🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sat, 04 Aug 2018 23:01:10 -0400, Bud Frede <fr...@mouse-potato.com>
wrote:
>Michael Black <mbl...@pubnix.net> writes:
>
>>
>> It took me a long time to get online, but I knew about it since 1978
>> (Byte ran a series about computer networking,  which did reference
>> arpanet, and there was also an article about the first small computer
>> BBS).  I know every so often after I got a modem in 1985 I'd dial up a
>> local BBS, go through the process of  registering, and then discover
>> not much there, too small a population to be of interest to me.
>
>I first used a modem with an Apple ][+ or //e to connect to a local
>BBS. It wasn't until later on when I had a PC and a faster modem that I
>started using BBS more. It was fun to be able to communicate with people
>around the world using networks like FIDO or RIME.
>
>Then I started using the local Freenet and it had Usenet and I was
>hooked. I could also use one of the ftp by e-mail gateways (was one of
>them at DEC?) and somewhat painfully grab files from garbo or simtel-20.

[snip]

Ftpemail is how I got Amiga public domain files. They arrived
uuencoded in parts. I put them on a 720Kb ms-dos floppy. Took them
home. Booted up my A1000. Loaded my 'read msdos floppy' program.
Copied the emails into a ram: disk. Edited out parts of it so just the
uuencoded parts were left, did a join so how ever many were there. 1
of 20 up to 20 of 20, as an example. Then uudecoded the joined file.
And hope no errors. Then use lha if it was compressed, and hope I got
no errors for that.

If I got errors. Wait another month so I didn't get banned from the
ftp queue. Then try again. It gtypically took a month for the emails
to arrive back. Sometimes I would be missing a part of the emails.

Then I noticed in .info magazine a place I could order 3.5" public
distribution disks of Amiga pd and shareware files. Ordered some of
those.