I know a verry little bit about the pre-net bbs’s (had a roomie back in 88 who ran one). But I’ve allways been curious were all this madness started and how it evolved to this point.
Well, as you noted, BBSes were doing this for quite a while. I remember using them back in the early 90s before internet was available*
Usenet has been around for quite a while…early 80s I’m guessing? This was probably originator of the “message boarding” concept.
(*I realize the internet was around and had been long before the early 90s, but it certainly wasn’t widely available as a private service for individual consumers.)
I used them from 1985-1990 or so. There were plenty of them, too, spread out all over the country, and for a long while they weren’t multiuser. I think there’s a history of it around somewhere.