Community Memory

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 Teletype Model 33 teleprinter, essentially a computer printer and keyboard (a hard copy terminal that prints both input and output), in Leopold's Records record store in Berkeley, California 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, by providing unmediated, two-way access to message databases through public computer terminals. 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.