³ > ru> born in the 80's but have been getting back into retro computers
³ > ru> again, i miss the times when this was primary means of comms.
³
³ > There are times when I also miss the dialup BBS days and when it was
³ > the primary means of communications.
³
³ You can relive your dialup days at End Of The Line BBS with both US and
³ UK dialup numbers for direct connection or through the Magnum UK
³ gateway. See Sysop Notice 15 on my BBS for more info.
ÀÄ[NR=>All]

You may also do so here, although I don't have a UK dial up number. ;)

Mike

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born in the 80's but have been getting back into retro computers again, i miss the times when this was primary means of comms.

³
³ There are times when I also miss the dialup BBS days and when it was the
³ primary means of communications.
ÀÄ[N=>R]

I don't know why but, in comparison to today's internet and social media, I feel now that we are a lot less likely to be exposed to rampant misinformation back then.

Mike

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Re: Computers
By: MIKE POWELL to NIGHTFOX on Mon Jul 15 2024 08:53 am

I don't know why but, in comparison to today's internet and social media, I feel now that we are a lot less likely to be exposed to rampant misinformation back then.

I've heard people say that misinformation has multiplied as more and more people have gotten internet access. Even though many people have access to factual information online, it's also very easy for people to spread misinformation to a lot of people online.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

³ MP> I don't know why but, in comparison to today's internet and social media, ³ MP> I feel now that we are a lot less likely to be exposed to rampant
³ MP> misinformation back then.
³
³ I've heard people say that misinformation has multiplied as more and more
³ people have gotten internet access. Even though many people have access to
³ factual information online, it's also very easy for people to spread
³ misinformation to a lot of people online.
ÀÄ[N=>MP]

I feel like that has to do with people gravitating to social media sites, especially those that echo their own beliefs, for social interaction that
they don't get on news sites.

Also, someone pointed out a while back that many news sites have paywalls
while "news" sites that cater to one or other side of the political spectrum
do not.

Mike

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I feel like that has to do with people gravitating to social media sites, especially those that echo their own beliefs, for social interaction that they don't get on news sites.

A lot of this is the sense of seeking out a frame of reality which matches one's own. I read, in a disciplined way, across the political spectrum, and the one constant I notice is the belief that one position on that spectrum approximates reality as it currently is, with other positions being distortions and the people who hold those positions being deluded in some way.

I am a skeptic of my own frame of reality. I know that I've changed my mind on a lot of issues over time. But as a consequence of this, I've never really trusted anyone's take on "how things really are," regarding well-written opinions as, essentially, elephant parts. The smartest people on different parts of the spectrum give me a limited, partially-insightful perspective, and I try my best to synthesize this into a flawed, sloppy, but perhaps workable approximation of reality as it truly is.

People are in love with "to be" verbs. A thing "is" the way I say it is. But for me, the world merely *appears* to be a certain way, based on my perspective. This has made me jittery and neurotic. It is not pleasant. People's assuredness about their views of the world adds a weird kind of surreal screwheadeness to the whole affair.

Social media, as you point out, really does concentrate people into narrative feedback loops which encourage viewing a subjective experience as some kind of apprehension of objective reality. And when you read carefully across the spectrum, one constant you notice is how horribly people misrepresent the opinions and motivations of their opposition.

All of this makes me skeptical that anyone really knows what is going on.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Shipwrecks & Shibboleths [San Francisco, CA - USA] (21:1/227)

³ When in the 90s did you start using dial-up? To me, I feel like BBSing was ÀÄ[N=>NL]

Cannot speak for Newtype, but I was using it from 1988-93 to access the
central computer system at work. Unlike Newtype, I was also using it to
dial BBSes (from 1987), but I do know of a few others who were using
dial-up to dial into work. My uncle at the time was using it that way.

Mike

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Re: Computers
By: MIKE POWELL to NIGHTFOX on Wed Jul 17 2024 09:57 am

When in the 90s did you start using dial-up? To me, I feel like BBSing

Cannot speak for Newtype, but I was using it from 1988-93 to access the central computer system at work. Unlike Newtype, I was also using it to dial BBSes (from 1987), but I do know of a few others who were using dial-up to dial into work. My uncle at the time was using it that way.

That's cool. I never used my modem to dial into work, but aside from BBSing and using the internet, my local library had a dialup line that I sometimes used to search for and reserve books to check out from the library.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

³ MP> I feel like that has to do with people gravitating to social media sites, ³ MP> especially those that echo their own beliefs, for social interaction that ³ MP> they don't get on news sites.
³
³ A lot of this is the sense of seeking out a frame of reality which matches
³ one's own. I read, in a disciplined way, across the political spectrum, and ³ the one constant I notice is the belief that one position on that spectrum
³ approximates reality as it currently is, with other positions being distortions
³ and the people who hold those positions being deluded in some way.
ÀÄ[FS=>MP]

Very insightful, and true.

³ I am a skeptic of my own frame of reality. I know that I've changed my mind on
³ a lot of issues over time. But as a consequence of this, I've never really
³ trusted anyone's take on "how things really are," regarding well-written
³ opinions as, essentially, elephant parts. The smartest people on different
³ parts of the spectrum give me a limited, partially-insightful perspective, and
³ I try my best to synthesize this into a flawed, sloppy, but perhaps workable ³ approximation of reality as it truly is.
ÀÄ[FS=>MP]

"Experts" on both sides reflect their position on the spectrum in their opinions for certain, making the truth more difficult to find.

³ People's assuredness about their views of the world adds a weird kind of
³ surreal screwheadeness to the whole affair.
ÀÄ[FS=>MP]

Sort of reminds one of those sci-fi (and mock sci-fi) movies and shows
where someone under the influence of the prevailing view seems so
confident that this view is correct and makes perfect sense.

The Twilight Zone episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" is an example of
what I mean.

³ Social media, as you point out, really does concentrate people into narrative ³ feedback loops which encourage viewing a subjective experience as some kind of
³ apprehension of objective reality. And when you read carefully across the
³ spectrum, one constant you notice is how horribly people misrepresent the
³ opinions and motivations of their opposition.

Yes, they have a tendency to grab onto the opinions and motivations of the
most radical members of the opposition without taking into account there
are other, more rational people who beieve the same things, but for more thought out reasons.

³ All of this makes me skeptical that anyone really knows what is going on. ÀÄ[FS=>MP]

I am not certain that the people behind some of the things that happen even know what is going on.

Mike

##Mmr 2.61á. !link FS 7-17-24 20:23
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³ Yeah.. I was surprised he also said he thought about 90% of BBSes had
³ disappeared in 1993, which seems pretty early to me. The BBS scene was still ³ fairly big here, I think until about 1997 or so when I noticed users started to
³ dwindle fairly fast. I didn't even know about the internet in 1993, and I'm ³ not entirely sure how many people did.
ÀÄ[N=>M]

The could have in his area. In the area I was in during 1993-7, I cannot
say what percentage disappeared, but a bunch did. OTOH, there were still plenty of callers to go around for those of us who were still online.

In late 1997 I moved from a large metro area to a much smaller area that
was a long distance call from any metro area. Here, I don't think most
folks had home computers at the time, and didn't start getting them until
they wanted to get on the internet. BBSing was a foreign concept, and something that only "hackers" did.

I might go a few weeks without callers. That changed several years later
once I got non-dial-up internet and was able to add telnet. I have not had
a "local" caller in several years.

So it is difficult for me to say for sure when callers significantly
dropped because, in my case, my observations are not accurate.

Mike

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Re: Re: Computers
By: MIKE POWELL to NIGHTFOX on Thu Jul 18 2024 08:08 am

In late 1997 I moved from a large metro area to a much smaller area that was a long distance call from any metro area. Here, I don't think most folks had home computers at the time, and didn't start getting them until they wanted to get on the internet. BBSing was a foreign concept, and something that only "hackers" did.

I've always been interested in computers, and I'm glad I grew up in an area with a decent sized community of computer people. I know my area isn't the biggest metro area, but it seemed like there were a bunch of BBSes in the area back in the early-mid 90s, and it was fun to use them. It was fun running my own at the time too.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

³ Oh? I thought the internet actually started in the late 60s as DARPANet with ³ the US military.. And I'd heard by the late 80s and early 90s, people were
³ using things like Gopher, Newsgroups, etc. on the internet, before the web
³ became popular..?
ÀÄ[N=>M]


I think he means the internet in his area. It existed for a long time, but didn't really become a household thing (and start to siphon BBS users)
until the 1990s or later.

