🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sun, 5 Aug 2018, JimP wrote:

> 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.
>
We didn't get "computer shows" locally until the early nineties, but the 
places selling the shareware disks was some of the best reason to go to 
them.

About 1996, one local business, it was actually an electronic parts store, 
offered custom downloading.  So if you didn't yet have internet access, 
and it was right before that became common, they'd fill a floppy disk for 
you for a few dollars, they had a printed listing.  That was a great idea 
right at that time, and then in a few years there wasn't a point to it, so 
many had access.

Even about 2005, I spent a week downloading a bit of a linux distribution 
each night, just getting the key parts, and then realized one of the UK 
Linux magazines had that distribution on the cover disc.  I was lucky, the 
issue was still on the newsstands here, so I gladly paid the $20 or so to 
get it, nice and handy.  But that was when I was still on dialup.

   Michael