A Documentary About Early ANSI Art / BBS History

I just rewatched a 2005 documentary about early ANSI/BBS history on YouTube. It mainly shows the eternal battle of ACiD vs. iCE, two dominant ANSI groups.

BBS The Documentary: Episode 5 of 8: ARTSCENE (The ANSI Art World)

The whole documentary series is eight parts, ranging from the first BBS from 1978 over Fidonet to the crazy ARC/PKARC/PKZIP desaster. It’s 300 minutes in total, while the ANSI episode is 43 minutes.

The history is told by the people who created the art and technology or ran the BBSes. Additional topics are sysops culture, hacking, phreaking, and cracking.

The different parts also shows how at various points in time people lost sight of the technical marvels of those pioneering technologies and got caught up in petty politics and commercialization.