Mike

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³ My dad had a DOS/Windows PC in the late 80s, but I also remember him having a ³ couple of Alpha Micro AM1000 computers in another room. I still don't know
³ exactly what he used them for. Maybe I could ask him..
ÀÄ[N=>T]

That might be an interesting retro-themed story.

Mike

##Mmr 2.61á. !link N 7-19-24 9:25
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³ We had that before the web; people ran public anonymous FTP
³ servers running at many, if not most, sites well before the
³ web was a thing. It was common to create directories for
³ users so that they could drop things into that part of the
³ filesystem exposed to anon FTP; lots of stuff got shared that way.
ÀÄ[T=>N]

At the time, that was quite useful. I believe I would still prefer it to
what we have now.

I can remember being logged on to a dumb terminal at university, ftping to
a site from my uni account, downloading a file to my account, and then
later downloading from my account to my PC when I was home.

Found some utilities for the BBS that way, which was cheaper than the long distance dial-up it would have required otherwise. I also remember needing
to UUdecode some binaries before I could unarchive and use them.

Mike

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Re: Re: Computers
By: MIKE POWELL to TENSER on Sat Jul 20 2024 10:08 am

I can remember being logged on to a dumb terminal at university, ftping to a site from my uni account, downloading a file to my account, and then later downloading from my account to my PC when I was home.

Let me guess - KERMIT was involved?
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

On 20 Jul 2024 at 10:08a, MIKE POWELL pondered and said...

³ We had that before the web; people ran public anonymous FTP
³ servers running at many, if not most, sites well before the
³ web was a thing. It was common to create directories for
³ users so that they could drop things into that part of the
³ filesystem exposed to anon FTP; lots of stuff got shared that way. ÀÄ[T=>N]

At the time, that was quite useful. I believe I would still prefer it to what we have now.

I can remember being logged on to a dumb terminal at university, ftping
to a site from my uni account, downloading a file to my account, and then later downloading from my account to my PC when I was home.

Yup. I was running Unix at home, so I just slip'ed in
and ran FTP from my home computer, or occasionally I'd
use kermit or `sz`. I still use xmodem almost daily, to
load kernels onto development machines over a UART.

Found some utilities for the BBS that way, which was cheaper than the
long distance dial-up it would have required otherwise. I also remember needing to UUdecode some binaries before I could unarchive and use them.

I count the author of uudecode as a friend. :-) She
makes a credible claim that this was the first form of
"email attachment".

Even FidoNet was more or less dependent on the Internet
ca 1991 for transferring data between Europe and North
America.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

Re: Re: Computers
By: tenser to MIKE POWELL on Sun Jul 21 2024 12:53 pm

Even FidoNet was more or less dependent on the Internet ca 1991 for transferring data between Europe and North America.

What? Nobody wanted to make an international long-distance phone call to transfer FidoNet mail? ;)

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

I can remember being logged on to a dumb terminal at university, ftping

Let me guess - KERMIT was involved?

The local uni here had a public room, full of XTs in use as terminals. Only two of them had 3.5" floppies, so it was a bit of a wrestle to get one of those. But I ftp'd a bit of stuff onto floppies and cycled home on the
deadly treadly to either bop it on the BBS or try out some fangled utility we didn't have any equivalent for.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)

Re: Re: Computers
By: Spectre to poindexter FORTRAN on Sun Jul 21 2024 12:33:00

Hi, Spec.

The local uni here had a public room, full of XTs in use as terminals. Only two of them had 3.5" floppies, so it was a bit of a wrestle to get one of those. But I ftp'd a bit of stuff onto floppies and cycled home on the deadly treadly to either bop it on the BBS or try out some fangled utility we didn't have any equivalent for.

This is very reminiscent of my university experience but presumably a few years apart.. 33k(ish) dial up at home or 10M Internet in the university a few miles away.

In one of our courses they taught us about the "truck full of tapes" calculation where, if an organisation needed to send a lot of data cross country, there came a crossover point where it was faster to send a truck full of tapes by road than waiting for it to transfer via E1 / T1 connection. I had my own version of that where anything over about 20M warranted a trip into uni with a CD-RW or a zip disk.

BobW
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: >>> Magnum BBS <<< - bbs.magnum.uk.net (21:1/205)

³ > I can remember being logged on to a dumb terminal at university, ftping to a
³ > site from my uni account, downloading a file to my account, and then later ³ > downloading from my account to my PC when I was home.
³
³ Let me guess - KERMIT was involved?
ÀÄ[PF=>MP]

Yes, on the home end I would have been using KERMIT (the terminal program)
to access my university account. ;)

Mike

##Mmr 2.61á. !link PF 7-20-24 14:29
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³ MP> Found some utilities for the BBS that way, which was cheaper than the
³ MP> long distance dial-up it would have required otherwise. I also remember ³ MP> needing to UUdecode some binaries before I could unarchive and use them. ³
³ I count the author of uudecode as a friend. :-) She
³ makes a credible claim that this was the first form of
³ "email attachment".
ÀÄ[T=>MP]

It was the first form that I was aware of for sure. IIRC, there was some
kind of service, or site, where I had to use uudecode on files that were
not received via email, too. I may very well be remembering that wrong as
I am not sure why they'd need encoding if they were not transmitted via email or usenet.

³ Even FidoNet was more or less dependent on the Internet
³ ca 1991 for transferring data between Europe and North
³ America.
ÀÄ[T=>MP]

That I was not aware of but it makes perfect sense.

Mike

##Mmr 2.61á. !link T 7-21-24 12:53
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³ te> Perhaps in your personal experience you started hearing about it
³ te> in 1995, but that doesn't mean that's when it started.
³
³ From the beginning of this series of messages I had a feeling that
³ there was something 'regional' related to the different perceptions
³ and ideas that we all shared.
ÀÄ[M=>T]

I am pretty certain there is, even within the same country. I have always lived in the same state in the same country, and my experience with "the internet" was that it "existed for home consumption" in the larger city I was living in at least 1993, but didn't yet exist for home users in the smaller town I moved to in 1997. That changed quickly but, even at work, those of us that were using 386s to access a mainframe, a time keeping system, and
MS-Mail didn't yet have internet access in 1997.

Mike

##Mmr 2.61á. !link M 7-20-24 23:20
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On 22 Jul 2024 at 10:48a, Spectre pondered and said...

It was the first form that I was aware of for sure. IIRC, there was kind of service, or site, where I had to use uudecode on files that w not received via email, too. I may very well be remembering that wro I am not sure why they'd need encoding if they were not transmitted v email or usenet.

There were a lot of early systems out there that were 7bit... if you
tried to push data through these you'd lose some. UUENCODEing made it
all 7bit for safe transfer. It was lossy though, a UUd file was larger than the original.

Depends on what you're transferring. uuencode takes 8-bit
data and packs it into a 6-bit alphabet, in 60-column records,
preceded by a character count (encoded as a printing character)
and succeeded by a newline (so up to 62 characters, total).
That leaves up to 60 characters containing data, for a total
of 60*6=360 bits of data max per line, or 360/8=45 bytes; put
another way, 3 bytes packed into 4 characters, so 45 bytes per
60 character line.

So you've got a 25% efficiency loss for the encoding, plus the
count and line-break overhead, that's around over 3%. Call it
30% overhead relative to the source data.

But if you compress the original, and _then_ uuencode it, you
might come out ahead: if you're compression ratio is around 2:1,
then you're still smaller than the original by 20% or so.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

In one of our courses they taught us about the "truck full of tapes"

Massive bandwidth, really bad latency though :)

connection. I had my own version of that where anything over about 20M warranted a trip into uni with a CD-RW or a zip disk.

You had it a bit better than I did... we didn't have any fancy geegaws for
data storage, just the floppies... I wasn't to flash at tracking stuff down back then either... Didn't really know where the resources were unless you crawled simtel or some such.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)

It was the first form that I was aware of for sure. IIRC, there was some kind of service, or site, where I had to use uudecode on files that were not received via email, too. I may very well be remembering that wrong as I am not sure why they'd need encoding if they were not transmitted via email or usenet.

