Thanks for Trumpet Winsock
thanksfortrumpetwinsock.com
Thanks for Trumpet Winsock
1–10 of 123 posts
Re: Thanks for Trumpet Winsock
#2When I set that site up in 2011, it was really heart-warming how many people rallied around and chipped in.
It's doubly nostalgic to see it here again, 5 years later.
Edit: and there's still room on that donors page for any companies wanting to chip in something substantial.
Edit 2: 5 years, not 4.
Re: Thanks for Trumpet Winsock
#3Oh man, the memories.
For people who have grown up in a hyper-connected always-online world, it's hard to explain the pure joy of hearing the sound of your computer picking up the phone and sending those tones [0]. Because it meant going from isolated, disconnected and unitary to being part of a wider world.
Suddenly, everything was at your fingertips and it was intoxicating to me as a teenager. Fire up Trumpet Winsock and dial into the local mom and pop ISP. Suddenly you're surfing the early web using Netscape. Or open up WinVN and read some newsgroups. Or spend way, way too many hours playing MUDs (seriously, I think I spent almost every night MUDding during my teenage years).
Or learning cool HTML tricks by looking at the source of a page (back when pages were simple and you could tell things by looking at the source). Some of my earliest exposure to "programming" was because I wanted to make cool web things on my 1mb of ISP provided web space.
So yes, thank you Trumpet Winsock. Without you my formative years would have been very different and I likely wouldn't be in the career I'm in now.
[0] http://www.windytan.com/2012/11/the-sound-of-dialup-pictured...
Re: Thanks for Trumpet Winsock
#4I have fond memories of the transition from local BBSes (my parents were annoyed enough by my constant phoning of the local BBS to download commander keen and the like), to IP connectivity via Trumpet. The reach of the internet (esp IRC!) was mind-blowing for someone living in a relatively isolated community in Alaska at the time.
I feel like I don't fully appreciate the gradual transition from dial-up and Trumpet to LTE and a supercomputer in my pocket :) I wonder what people born today will experience that has as great of an impact.
Re: Thanks for Trumpet Winsock
#5I was using an Amiga with the Miami TCP stack back then, which I paid for. My first Windows machine had Windows 95, which had networking built-in. But, I'm happy that some folks have made good on their shareware obligations. Writing software was a lot more difficult back then...I sometimes can't believe anything ever got done before we had the Internet to research things (and I know I personally was a much less effective developer before the Internet).
Re: Thanks for Trumpet Winsock
#6Oh man, the memories. For people who have grown up in a hyper-connected always-online world, it's hard to explain the pure joy of hearing the sound of your computer picking up the phone and sending those tones [0]. Because it meant going from isolated, disconnected and unitary to being part of a wider world. Suddenly, everything was at your fingertips and it was intoxicating to me as a teenager. Fire up Trumpet Winso…
Wow, MUDs I have not thought about the one I spent my teenage years playing until you mentioned them. I just checked and to my surprise it is still online. Too bad it looks like no one plays anymore.
Re: Thanks for Trumpet Winsock
#7I have fond memories of the transition from local BBSes (my parents were annoyed enough by my constant phoning of the local BBS to download commander keen and the like), to IP connectivity via Trumpet. The reach of the internet (esp IRC!) was mind-blowing for someone living in a relatively isolated community in Alaska at the time. I feel like I don't fully appreciate the gradual transition from dial-up and Trumpet to…
I remember the first time I did the email around the world trick. Back then you could telnet to port 25 and type in a smtp header with a source route and send an email that would bounce across a dozen mail servers as it circumnavigated the globe. Fun times.
Re: Thanks for Trumpet Winsock
#8I have fond memories of the transition from local BBSes (my parents were annoyed enough by my constant phoning of the local BBS to download commander keen and the like), to IP connectivity via Trumpet. The reach of the internet (esp IRC!) was mind-blowing for someone living in a relatively isolated community in Alaska at the time. I feel like I don't fully appreciate the gradual transition from dial-up and Trumpet to…
Heh. "local" -- ~1988 I was calling into BBSs in San Jose from Tahoe... the phone bill got to $926!
I was grounded for a month.
We wanted to play trade wars and the pit. Super fun.
I also used to call up 411 (information, where you would call 411 and say "do you have a number for John Smith in lake tahoe ca?") -- and I would chat up the 411 operators for as long as possible - the contest being to see how long we could keep the op on the phone.
Then I tried to make blue boxes.
Re: Thanks for Trumpet Winsock
#9I had a PC Shop in 1995-1997 we sold copies of a software product called Internet in a Box. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_a_Box
I think it competed with Trumpet Winsock. He had clients who used Trumpet Winsock but had problems configuring it so we helped them out.
It was later on with Windows 95 OSR2 that IE was bundled with it and it had a Winsock Dial Up Network stack that Internet in a Box and Winsock lost a lot of sales. I think they sold MSN subscriptions with it.
AOL and Compuserve competed with sending out free floppy disks and later on CD-ROMs. Then there was that $500 Internet rebate that made a PC basically free but had a $35/month dial up ISP bill to pay for it for five years.
But I remember people registering Trumpet Winsock for $25 and then choosing a mom and pop ISP. Trumpet Winsock was downloaded from a BBS, and was shareware and some ISPS gave out copies of it on a floppy disk when people signed up for service.
Re: Thanks for Trumpet Winsock
#10I have fond memories of the transition from local BBSes (my parents were annoyed enough by my constant phoning of the local BBS to download commander keen and the like), to IP connectivity via Trumpet. The reach of the internet (esp IRC!) was mind-blowing for someone living in a relatively isolated community in Alaska at the time. I feel like I don't fully appreciate the gradual transition from dial-up and Trumpet to…
I remember the first time I did the email around the world trick. Back then you could telnet to port 25 and type in a smtp header with a source route and send an email that would bounce across a dozen mail servers as it circumnavigated the globe. Fun times.
Yes!
I did the telnet thing to mail servers while I was in high school to good effect ;). I would almost certainly cringe if I could see those mails today.
Showing the school IT department what could be done with a semicolon in a URL on their servers would have gotten me suspended if it weren't for some understanding teachers. Thank god I only put a fork bomb (cringe of 2016 me is real) in there.