TY  - JOUR
AB  - This paper explores the phenomenon of bulletin board systems (BBS) – home computers connected through the telephone network – in West Germany in the 1980s. Due to the openness of the US telephone network, the use of home computers as private communication devices became quite successful across the Atlantic. However, in West Germany, this practice conflicted with the state monopoly and its policy on telecommunications. This paper argues that this conflict was part of a structural change caused by the convergence of IT and telecommunications. The West German government saw this convergence as both a threat and a chance for the national IT and telecommunications industries, prompting it to adopt a telecommunications policy designed to challenge the dominant US IT industry.
AU  - Röhr, Matthias
DA  - 2017
DO  - 10.25819/ubsi/8094
KW  - History of telecommunications
KW  - History of datanetworks
KW  - History of computing
KW  - Bulletin board systems
KW  - History of digital media
LA  - eng
PY  - 2017
TI  - Home computer on the line: the West German BBS scene and the change of telecommunications in the 1980s
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hbz:467-18132
Y2  - 2024-12-26T22:16:00
ER  -