There were a lot of early systems out there that were 7bit... if you tried to push data through these you'd lose some. UUENCODEing made it all 7bit for
safe transfer. It was lossy though, a UUd file was larger than the original.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)

But if you compress the original, and _then_ uuencode it, you might
come out ahead: if you're compression ratio is around 2:1, then
you're still smaller than the original by 20% or so.

While I agree with your appraisal, effective 2:1 compression seemed to be pretty rare. Binaries and hard data didn't tend to compress as well as a
chunk of equivalent sized text. I don't remember getting beyond ~40% compression as a general rule, and small files didn't tend to compress as
well as larger ones.

Its kind of weird in a way, a lot of stuff was optimised for slow speed transmission, 2400bps or so.. so things tended to be fairly small, then you'd compress it to get it down further... worked point to point out of a BBS nicely, but then you go and add overhead to get through something like a 7bit mail server... signs of the times I guess. It was always the last link...
ISP or Uni or whatever it was you connected to, to home.. the weakest,
slowest link.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)

But if you compress the original, and _then_ uuencode it, you might
come out ahead: if you're compression ratio is around 2:1, then

You've got me thinking about compression now..

The main front runners we had, probably like everyone else over time...

LHA/LHARC early on and not as efficient..

PKZIP most popular and had better compression than LHA variants.

ARJ less popular generally, but got a good run here for having better compression than early versions of PKZIP although they end up much the same later on.. Oddly, ARJ said that its default was to use maximum compression, but if you gave it the -JM switches asking for maximum compression you'd actually get a smaller archive.

SQZ, SqueezeIt gave exactly the same file size as ARJ a -jm but I just used
it to be contrary and had all the BBS archives converted to it :) It was
never popular anywhere else in my memory...

None of these would reliably get close to 2:1 compression though..

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)

Spectre wrote to tenser <=-

Its kind of weird in a way, a lot of stuff was optimised for slow speed transmission, 2400bps or so.. so things tended to be fairly small, then you'd compress it to get it down further...

Hard drive space was at a premium, too - I remember people switching
archivers to ARJ when it came out for a single-digit improvement over
PKZIP. Then, some people liked LHArc. Some people said to hell with it
and stuck with ARC. Back then, it made a material difference when your
perimary storage was an 80mb hard drive.




--- MultiMail/Win v0.52
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

On 22 Jul 2024 at 08:21p, Spectre pondered and said...

While I agree with your appraisal, effective 2:1 compression seemed to be pretty rare. Binaries and hard data didn't tend to compress as well as a chunk of equivalent sized text. I don't remember getting beyond ~40% compression as a general rule, and small files didn't tend to compress as well as larger ones.

Yeah. It depends very much on _what_ you're compressing
and how much overhead you're willing to tolerate. Still,
even if you only get 30%, you're about breaking even with
`uuencode`.

Its kind of weird in a way, a lot of stuff was optimised for slow speed transmission, 2400bps or so.. so things tended to be fairly small, then you'd compress it to get it down further... worked point to point out of
a BBS nicely, but then you go and add overhead to get through something like a 7bit mail server... signs of the times I guess. It was always
the last link... ISP or Uni or whatever it was you connected to, to
home.. the weakest, slowest link.

Yeah. People tend to forget that we had to contend with
7 bit systems, fixed records sizes, and all sorts of other
weird things that made interoperability hard. Our IBM
mainframe running VM/CMS used to eat the ends of lines that
were longer than 80 columns when transferring email (which
all had to be 7-bit clean, of course, as it would be
translated between ASCII and EBCDIC).

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

On 22 Jul 2024 at 06:53a, poindexter FORTRAN pondered and said...

Hard drive space was at a premium, too - I remember people switching
archivers to ARJ when it came out for a single-digit improvement over
PKZIP. Then, some people liked LHArc. Some people said to hell with it
and stuck with ARC. Back then, it made a material difference when your
perimary storage was an 80mb hard drive.

I remember people being upset when we went from `compress` to
`gzip` because now the file suffix was 2 characters, not 1.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

ÚÄ

It was the first form that I was aware of for sure. IIRC, there was some kind of service, or site, where I had to use uudecode on files that were not received via email, too. I may very well be remembering that wrong as I am not sure why they'd need encoding if they were not transmitted via email or usenet.

³
³There were a lot of early systems out there that were 7bit... if you tried to ³push data through these you'd lose some. UUENCODEing made it all 7bit for ³safe transfer. It was lossy though, a UUd file was larger than the original. ÀÄ[S=>MP]

7bit systems could be the reason right there. Thanks for pointing that out.

I do remember the UUd files often being larger than the result after
decoding.

Mike

##Mmr 2.61á. !link S 7-22-24 10:48
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Hard drive space was at a premium, too - I remember people switching archivers to ARJ when it came out for a single-digit improvement over PKZIP. Then, some people liked LHArc. Some people said to hell with it
and stuck with ARC. Back then, it made a material difference when your perimary storage was an 80mb hard drive.

Phwoar, you had an 80Mb drive? The first thing I had came with a 40, thought it would take forever to fill, coming from a land of 140k floppies. Of
course it didn't last longer than a few months.. went out and acquired a 60.. but being a PC noob, I ended up with the 40 being IDE and the 60 being MFM... traded the IDE with a friend for their MFM 40 and went from there...

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)

Re: Re: Computers
By: Spectre to poindexter FORTRAN on Tue Jul 23 2024 06:35 am

Phwoar, you had an 80Mb drive? The first thing I had came with a 40, though

The BBS started with a 32 MB drive - it filled up almost every time I did a mail run. Moved DOS to a 20 MB drive and used the 32 for the BBS. Then, got a new system with a single 80mb drive.

Backed up with one of those horribly slow Colorado tape drives.
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

Backed up with one of those horribly slow Colorado tape drives.

Those were the days... I used my 40Mb Coloardo, until it failed completely
and started unspooling tapes... I think we were backing up over... 8-10 tapes... taking about a half a day.

I was given some 3c503 network cards, and found it cheaper to buy a ratty ol' 286 with an HD in it, bang a second one on the other available channel and share it from there... so more than half of the data back was being done over network as well... Newer larger capacity drives remained outside my budget
for a while.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)

³ Hard drive space was at a premium, too - I remember people switching
³ archivers to ARJ when it came out for a single-digit improvement over
³ PKZIP. Then, some people liked LHArc. Some people said to hell with it
³ and stuck with ARC. Back then, it made a material difference when your
³ perimary storage was an 80mb hard drive.
ÀÄ[PF=>S]

Or a 30MB one. ;)

Mike

##Mmr 2.61á. !link PF 7-22-24 6:53
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Hard drive space was at a premium, too - I remember people switch
archivers to ARJ when it came out for a single-digit improvement
PKZIP. Then, some people liked LHArc. Some people said to hell wi
and stuck with ARC. Back then, it made a material difference when
perimary storage was an 80mb hard drive.

I remember people being upset when we went from `compress` to
`gzip` because now the file suffix was 2 characters, not 1.

