Bulletin board system (BBS) implemented on server computer in which BBS items are stored as files in accordance with native file system of server computer

A system comprising:

• a network;
• a server computer communicatively coupled to the network, the server computer having a bulletin board system (BBS) implemented thereon without use of database management software (DBMS) and in which a plurality of BBS items are stored as individually storable files within a hierarchical directory structure having a plurality of a directories and sub-directories, using a native file system of the server computer;
• and,
• one or more client computers communicatively coupled to the network, each client computer able to send requests to the server computer over the network to view the BBS, such that the client computer receives from the server computer in response a representation of the hierarchical directory structure, including filenames of the files for the BBS items stored within the directories and sub-directories of the hierarchical directory structure.

A server computer comprising:

• one or more processors;
• a network communication mechanism to communicatively couple the server computer to a network;
• a storage device to store a plurality of bulletin board system (BBS) items as individual files within a hierarchical directory structure having a plurality of directories and sub-directories, in accordance with a native file system of the server computer, the files directly openable and viewable by one or more computer programs;
• and,
• a computer program executed by the processors to receive from client computers over the network the BBS items to store as the individual files within the hierarchical directory structure and to send to the client computers over the network a representation of the hierarchical directory structure and the individual files for particular of the BBS items requested by the client computers.