs, or systems. They were kind of foundational to a lot of pre-internet culture. XModem in 1977 and the BBS system in 1978.

What would social media have been without them? Would there have been social media without BBSes?

Ward and his collaborator wrote the original CBBS code in TWO WEEKS. Then they told people it took them four so they wouldn't think it was rushed!

I remember in the early '80s dialing in to boards with my TRS-80 Model 100 (built-in 300 baud modem, runs off of 4xAA batteries and I still have it and it still works) and screaming in fury inside whenever someone picked up the phone and disconnected me.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/10/ward-christensen-bbs-inventor-and-architect-of-our-online-age-dies-at-age-78/

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/15/002203/ward-christensen-bbs-inventor-and-architect-of-our-online-age-dies-at-age-78

Comments

[silveradept]

Without the BBS, much of the Internet as we know it would not exist, and so wouldn't many of the flame wars, either, so I suppose you have to take the bad with the really, really excellent.