Community Memory

Community Memory terminal at Leopold's Records, Berkeley, CA, 1973

Community Memory (CM) was the first public computerized bulletin board system. Established in 1973 in Berkeley, California, it used an SDS 940 timesharing system in San Francisco connected via a 110 baud link to a teleprinter at a record store in Berkeley to let users enter and retrieve messages. Individuals could place messages in the computer and then look through the memory for a specific notice.

While initially conceived as an information and resource sharing network linking a variety of counter-cultural economic, educational, and social organizations with each other and the public, Community Memory was soon generalized to be an information flea market,[1] by providing unmediated, two-way access to message databases through public computer terminals.[2] Once the system became available, the users demonstrated that it was a general communications medium that could be used for art, literature, journalism, commerce, and social chatter.

  1. ^ Szpakowski, Mark. "Guide To Using The Community Memory". Community Memory: 1972 - 1974, Berkeley and San Francisco, California. Archived from the original on 25 January 2013. Retrieved 2 November 2010.
  2. ^ Schuler, D. (1994). Community networks: Building a new participatory medium. Communications of the ACM, 37(1), 38