This was the time when you had to have all of the different compression
tools, not for the compressing, but the decompressing of files. Depending
on what you downloaded (or whatnot), as stated someone used the
compression of their choice. Fast-forward to today and now we have tools
that are "all-in-one" such as 7-Zip or WinRAR to handle compression and decompression of various formats. My how things have changed.
--Matt

--- RATSoft/FIDO v09.14.95 [JetMail 1.01]
* Origin: STar Fleet HQ - Real Atari! bbs.sfhqbbs.org:5983 (21:3/171.0)

THe first hard drive I ahd on my Atari 8-bit BBS was 5mb. I remember
thinking I would never fill that up... :)

--- RATSoft/FIDO v09.14.95 [JetMail 1.01]
* Origin: STar Fleet HQ - Real Atari! bbs.sfhqbbs.org:5983 (21:3/171.0)

Re: Re: Computers
By: Bf2K+ to Spectre on Wed Jul 24 2024 10:15 am

THe first hard drive I ahd on my Atari 8-bit BBS was 5mb. I remember thinking I would never fill that up... :)

:) My first computer was a hand-me-down 286 PC, in 1992. It had a 10MB hard drive in it, and after a short while I started to find it wasn't difficult to fill it. With PC games and utilities etc. being in zip files that could be around 500KB or 1MB or so, downloading several of those, unzipping them and installing them could easily take up the hard drive space I had. And I think running Windows was difficult due to the drive space it took. I think I ran Windows 3.1 a bit on that PC, and I must have had a bigger hard drive by then, but I don't remember specifically what I had or when I got one. I did get the motherboard & CPU upgraded to a 386SX-16 at some point, and maybe that's when I was running Windows.. Maybe at that point I got a bigger hard drive. I remember having (I think) a 40MB (or so) hard drive at some point.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

³ > I still have that Whole Internet book! I think its funny that once upon a ³ > time, all of the internet could fit in one book.
³
³ One of the first email lists I was on was "What's New on the Web...", a list of
³ new web sites. The list was probably pretty much complete, encapsulated in a ³ weekly email list.
³
³ I'm re-watching Halt and Catch Fire season 4 now - they captured that early web
³ period well.
ÀÄ[PF=>D]

Reading about that book, and the email list you were on, made me think of
that show and the "Comet" website, which was like an early version of Yahoo except that instead of the site crawling the web, they actually added new
sites to Comet manually.

I never realized that people actually did that.

Mike

##Mmr 2.61á. !link PF 7-23-24 9:57
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³ PF> I'm re-watching Halt and Catch Fire season 4 now - they captured that
³ PF> early web period well. I think back to that time, I lived in San Francisco
³
³ I should probably watch that show.. I watched the first episode (or part of ³ it) and for some reason didn't continue watching the show.
ÀÄ[N=>PF]

I almost didn't watch it after the first one. Then I realized all of the
now retro tech they were talking about and that made it real interesting.
Some of the interpersonal stuff between characters was also interesting,
while other parts really were sort of boring. A couple of times, they even felt like they were "tacked on," like they started down a path with the
story and then decided it didn't really fit.

IIRC, I think the show was almost cancelled at least once so that could
have led to the "jumping around" affect.

I really liked it, though.

Mike

##Mmr 2.61á. !link N 7-23-24 10:25
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³Bah.. the Internet was a 30 year old overnight success by the time 95 rolled ³around. The marker for 95 was simply Windows 95, which was built to be online ³at the time. 3.1 would do it of course with WinSock but it was a pita and ³unreliable. 95 was the shit.. the world changed that day.
ÀÄ[T=>M]

I forget how I dialed in, but the first time I used the GUI WWW was on a
386 using a Quarterdeck product called QMosaic which, IIRC, I received a
free copy of with an upgrade to QEMM and/or Desqview.

Oddly, IIRC, QMosaic didn't run under Desqview (although it may have with
DV/X, I never tried it). ;)

Mike

##Mmr 2.61á. !link T 7-25-24 10:43
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I was in my last year of high school in 1993. The boards in my area were still going strong. about a year later I became a FidoNet Hub and the BBS

³
³ Interesting. Where in the world are you? By 93 there wasn't another BBS
³ around to even get Fido from...
ÀÄ[S=>T]

I got my first FIDO connection... originally a long distance call... in
2000. At that time, there were still a few other boards in Net 2320 that
were local to the hub (but also LD from me).

Before that, I had been a member of the GT Power Network, had carried
Usenet newsgroups, and had been a member of some other small to mid-sized
FTN and QWK networks.

Mike

##Mmr 2.61á. !link S 7-26-24 3:29
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³ Once I got access to the Internet, I found the technical
³ discussion content I'd been looking for, and then I started
³ to wonder why anyone would care about the endless flame
³ wars and "big personalities" on fight-o-net. The silly
³ "rules" imposed by sysops on local BBSes seemed strange once
³ I realized they didn't have any content I cared about.
ÀÄ[T=>PF]

While I cannot disagree that the content wasn't better for certain topics,
most Internet discussion boards and email lists have rules
that are just as restrictive... and much easier to enforce.

Usenet, OTOH, was more of a wild west that had more participants (in some areas) but also more fighting.

Mike

##Mmr 2.61á. !link T 7-30-24 2:18
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MIKE POWELL wrote to TENSER <=-

While I cannot disagree that the content wasn't better for certain
topics, most Internet discussion boards and email lists have rules
that are just as restrictive... and much easier to enforce.

Usenet, OTOH, was more of a wild west that had more participants (in
some areas) but also more fighting.

Usenet had their restricted areas, too -- I was a telecom manager in a
former life, and comp.dcom.telecom was my goto newsgroup. It was
moderated and very informative when I was soaking up telco knowledge.

Some people started up comp.dcom.telecom.unmoderated, so you could get
your telco content straight up or unmoderated.

It's oddy to think back to a usenet that was mostly content an
slightly spammy, instead of vice versa.




... Faced with a choice, do both.
--- MultiMail/Win v0.52
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

On 30 Jul 2024 at 09:44a, MIKE POWELL pondered and said...

³ Once I got access to the Internet, I found the technical
³ discussion content I'd been looking for, and then I started
³ to wonder why anyone would care about the endless flame
³ wars and "big personalities" on fight-o-net. The silly
³ "rules" imposed by sysops on local BBSes seemed strange once
³ I realized they didn't have any content I cared about.
ÀÄ[T=>PF]

While I cannot disagree that the content wasn't better for certain
topics, most Internet discussion boards and email lists have rules
that are just as restrictive... and much easier to enforce.

Internet "discussion boards" on the web weren't really
a thing yet when I started using the Internet. For that
matter, neither was the web. And while some mailing
lists were moderated, many were not; civility was promoted
via cultural norms, which in retrospect couldn't survive,
but at the time seemed like a huge step forward from the
"you will respect my authoritah!" of the BBS world.

Usenet, OTOH, was more of a wild west that had more participants (in some areas) but also more fighting.

See above: cultural norms that were valued by the community
as a whole kept things largely civil. They were doomed from
the start, but it was a wonderfully heady thing while they
lasted.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

tenser wrote to MIKE POWELL <=-

See above: cultural norms that were valued by the community
as a whole kept things largely civil. They were doomed from
the start, but it was a wonderfully heady thing while they
lasted.

I remember an internet where people ran open SMTP servers as a courtesy
to internet.denizens, because nobody would abuse that service.

And, when testing ISDN video capability, there were test numbers that
belonged to people at private companies working at their desks. They'd
take the call, chat with you and let you know how your video/audio came
across.

It was a different world, it seemed.



--- MultiMail/Win v0.52
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

Re: Re: Computers
By: tenser to MIKE POWELL on Thu Aug 01 2024 09:27 pm

Internet "discussion boards" on the web weren't really a thing yet when I started using the Internet. For that matter, neither was the web. And

The web was already a thing when I started using the internet (in late 1995), but I don't recall seeing discussion boards come around until years later. Currently there is only one that I'm really active on, strat-talk.com, which is about guitars (mainly the Fender Stratocaster, but others too). Years ago I used to sometimes use VWVortex (for Volkswagen cars) but haven't been active there in a long time. I was last active on VWVortex in about 2012 or 2013, and there was someone who seemed like a troll being an asshole on some of my questions & comments, and I haven't been very active there since.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

Re: Re: Computers
By: poindexter FORTRAN to tenser on Thu Aug 01 2024 07:17 am

I remember an internet where people ran open SMTP servers as a courtesy to internet.denizens, because nobody would abuse that service.

And, when testing ISDN video capability, there were test numbers that belonged to people at private companies working at their desks. They'd take the call, chat with you and let you know how your video/audio came across.

It was a different world, it seemed.

Yes. And I remember ISPs including a shell account, space for some files, and FTP & HTTP access there so you can set up a simple web page if you wanted to. Also, personal email accounts from ISPs. I'm not sure anyone uses any of that anymore, and I don't think many ISPs offer those things anymore.

