Community Memory

<p>Community Memory (CM) was the first public computerized <a href="/facts/Bulletin_board_system/22d9c9s2">bulletin board system</a>. Established in 1973 in <a href="/facts/Berkeley%2c_California/WBVjzd5l">Berkeley, California</a>, it used an <a href="/facts/SDS_940/sXGtoKny">SDS 940</a> <a href="/facts/Time-sharing/LE5XT9Go">timesharing</a> system in <a href="/facts/San_Francisco/cb9l7hbC">San Francisco</a> connected via a 110 <a href="/facts/Baud/uCsmXrdT">baud</a> link to a <a href="/facts/Teleprinter/pn5SQKTf">teleprinter</a> 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.
</p><p>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 <a href="/facts/Flea_market/jgt5sxjz">flea market</a>, 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.
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Community Memory open-in-new

Community Memory