Snowboarding really became popular from 1990 onwards and with the exploding interest and development in technology, skiing got a new lease of life too.
The roots really start with the snurfer, that sled hill toy you may have ridden as a kid, shaped like a small water ski with a rope tied to the nose and a rough surface for traction from the center to the back where you stood. Sherman Poppen was the inventor of the snurfer which first appeared in the 1960s. He built the prototype out of two skis, by screwing them together in his garage.
Snowboarding was pioneered in the late 70's by a small group including Jake Burton Carpenter, Tom Sims, Chuck Barfoot, Bob Weber and Dimitrijie Milovich. All have led snowboard companies or built boards with Burton still being the largest snowboard manufacturer in the world. Burton gets most of the media's credit for having incorporated the first high-back bindings, metal edges and snowboard boots into his line. All of the early pioneers were heavily influenced by surfboarding.
As it turns out Jake Burton was involved in snurfer racing, a gag event put on by a group of bored college students. Well, he got the bright idea to put a foot retention device (little more than a strap at first) on his boards and began to win these events hands down.
At about this same time several other people were busy inventing the sport. Jeff Grell is credited with designing the first highback binding. Dimitrijie Milovich started Winterstick, which although didn't make it financially, he introduced several important factors early on in the sport like swallowtail designs, and laminated construction. He is also credited with confirming that snowboards were covered under ski liability insurance, opening up their usage in resorts, and the boom we saw in the late 80's and 90's.
Boots evolved from Sorels (TM) or Sno-pac type boots. Early "snowboard" boots were Sorel shells with ski boot type bladders. It was obvious that these early boots did not supply adequate support for the ankle and inhibited control of the boards. The first hard-shell "snowboard" boots were in fact ski boots. It didn't take long for the first true hard-shell boot to be produced before the end of the eighties.
Burton set up shop at Stratton Mountain in Vermont and by 1985 had incorporated steel edges and high-back bindings into his designs. The metal edges allowed use at regular ski resorts and the rest is hiss-toe-ree. In 1985 only 7 percent of U.S. ski areas allowed snowboards; today more than 97 percent do and over half have half pipes.
In 1998, snowboarding debuted at the Nagano Olympic games in Japan.
In terms of this group: Back in the early '90s there was one newsgroup for all skiing related discussion, it was called rec.skiing. As the group became overwhelmed with too many topics several people worked hard to form additional groups, at the top of that list was Crispin Cowen. After much discussion and voting the current hierarchy of newsgroups was formed. And why, you ask, is it called REC.SKIING.snowboard? Because it was more technically feasible to do it that way when rec.skiing was split up. It is the way it is and it would take a lot of work to change it, so unless you're willing to do the work don't even suggest it.
There is another snowboard newsgroup called rec.sport.snowboarding but its
not a legal group and is not propagated very well. What this means is that
the group was created without going through the formal voting process. A few
servers on the net still have it listed as a valid group but it isn't.