Time Machine: Introduction

No, not Apple's breakthrough automatic backup solution. I'm talking about 1.21 gigawatts of online nostalgia, a trip down memory lane. This article does have prerequisite on age. Some of the reference made may very well predate your existence. I am starting this timeline at my introduction to computer telecommunication. I was involved in computers for some time before this, but modems and such were not widely available yet (plus my mom wouldn't buy me one).

How many of you were online before the Internet was widely available? I'm talking local BBSes, AOL, CompuServe, and Tymnet/X.25. Ever got online from C64 or TRS-80 on a B&W television. Have you ever saved email to a cassette tape? There were my early days. My first email address was: 1:275/22.11. If the format of that address is not familiar to you it comes from a network called FidoNet.

"Back in the day", FidoNet was the only WAN that was readily accessible from the public. It used a host<->host routing system not unlike what is used in today's Internet, the big difference was that each message that a host had to route required the host to dial-in to the remote host using POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) with a modem. Unfortunately, most BBS hosts were run by working-class individuals who usually had at most only 2 or 3 dial-in lines and were always busy. You could be redialing for hours before making a successful connection (and 300 or 1200bps). Needless to say, but FidoNet message took forever to get delivered, days and sometimes weeks.

There were great times. Everyone you met online was just as excited and passionate as you were about this new telecommunication phenomenon. Everywhere you ventured there was a great possibility that you were discovering new territory. The entire world was beginning to jack-in, public wide-area networking in it's infancy creating a whole universe of unexplored, exciting adventures.


...on the next episode of Time Machine; commercial online services (AOL, CompuServe)