I always wondered what I'd need shell access for on my ISP server, but when I still used dialup, I noticed I could sometimes get a faster download speed for a file if I first used the shell account to 'wget' the file (which would transfer to my ISP really fast), and then I'd download it from my personal space there via FTP, which would go fairly fast. That was often faster than me directly downloading the file from the site, for some reason.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
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Re: Re: Computers
By: Nightfox to tenser on Thu Aug 01 2024 09:32 am

The web was already a thing when I started using the internet (in late 1995) but I don't recall seeing discussion boards come around until years later.

Man, Yahoo! groups was a thing, wasn't it? With a few minutes work you could set up a community on the web, customize a landing page, have a mailing list attached to it, and create file libraries. I personally ran a router support group, a camera community, and probably participated in 10-12 groups, mostly via email.

This was when email was the "killer app".
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

³ Usenet had their restricted areas, too -- I was a telecom manager in a
³ former life, and comp.dcom.telecom was my goto newsgroup. It was
³ moderated and very informative when I was soaking up telco knowledge. ÀÄ[PF=>MP]

Yes, I remember those moderated groups. IIRC, sci.space.news was another
one. I *think* I had to set up moderated groups slightly different in the Waffle<>FRED<>Squish<>BBS chain I had set up, but I am not sure.

³ It's oddy to think back to a usenet that was mostly content an
³ slightly spammy, instead of vice versa.
ÀÄ[PF=>MP]

Although they contained plenty of bad manners and trolls, even the unmoderated groups were considerably less spammy back c1993-97. I was very disappointed when I returned to reading there several years later.

Mike

##Mmr 2.61á. !link PF 7-31-24 7:05
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Re: Re: Computers
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Nightfox on Thu Aug 01 2024 01:07 pm

The web was already a thing when I started using the internet (in late
1995) but I don't recall seeing discussion boards come around until years
later.

Man, Yahoo! groups was a thing, wasn't it? With a few minutes work you could set up a community on the web, customize a landing page, have a mailing list attached to it, and create file libraries. I personally ran a router support group, a camera community, and probably participated in 10-12 groups, mostly via email.

It might have been. I didn't use Yahoo! Groups much.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

³ Yes. And I remember ISPs including a shell account, space for some files, and
³ FTP & HTTP access there so you can set up a simple web page if you wanted to. ³ Also, personal email accounts from ISPs. I'm not sure anyone uses any of that
³ anymore, and I don't think many ISPs offer those things anymore.
ÀÄ[N=>PF]

I still have the same ISP email account I was first issued over 30 years
ago. Not sure if the web page still works or not, I would have to check.
I know they eventually took their usenet news server down, and I *think* they finally took down their shell accounts. I just tried telneting in and got no response.

They kept the shell accounts active for a long time after everyone else did away with them. You could telnet into iglou.com or shellaccess.com to
connect. The latter now resolves to an Amazon IPA.

³ I always wondered what I'd need shell access for on my ISP server, but when I ³ still used dialup, I noticed I could sometimes get a faster download speed for
³ a file if I first used the shell account to 'wget' the file (which would
³ transfer to my ISP really fast), and then I'd download it from my personal
³ space there via FTP, which would go fairly fast. That was often faster than me
³ directly downloading the file from the site, for some reason.
ÀÄ[N=>PF]

Shell accounts were useful back when there wasn't a "GUI internet" to speak
of, and were still useful even then if one had a machine that didn't
run/wasn't capable of running Windows 95. I got used to using text based interfaces at uni (often on dumb terminals) so, between that and BBSing,
the text based shell account seemed a lot easier to use.

##Mmr 2.61á. !link N 8-01-24 9:37
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On 01 Aug 2024 at 07:17a, poindexter FORTRAN pondered and said...

It was a different world, it seemed.

Indeed it was. I miss it, but it ain't coming back.
It's a pity.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

On 01 Aug 2024 at 09:32a, Nightfox pondered and said...

Currently there is only one that I'm really active on,
strat-talk.com, which is about guitars (mainly the Fender Stratocaster, but others too). Years ago I used to sometimes use VWVortex (for Volkswagen cars) but haven't been active there in a long time. I was
last active on VWVortex in about 2012 or 2013, and there was someone who seemed like a troll being an asshole on some of my questions & comments, and I haven't been very active there since.

I used to be active on one dedicated to, of all things,
straight razors. Then I stopped visiting for a few years;
recently, I wanted to login and ask some question about
a particular brand of aftershave (hey, it's not as weird
as it sounds) but I found out that they'd had some kind of
serious drama involving stealing databases of users,
setting up new competing sights, etc; I could hardly
believe that people would take something as trivial as
straight razors so seriously.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

Re: Re: Computers
By: tenser to Nightfox on Sat Aug 03 2024 12:27:35

Hi, tenser.

I could hardly believe that people would take something as trivial as straight razors so seriously.

This made me chuckle, partly because it made me imagine an interview quote along the lines of "I could hardly believe people would take straight razors so seriously - tenser, decade long member of straight razor forum" but moreover that this kind of thing seems to happen with ridiculous frequency.

Whenever I feel like I'm "seriously into" something, a few minutes online shows me that, relatively speaking, my interest is pretty casual. In most cases there are vehemently opposed factions treating some arbitrary matter of principle like it's of life-or-death importance.

I think people just have this in-built desire to be the king of some kind of castle, even if it's a crappy one, and that part just goes out of control on the Internet :)

BobW
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: >>> Magnum BBS <<< - bbs.magnum.uk.net (21:1/205)

Re: Re: Computers
By: tenser to Nightfox on Sat Aug 03 2024 12:27 pm

I used to be active on one dedicated to, of all things, straight razors. Then I stopped visiting for a few years; recently, I wanted to login and ask some question about a particular brand of aftershave (hey, it's not as weird

If it's not badgerandblade.com, I'm sure if I logged in again after 10+ years I'd find the same drama. I used to read there when I was getting into wet shaving, then I bought an old Gillette safety razor at an antique store, a lifetime supply of blades on eBay, a mug and cheap brush, and haven't felt the need to talk about any of it since. :)
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

This was when email was the "killer app".

Eudora!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Storm BBS (21:2/108)

On 03 Aug 2024 at 04:42p, Bob Worm pondered and said...

Whenever I feel like I'm "seriously into" something, a few minutes
online shows me that, relatively speaking, my interest is pretty casual. In most cases there are vehemently opposed factions treating some arbitrary matter of principle like it's of life-or-death importance.

Heh, that's true. "And now, I'd like to discuss amateur
radio...."

I think people just have this in-built desire to be the king of some
kind of castle, even if it's a crappy one, and that part just goes out
of control on the Internet :)

Yeah. People are strange. Some of the straight razor people
were _very_ strange. I remember one guy posting that he'd sit
in his car sharpening his razors while his wife was grocery
shopping. I can't imagine what the people walking by in the
parking lot thought about that....

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

On 03 Aug 2024 at 08:43a, poindexter FORTRAN pondered and said...

Re: Re: Computers
By: tenser to Nightfox on Sat Aug 03 2024 12:27 pm

I used to be active on one dedicated to, of all things, straight razors Then I stopped visiting for a few years; recently, I wanted to login an some question about a particular brand of aftershave (hey, it's not as

If it's not badgerandblade.com, I'm sure if I logged in again after 10+ years I'd find the same drama. I used to read there when I was getting into wet shaving, then I bought an old Gillette safety razor at an
antique store, a lifetime supply of blades on eBay, a mug and cheap
brush, and haven't felt the need to talk about any of it since. :)

Yeah! The one I was thinking of wasn't B&B; it was
Straight Razor Place. It was occasionally useful for
getting some advice when I was getting into it, but
I didn't feel the need to post every single time I
shaved. And when I was in the Marines, that was daily
(facial irritation from daily shaving was _why_ I
started down the path of using a straight razor in the
first place, btw).

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

Re: Re: Computers
By: tenser to Bob Worm on Mon Aug 05 2024 00:28:15

Heh, that's true. "And now, I'd like to discuss amateur
radio...."

Heha - this one hits home. I got my Amateur Radio license during lockdown and upgraded it to the middle tier, but for every lovely helpful person I ran into on that journey there was another, obnoxious one who looked down on anyone who had the audacity to be trying to learn the hobby rather than a multi-decade veteran with thousands invested in kit.

