81–90 of 123 posts
> Do you remember connecting to the Internet in 1994 or 1995? In 1993 I was already using Linux, with an actual TCP/IP stack, not some bolted-on thing. In 1994 I was doing contract work on Linux already. One of the jobs was for these guys, still chugging along: http://www.infomine.com/ They employed a group of full-time people who continuously gathered new information about mining prospecting going on around the worl…
In 1995 I was an expert in setting up Trumpet Winsock, paid to consult on its installation and configuration - even though I had never once installed it myself. That is to say, I was a tech support lackey, answering the phones and talking to dozens of dialup ISP users daily. It was a small company, and of the three techs there, none of us were Windows users - two Linux, one Mac. Someone had helpfully printed screensh…
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2283693
Hint: from scratch, reading RFCs, in Turbo Pascal, as a part of his internet newsreader project!
Also, http://petertattam.com is down currently, but
Works.
When 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.
I'm interested in how much is being donated. Do you have any plans of releasing some stats?
Oh 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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And let's not forget the great times that could be had by joining any large channel on IRC and sending a single command: /CTCP #channel PING +++ATH0 Interestingly enough, I tried it again a few months ago and was shocked to discover that it apparently still works.
Old cruft doesn't die. Old cruft even gets ported to new platforms. I installed https://github.com/SecUpwN/Android-IMSI-Catcher-Detector the other day and found a menu entry called "AT command interface", which I shall carefully leave alone.
> Do you remember connecting to the Internet in 1994 or 1995? In 1993 I was already using Linux, with an actual TCP/IP stack, not some bolted-on thing. In 1994 I was doing contract work on Linux already. One of the jobs was for these guys, still chugging along: http://www.infomine.com/ They employed a group of full-time people who continuously gathered new information about mining prospecting going on around the worl…
Same here. I hardly used Trumpet Winsock because using first 386BSD 0.0 and later Linux was just the better way to get online :-) I still think it's great that Trumpet Winsock was around though. The more people on the internet, the merrier. Who knows if the internet would be everywhere today if the Windows users had been left out.
I can answer that for you: yes, it would be. The value proposition is among the greatest that has existed in all of human history. The hardware was ready, the price was low enough, nothing was going to stop it; lack of a layperson standard mass-consumer OS would have just slowed it down briefly until one was inevitably created.
It would dial up a few times a day to exchange email using Demon's inbound SMTP (tenner-a-month account!), or one could laboriously route through it if one really needed something specific.
In summer 1995 they replaced it with an ISDN line.
Oh 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…
> those tones http://evilrouters.net/56k.mp3 (MP3) It's my ring tone. I love the weird looks on people's faces when I'm in a meeting and my phone rings -- especially the "older" crowd (some of the "youngsters" don't recognize the sound).
In 1995 I was an expert in setting up Trumpet Winsock, paid to consult on its installation and configuration - even though I had never once installed it myself. That is to say, I was a tech support lackey, answering the phones and talking to dozens of dialup ISP users daily. It was a small company, and of the three techs there, none of us were Windows users - two Linux, one Mac. Someone had helpfully printed screensh…
There was (and still is!) a great web site for this, letting you see where the various "Dial Up Networking" screens were in Windows: http://www.chasms.com/