# Textfiles.com
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{{Short description|Archive of digital media}}
{{Lowercase title}}
thumb|right|The front page of textfiles.com in 2004
'''textfiles.com''' is a [website](/source/website) dedicated to preserving the digital documents that contain the history of the [bulletin board system](/source/bulletin_board_system) (BBS) world and various [subculture](/source/subculture)s,[{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/05/net-nostalgia-the-online-museums-preserving-dolphin-gifs-and-spinning-comic-sans|title=Net nostalgia: the online museums preserving dolphin gifs and spinning Comic Sans|first=Gavin|last=Haynes|newspaper=[The Guardian](/source/The_Guardian)|date=5 February 2017|access-date=6 March 2018}}] and thus providing "a glimpse into the history of writers and artists bound by the 128 characters that the American Standard Code for Information Interchange ([ASCII](/source/ASCII)) allowed them".[{{cite web|url=http://textfiles.com/|title=T E X T F I L E S D O T C O M|first=Jason|last=Scott|author-link=Jason Scott|work=textfiles.com|access-date=6 March 2018}}] The site categorizes and stores thousands of [text file](/source/text_file)s, primarily from the 1980s, but also contains some older files and some that were created well into the 1990s. A broad range of topics is presented, including [anarchy](/source/anarchy), [art](/source/art), [carding](/source/Carding_(fraud)), [computer](/source/computer)s, [drugs](/source/Recreational_drug_use), [ezine](/source/ezine)s, [freemasonry](/source/freemasonry), [computer game](/source/computer_game)s, [hacking](/source/Hacker), [phreaking](/source/phreaking), [politics](/source/politics), [computer piracy](/source/Copyright_infringement), [sex](/source/human_sexuality), and [UFOs](/source/Unidentified_flying_object).[{{cite magazine|url=https://www.wired.com/1999/03/return-of-the-living-bbs/|title=Return of the Living BBS|last=Nickell|first=Joe Ashbrook|date=1 March 1999|magazine=[Wired](/source/Wired_(magazine))|access-date=6 March 2018}}] The site was created and is run by [Jason Scott](/source/Jason_Scott).
The site went online in 1998,[{{cite AV media|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJqZGRIwtxk#t=396s |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211221/tJqZGRIwtxk |archive-date=2021-12-21 |url-status=live|type=YouTube video|time=6m36s|title=Open Source Bridge 2012 Keynote - Jason Scott|author=Scott, Jason|author-link=Jason Scott|date=18 June 2013|publisher=Open Source Bridge|access-date=6 March 2018}}{{cbignore}}] and {{as of|2005|lc=y}} had collected 58,227 files.[{{cite web|url=http://www.textfiles.com/filestats.html|title=TEXTFILES.COM File Statistics|first=Jason|last=Scott|author-link=Jason Scott|work=textfiles.com|access-date=16 August 2010}}] {{as of|2017}} the site was averaging 350,000–450,000 unique visitors per month.[{{cite tweet|user=textfiles|date=19 Nov 2017|number=932036330439217152|title=I hadn't run webalizer against http://textfiles.com for, it looks like, 3-4 years. Finally did it - the site averages 350,000-400,000 unique users a month. Most want sex files and a PDF on the IBM Selectric Typewriter.|first=Jason|last=Scott|author-link=Jason Scott}}] Most of the textfiles.com projects are "completionist" in outlook, attempting to gather as much information as possible within the decided scope.
The site also houses a number of sub-projects with their own [hostname](/source/hostname)s. ''artscene.textfiles.com'' has a repository of computer art including [crack intro](/source/crack_intro)s, [ANSI](/source/ANSI_art) and [ASCII art](/source/ASCII_art) and other related documents; ''audio.textfiles.com'' has an archive of [audio file](/source/audio_file)s, including [prank call](/source/prank_call)s, recorded telephone conferences with BBS owners and hacker radio shows; ''cd.textfiles.com'' contains an archive of 1990s [shareware](/source/shareware) [discs](/source/CD-ROM); ''web.textfiles.com'' contains files created after the [World Wide Web](/source/World_Wide_Web) went into mainstream use, approximately 1995; ''bbslist.textfiles.com'' aims to be a comprehensive list of all historical BBSes; ''timeline.textfiles.com'' is meant to list all important events in the history of BBSes.
== See also ==
* [Archive Team](/source/Archive_Team)
* [Internet Archive](/source/Internet_Archive)
* [Jason Scott](/source/Jason_Scott)
* [Telehack](/source/Telehack)
== References ==
{{reflist}}
== External links ==
* {{official website|http://www.textfiles.com}}
* [http://www.textfiles.com/magazines/STB/ Archive of ''Short Talk Bulletin'']
{{Jason Scott}}
{{BBS}}
Category:Bulletin board systems
Category:Internet properties established in 1998
Category:American digital libraries
Category:Discipline-oriented digital libraries
Category:Jason Scott
Category:Works about computer hacking
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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Textfiles.com](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textfiles.com) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textfiles.com?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.