So, Yeah, I didn't even bother claiming my intermediate callsign and the handheld radio has been unused in my glovebox for about 3 years. Meanwhile the question keeps coming up of why amateur radio is dying out...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not one to get upset if some stranger is rude or mean to me. I just don't find it fun so why would I bother turning my radio back on?

BobW
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: >>> Magnum BBS <<< - bbs.magnum.uk.net (21:1/205)

I think people just have this in-built desire to be the king of some kind castle, even if it's a crappy one, and that part just goes out of control the Internet :)

The effort put into an argument is inversely proportional to the stakes. :D

-̹ƒlian

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2024/05/29 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Archaic Binary (21:2/132)

Re: Re: Computers
By: halian to Bob Worm on Sun Aug 04 2024 20:12:10

The effort put into an argument is inversely proportional to the stakes. :D

That's so universally true I can't believe I never noticed...

Thanks for changing my life :)

BobW
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: >>> Magnum BBS <<< - bbs.magnum.uk.net (21:1/205)

StormTrooper wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

This was when email was the "killer app".

Eudora!

I know I've told this story before, but I worked in a company with a
mixture of Mac and Windows PCs back in the '90s. We used a LAN-based
email system called Quickmail and needed 3 or 4 servers to support 70
clients.

I bought a site license for Eudora 2.2, set up a BSD box on an unused
desktop and moved all of our mail services over to it. Figured out how
to push out address books, built auto-responders when Eudora 3.0 came
out for the customer service team, and generally loved it.

I remember the sound of a room full of Eudora clients chiming when mail arrived...



--- MultiMail/Win v0.52
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

BY: Bob Worm (21:1/205)

|11BW|09> |10So, Yeah, I didn't even bother claiming my intermediate callsign and the|07
|11BW|09> |10handheld radio has been unused in my glovebox for about 3 years.|07
|11BW|09> |10Meanwhile the question keeps coming up of why amateur radio is dying|07
|11BW|09> |10out...|07
Yeah, amatuer radio has more of a potential to grow than bbsing.


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I remember the sound of a room full of Eudora clients chiming when mail arrived...

Similarly but unrelated to some early MUD days... they weren't filtering ctl-chrs, you could tell who was playing by "shout what ctl-g ctl-g" and wait for the terminals to ring :)

ST

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
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Utopian Galt wrote to Bob Worm <=-

Yeah, amatuer radio has more of a potential to grow than bbsing.

I'm surprised CB radio isn't hanging on more with the truckers. I took a
long trip up I-80 and was expecting to see CB antennas on trucks like I
did when I was a kid - only the odd truck had a visible CB antenna.

It seems like such a great way to pass time with whoever's around you
when you're on the road - especially when trying to get traffic and road conditions.



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Re: Re: Computers
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Utopian Galt on Tue Aug 06 2024 07:27 am

I'm surprised CB radio isn't hanging on more with the truckers. I took a long trip up I-80 and was expecting to see CB antennas on trucks like I did when I was a kid - only the odd truck had a visible CB antenna.

It seems like such a great way to pass time with whoever's around you when you're on the road - especially when trying to get traffic and road conditions.

Maybe truckers have other things now with smartphones. I wonder if there's a smartphone app that provides something similar to CB radio, with different voice chat channels on some central server(s).. Also, I imagine there are smartphone apps that could provide voice-controlled games you could play (trivia games, Q&A guessing games, etc.).

Nightfox
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Re: Re: Computers
By: Nightfox to poindexter FORTRAN on Tue Aug 06 2024 08:18 am

Maybe truckers have other things now with smartphones. I wonder if there's smartphone app that provides something similar to CB radio, with different voice chat channels on some central server(s).. Also, I imagine there are smartphone apps that could provide voice-controlled games you could play (trivia games, Q&A guessing games, etc.).

WHILE DRIVING THOUSANDS OF POUNDS OF METAL ON THE HIGHWAY?
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Re: Re: Computers
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Nightfox on Tue Aug 06 2024 03:50 pm

Maybe truckers have other things now with smartphones. I wonder if there's
smartphone app that provides something similar to CB radio, with different
voice chat channels on some central server(s).. Also, I imagine there are
smartphone apps that could provide voice-controlled games you could play
(trivia games, Q&A guessing games, etc.).

WHILE DRIVING THOUSANDS OF POUNDS OF METAL ON THE HIGHWAY?

Wouldn't it be the same issue with using a CB radio?

Nightfox
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Nightfox wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

WHILE DRIVING THOUSANDS OF POUNDS OF METAL ON THE HIGHWAY?

Wouldn't it be the same issue with using a CB radio?

You leave a CB on channel 17 or 19, and raise the microphone to your
mouth to speak. You don't take your eyes off the road.



--- MultiMail/Win v0.52
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Re: Re: Computers
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Nightfox on Wed Aug 07 2024 07:54 am

WHILE DRIVING THOUSANDS OF POUNDS OF METAL ON THE HIGHWAY?

Wouldn't it be the same issue with using a CB radio?

You leave a CB on channel 17 or 19, and raise the microphone to your mouth to speak. You don't take your eyes off the road.

That would be basically the same with a voice-activated game on a smartphone. And it might even be better with a smartphone, since you wouldn't even need to hold anything in your hands.. You can often say "Hey Google" and your smartphone will respond, and if there are voice-activated games, you wouldn't need to hold anything in your hands.

Nightfox
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³ > Maybe truckers have other things now with smartphones. I wonder if there's ³ > smartphone app that provides something similar to CB radio, with different ³ > voice chat channels on some central server(s).. Also, I imagine there are ³ > smartphone apps that could provide voice-controlled games you could play
³ > (trivia games, Q&A guessing games, etc.).
³
³ WHILE DRIVING THOUSANDS OF POUNDS OF METAL ON THE HIGHWAY?
ÀÄ[PF=>N]

He didn't suggest it was a *good* idea. ;)

Mike

##Mmr 2.61á. !link PF 8-06-24 15:50
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On 04 Aug 2024 at 10:16p, Bob Worm pondered and said...

Re: Re: Computers
By: tenser to Bob Worm on Mon Aug 05 2024 00:28:15

Heh, that's true. "And now, I'd like to discuss amateur
radio...."

Heha - this one hits home. I got my Amateur Radio license during
lockdown and upgraded it to the middle tier, but for every lovely
helpful person I ran into on that journey there was another, obnoxious
one who looked down on anyone who had the audacity to be trying to learn the hobby rather than a multi-decade veteran with thousands invested in kit.

Hear, hear. Also, the emphasis on HF as the end-all, be-all
of the hobby. "Why aren't people upgrading?!" When I suggest
that people ask new hams why they don't upgrade, they just
look at me funny. It's like a completely foreign concept to
them or something.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

On 04 Aug 2024 at 08:02p, Utopian Galt pondered and said...

BY: Bob Worm (21:1/205)

So, Yeah, I didn't even bother claiming my intermediate callsign and t handheld radio has been unused in my glovebox for about 3 years. Meanwhile the question keeps coming up of why amateur radio is dying out...

Yeah, amatuer radio has more of a potential to grow than bbsing.

Indeed. I try to tell people that the cool thing about amateur
radio is that you get access to spectrum. Most engineers I know
just don't care. LoRa and Zigbee sucked a lot of air out of the
room, and the attitude and backwardness of the hobby turn off the
rest. Encryption is often given as a reason for a lack of growth.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
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Re: Re: Computers
By: tenser to Bob Worm on Thu Aug 08 2024 19:52:49

Hear, hear. Also, the emphasis on HF as the end-all, be-all
of the hobby. "Why aren't people upgrading?!" When I suggest
that people ask new hams why they don't upgrade, they just
look at me funny. It's like a completely foreign concept to
them or something.

I don't have a big enough garden to run a 20m wire antenna down it, the neighbours would probably have something to say about a big pole holding it up, too. My wife would *definitely* have *a lot* to say about any kind of aerial going up. So I'd have to go with some kind of serious compromise antenna.

Given that, I'm not about to throw a couple of grand at a radio, tuner, test kit, etc. just to see if I get on with it - especially since a lot of HF work just seems to be hello, swap call sign / location / signal strength, maybe kit list, then goodbye. Everyone is entitled to enjoy radio in their own way but that's not my kind of fun.

BobW
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Wouldn't it be the same issue with using a CB radio?

You leave a CB on channel 17 or 19, and raise the microphone to your
mouth to speak. You don't take your eyes off the road.

Keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel...

Was told a story once, by an OLD sales rep... If you're going to drink and drive, only drink long neck bottles, so you can still see the road.... Was well before any breathalysers.

ST

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
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I don't have a big enough garden to run a 20m wire antenna down it, the

Just go vertical and call it a flag pole :P

ST

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
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Re: Re: Computers
By: StormTrooper to Bob Worm on Thu Aug 08 2024 08:57:11

Hi, StormTrooper.

Just go vertical and call it a flag pole :P

Hmm... My wife once commented that my parents were mad for letting me put an 18' vertical on the side of their house when I was a teenager. Something tells me that's not going to "fly" :)

BobW
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Just go vertical and call it a flag pole :P

Hmm... My wife once commented that my parents were mad for letting me
put an 18' vertical on the side of their house when I was a teenager. Something tells me that's not going to "fly" :)

A washing line perhaps then?

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
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On 08 Aug 2024 at 09:19a, Bob Worm pondered and said...

Given that, I'm not about to throw a couple of grand at a radio, tuner, test kit, etc. just to see if I get on with it - especially since a lot
of HF work just seems to be hello, swap call sign / location / signal strength, maybe kit list, then goodbye. Everyone is entitled to enjoy radio in their own way but that's not my kind of fun.

Exactly! It boggles my mind the number of people who
just can't understand that.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
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Given that, I'm not about to throw a couple of grand at a radio, tuner, te kit, etc. just to see if I get on with it - especially since a lot of HF w just seems to be hello, swap call sign / location / signal strength, maybe list, then goodbye. Everyone is entitled to enjoy radio in their own way b that's not my kind of fun.

This is the boat I'm in. I think ham radio is pretty neat, and got the Amateur Radio badge when I was in the Boy Scouts, but I don't have the money or brain space to actually get into amateur radio.

-̹ƒlian

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2024/05/29 (Windows/32)
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³ As much as we love Linux, there are "too many" variations for it to take
³ hold. It does well in the server arena, but not the desktop.
ÀÄ[M=>PF]

I disagree. I have been using Linux (usually Debian) for ~24 years now as
my primary desktop OS. I have not had a Windows machine since the XP days
and I am able to do just about everything I want to with linux.

It emulates DOS quite well, too.

Mike

##Mmr 2.61á. !link M 8-11-24 10:10
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³ On this last piece of your post: MS didn't "establish itself"... they did some
³ kind of shady move with IBM to have their OS pre-installed in OEM computers for
³ a good few years, until it was irreversible. I know american folks (coming from
³ "the land of opportunity and the free and brave), see these 'corporate moves' ³ as not so much as "shady", but you gotta give that that's not quite "squeaky ³ clean"...
ÀÄ[M=>M]

This American saw them as shady, and still does.

Mike

##Mmr 2.61á. !link M 8-11-24 15:42
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MIKE POWELL wrote to MHANSEL739 <=-

| As much as we love Linux, there are "too many" variations for it to take
| hold. It does well in the server arena, but not the desktop.

I disagree. I have been using Linux (usually Debian) for ~24 years now
as my primary desktop OS. I have not had a Windows machine since the
XP days and I am able to do just about everything I want to with linux.

Exactly the same here, other than with Slackware instead of Debian.
Exactly.

It emulates DOS quite well, too.

It does everything well. :-)



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I disagree. I have been using Linux (usually Debian) for ~24 years now
my primary desktop OS. I have not had a Windows machine since the XP d
and I am able to do just about everything I want to with linux.

That is fair. But are we the execptions to the "rule" - as we are more technical than others? I have a Linux distro on one of my laptops, but do
not use it. The majority of the things I do are MS based. I know you can
do almost everything with some alternate software on Linux.
Lost my train of thought. I suppose, is it that many of the consumers are unwilling to take the chance or lack the discipline to learn something "different"? Or has Linux gotten a reputation for being "overly
technical"?
--Matt

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Re: Re: Computers
By: Mhansel739 to MIKE POWELL on Tue Aug 13 2024 07:42 am

take the chance or lack the discipline to learn something "different"? Or has Linux gotten a reputation for being "overly technical"?

I feel like Linux has always been fairly technical, but I think it has gotten better in recent years with the various GUI window managers and desktop environments. Depending on the Linux distro, I think the user experience can be somewhat similar to Mac OS now, where you can use GUI applications for many things, but also go to the command line to do some tasks if you want to.

These days, my favorite Linux distro is Linux Mint. I've been using it on a secondary PC (my BBS PC) since about 2015, and it has always been fairly easy to maintain and update, and has been very stable. Linux Mint is available in editions with Cinnamon, Xfce, and I think one or two other GUI environments. I like the Cinnamon and Xfce environments; I've been using the one with Xfce on my BBS PC, and my main PC is set up to dual-boot between Windows and Linux Mint with Cinnamon.

Nightfox
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On 13 Aug 24 12:11:52 Nightfox wrote...

Re: Re: Computers By: Mhansel739 to MIKE POWELL on Tue Aug 13
2024 07:42 am

take the chance or lack the discipline to learn something
"different"? Or has Linux gotten a reputation for being "overly technical"?

I feel like Linux has always been fairly technical, but I think it
has gotten better in recent years with the various GUI window
managers and desktop environments. Depending on the Linux distro, I
think the user experience can be somewhat similar to Mac OS now,
where you can use GUI applications for many things, but also go to
the command line to do some tasks if you want to.

These days, my favorite Linux distro is Linux Mint. I've been using
it on a secondary PC (my BBS PC) since about 2015, and it has always
been fairly easy to maintain and update, and has been very stable.
Linux Mint is available in editions with Cinnamon, Xfce, and I think
one or two other GUI environments. I like the Cinnamon and Xfce environments; I've been using the one with Xfce on my BBS PC, and my
main PC is set up to dual-boot between Windows and Linux Mint with Cinnamon.

Nightfox --- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

To which Bf2K+ replies...

I have just setup Linux Mint (Xfce) on one of my laptops to start playing
with it. I really like it so far. When I retire in the next couple of
years, I want to completely remove myself from Micro$oft systems and go elsewhere (if I can). Due to work requirements, I can't do it right now
but I am definitely thinking about it already...

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³ That is fair. But are we the execptions to the "rule" - as we are more
³ technical than others? I have a Linux distro on one of my laptops, but do
³ not use it. The majority of the things I do are MS based. I know you can
³ do almost everything with some alternate software on Linux.
³ Lost my train of thought. I suppose, is it that many of the consumers are
³ unwilling to take the chance or lack the discipline to learn something
³ "different"? Or has Linux gotten a reputation for being "overly
³ technical"?
ÀÄ[M=>MP]

That last bit could be. I think the main thing is that when they go to buy
a computer (and IF they ever do... a lot of individuals have moved to cell phones and pads now), Microsoft is very likely what is on it.

In order to find something with linux on it, they either have to look specifically for it or install it themselves.

I am not so certain it has as much to do with linux software being
different or even more technical as it does with linux being less likely to
be pre-installed.

Microsoft may no longer have the monopolistic deals with PC makers
regarding preinstallation of their software (or maybe they do?), but I
think the damage was long done before that was stopped.

Mike

##Mmr 2.61á. !link M 8-13-24 7:42
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Re: Re: Computers
By: Bf2K+ to Nightfox on Wed Aug 14 2024 03:41 pm

I have just setup Linux Mint (Xfce) on one of my laptops to start playing with it. I really like it so far. When I retire in the next couple of years, I want to completely remove myself from Micro$oft systems and go elsewhere (if I can). Due to work requirements, I can't do it right now but I am definitely thinking about it already...

I've considered going entirely to Linux, and I probably could except for some software I liked to use which isn't available for Linux. A couple of those are photo & video editing tools (Topaz Labs Video AI and Topaz Gigapixel), and I do also like to play PC games sometimes.. There are some PC games I like which aren't available for Linux, such as Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, though it looks like there is an increasing number of PC games that have Linux native versions available, and Windows versions that might run in Linux with Proton or Wine.

Nightfox
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Re: Re: Computers
By: Mhansel739 to MIKE POWELL on Tue Aug 13 2024 07:42 am

That is fair. But are we the execptions to the "rule" - as we are more technical than others? I have a Linux distro on one of my laptops, but do not use it. The majority of the things I do are MS based. I know you can
do almost everything with some alternate software on Linux.
Lost my train of thought. I suppose, is it that many of the consumers are unwilling to take the chance or lack the discipline to learn something "different"? Or has Linux gotten a reputation for being "overly
technical"?
--Matt

I think the public does not know what Linux is at all. It does not have really a reputation.

Desktop Linux does great in two scenarios. The first one is when you set it up for some IT illiterate who knows nothing about computers and only wants to watch foal videos online. This is the sort of person who would buy an old Windows computer and ask the store guy to set office for her. Usually you can set Linux for these people and they won't notice the difference since they never attempt any administrative task on their own, regardless of OS.

The second one is when power users set it up for themselves. Power users will do lots of horrible things to their computer trying to achieve weird results, but since they are the sort who loves reading documentation and fixing and tweaking things, the fact an OS can get more technical than others is a non-issue. In fact, it is a bonus.

Heck, my videogaming group uses an old Linux graming rig. The owner squarely falls in the power user category. He hates Linux (because he hates everything and everybody, actually) but when asked why doesn't he migrate, he answers "This crap allows me to run modern stuff without buying new hardware."

The people who really get burned by Linux are the ones in the middle of the road: people who manages "ok" with computers but can't bother doing their own research for solving problems. This is the sort of people who expects to be able to administrate their own computers but don't want to put any work on it. They will run into an issue sooner or later, do a quick web search for it, realize the issue involves a terminal emulator, and switch back to Windows.


--
gopher://gopher.richardfalken.com/1/richardfalken
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I am not so certain it has as much to do with linux software being different or even more technical as it does with linux being less likel
be pre-installed.

Microsoft may no longer have the monopolistic deals with PC makers regarding preinstallation of their software (or maybe they do?), but I think the damage was long done before that was stopped.

Mike, I think that you hit the nail on the head. When you go to a store
(or Amazon for that matter), the computers that you find to buy all have Windows installed or are MacOS. Those are the 2 most likely choices a
user has. And their purchase is based on a need - a need to get a
computer that is working right now, and taking the time to install a new
OS is not a top priority.

Yes, the damage has been done. The end users are going to buy what they
buy and use it as is (aside from maybe adding some additional software).
They want easy and convenient.
--Matt

--- RATSoft/FIDO v09.14.95 [JetMail 1.01]
* Origin: STar Fleet HQ - Real Atari! bbs.sfhqbbs.org:5983 (21:3/171.0)

Re: Re: Computers
By: Mhansel739 to MIKE POWELL on Thu Aug 15 2024 06:59 am

Microsoft may no longer have the monopolistic deals with PC makers
regarding preinstallation of their software (or maybe they do?), but I
think the damage was long done before that was stopped.

Mike, I think that you hit the nail on the head. When you go to a store (or Amazon for that matter), the computers that you find to buy all have Windows installed or are MacOS. Those are the 2 most likely choices a user has. And their purchase is based on a need - a need to get a computer that is working right now, and taking the time to install a new OS is not a top priority.

Yes, the damage has been done. The end users are going to buy what they buy and use it as is (aside from maybe adding some additional software). They want easy and convenient.

These days, I think another factor is that there are a lot of people using tablets and smartphones for a lot of tasks, and retailers selling computers might just be putting less effort into the desktop/laptop computers they sell, because those aren't selling as much as they did years ago.

Nightfox
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Mike, I think that you hit the nail on the head. When you go to a store (or Amazon for that matter), the computers that you find to buy all have Windows installed or are MacOS. Those are the 2 most likely choices a
user has. And their purchase is based on a need - a need to get a
computer that is working right now, and taking the time to install a new OS is not a top priority.

There are some locals that will flog you a new system with some distro linux on it, although they tend to be few and far between. The other thing MicroSloth and Apple have going for them is consistency... you can pretty much be certain what works now, will work in the next version... Not sure if its still the case, but it used to feel like reinventing the wheel every time you got a new linux install.. with whatever desktop manager was the flavour of the month.

The other thing is, for better or worse Windoze remains the lowest common denominator, so its more than likely going to do what some 95% of consumers are going to ask of it, and they won't look any further.

ST

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
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Re: Re: Computers
By: StormTrooper to Mhansel739 on Fri Aug 16 2024 03:09 pm

The other thing is, for better or worse Windoze remains the lowest common denominator, so its more than likely going to do what some 95% of consumers are going to ask of it, and they won't look any further.

In the 90s, I was hopeful that OS/2 might somehow overtake Windows, but I think there was a certain point in the early-mid 90s that once Windows became common enough, it already had enough momentum to make it domiant enough that other operating systems would have a hard time gaining traction.

Later, I tried BeOS and I really liked it, but it was the late 90s when BeOS was ported to PCs, and I think it was already too late by then. I thought BeOS was really user-friendly, looked nice, and worked well though.. It would have been cool to see BeOS as a standard desktop OS.
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These days, I think another factor is that there are a lot of people us tablets and smartphones for a lot of tasks, and retailers selling compu might just be putting less effort into the desktop/laptop computers the sell, because those aren't selling as much as they did years ago.

Nightfox

That is a good point. I know my dad has moved strictly to an iPad and
iPhone for his use of computing technology. My step-mom got a
hand-me-down laptop from me (with Windows 11), but she is still
"committed" to using a "computer". My wife only uses her computer (a
MacBook) to do homework on, or her work laptop for work-related things.
Yes, most definitely people are moving away from the use of a "real
computer", reducing the efforts put into them by manufacturers. And the
way some of the tablets are going, the lines are being blurred between a laptop/notebook and a tablet. Hell, my Kindle Fire 11 Max has a keyboard
and stylus that can be added to it.
--Matt

--- RATSoft/FIDO v09.14.95 [JetMail 1.01]
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³There are some locals that will flog you a new system with some distro linux on
³it, although they tend to be few and far between. The other thing MicroSloth ³and Apple have going for them is consistency... you can pretty much be certain ³what works now, will work in the next version... Not sure if its still the ³case, but it used to feel like reinventing the wheel every time you got a new ³linux install.. with whatever desktop manager was the flavour of the month. ÀÄ[S=>M]

Most distros (at least the debian based ones I have tried) have become pretty good at picking a default desktop manager and sticking to it.

Most of the applications tend to remain intact. If you do a fresh install, there are still times where some may disappear. I like using the medit
text editor on my desktop, but it went out of support a debian version or
two ago. I still have it on a box that was upgraded but it is missing by default on any fresh install.

I can remember having to change most of my "favorite applications" every time
I upgraded, so being down to one that disappeared over the last two
upgrades is an improvement.

³The other thing is, for better or worse Windoze remains the lowest common ³denominator, so its more than likely going to do what some 95% of consumers are
³going to ask of it, and they won't look any further.
ÀÄ[S=>M]

Yes, it is likely what they are using at work, for one.

Mike

##Mmr 2.61á. !link S 8-16-24 15:09
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I don't know why but, in comparison to today's internet and social
media, I feel now that we are a lot less likely to be exposed to rampant misinformation back then.

i agree! :D

--mary4 (Victoria Crenshaw) the 286 enthusiast

... DOS=HIGH? I knew it was on something...

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Datanet BBS | telnet://datanetbbs.net:23 (21:1/166)

SQZ, SqueezeIt gave exactly the same file size as ARJ a -jm but I just used it to be contrary and had all the BBS archives converted to it :)
It was never popular anywhere else in my memory...

Interesting. I did not know that one.

I had ZIP,RAR, LHA (thanks to Amigans), ARC (Atari), ARJ, ACE was the best one in my case when I was often comparing compression ratios. Also not that popular in the later years. ZIP was conquered by RAR thanks to its easy interface to create 1.44 partial archives to bundle something bigger and distribute via floppies.

-h1

... Xerox Alto was the thing. Anything after we use is just a mere copy.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2024/05/29 (Linux/64)
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