Any former “CompuServers” around?

[expertc]

Music post by FagEnd put me into nostalgic mood.

Many years ago, last millennium to be precise, I put up my first website on the ourworld. And I was CompuSeve member for many years.

Still remember my ID 101513,1555.

I wonder how many CompuSevers are around this forum. Anyone remembers his/her CS ID?

 

[JMOT]

Cant remember the ID but I remember surfing porn for the first time using them when I was about 13 and HOW LONG it took a page to download

 

[stevebrowne]

yup, can't remember my ID though. Used to work for them in Reading as well, back in the day.

 

[monaghan]

That's going back a while! The company I was working for paid my membership until we had full Internet access through the firewall (well full Internet access in those days was a shell account on the box in what we now call a DMZ, file transfers were a 2 stage ftp down to the SUN and then ftp to my desktop PC)

 

[packeted]

Anyone use BBC Networking Club?

 

[monaghan]

Anyone use BBC Networking Club?

No, but I did help run the Amstrad BBS for about a year back in the days when 1200baud was fast and the 2400baud modems we had on the BBS were out of this world

 

[expertc]

No, but I did help run the Amstrad BBS for about a year back in the days when 1200baud was fast and the 2400baud modems we had on the BBS were out of this world

He-he… memory lane, huh? Well in 1991 my boss issued me with portable (!!!) battery operated 2400 modem. I’ve configured a mini-computer running PICK (I wonder if anyone now knows what PICK is :??? with 16-port Monolith card to run as in-office modem pool. Remote clients were running VT100 terminal emulation in DOS.

 

[crabfoot]

I had a compuserve account 20 years ago, then I got mugged by one of those "upgrade your compuserve software" disks - it put me on to UK Compuserve, and I was double billed from UK and US for 8 months before I noticed I was paying in two places.

Then I killed the US account. Soon after the UK arm was wound up, and I ended up with AOL.

Those were the days when you could find useful info on the www...

 

[monaghan]

I wonder if anyone now knows what PICK is :???:

Isn't it a multi user database based OS? I've never actually used it myself, have always been a VAX / PDP11 / UNIX guy

 

[newguy]

Cant remember the ID but I remember surfing porn for the first time using them when I was about 13 and HOW LONG it took a page to download

Hah, I remember those days!

 

[monaghan]

Anyone have a PC with a sound card back in those days? I remember upgrading my work PC reinstalling Compuserve and suddenly hearing it speak "You have new mail". Common place now, but back then in pre-www days it was a real novelty

 

[mat]

Maybe we should open a OAP Domainers section?

The Internet was in full swing when I was younger, 56k dialup was about as bad as it got! You can probably say im part of the "geocities generation".

 

[monaghan]

56K dialup - such luxury! My first personally owned modem was 28.8K as I changed jobs in the mid 90's and lost Internet access for the 1st time in about 8 years so needed to get my fix at home. CableTel then introduced a free dialup service that dropped after 1 hour so I got a 2nd line for £5/month and set an auto-dial ppp connection and had a more or less permenant Internet connection at home - luxury

 

[expertc]

Isn't it a multi user database based OS? I've never actually used it myself, have always been a VAX / PDP11 / UNIX guy

It was indeed. And, you might be surprised, still used these days.
VAX - we had that in our Uni! Never came across it after. And yes, my workstation was state-of-art WYSE 50 terminal.

Maybe we should open a OAP Domainers section?

Young man, we were making the Internet!
56k modem... for a start... those youngsters...

 

[Ging]

Accoustic coupler for me... . Internet was not around for public consumption. These were the days before demon etc. I used to login to a BBS that you could then drop off onto "the internet". Ftp,gopher, email and usenet was it. Pretty barren. Hung out on BBS for a long time running up £600 a month quarter phone bills.

Then a local cable provider started offering free evening calls between users of the cable network. Enterprising persons set up a POP and that was it.Complete internet access for 9.99 a month. Around the same time mosaic appeared and it all started for me. Was young at the time and saw that it would change everything but wasn't mature enough to grasp how it could be applied.

Anyone remember Jungle.com ? Bought by Amazon.com . Was there even a dispute process back then for passing off ?

 

[monaghan]

The VAX was a very nice environment to work with, I had a full documentation set for the systems I used to manage, that took up a complete large book cabinet. We had a pair of vector graphic terminals on one of the VAXes used for PCB layout, large 21" monitors driven by a standalone rack controller, mostly VT220 terminals, there was at least 1 terminal which allowed you to choose between green on black, white on black or amber on black - very posh

I found a picture via Google to show the kids as they thought I was winding them up when I described this computer that took up a room, i had a massive 200Mb per removable disk pack.

 

[HariSeldon]

I put up my first website on the ourworld.

Incredibly my first web site from 1995 is still live here (last updated 1996 when I bought my first domain and moved hosts!)

Wonder why the colour scheme never really took off? My web design skills haven't really changed much since then.

No, but I did help run the Amstrad BBS for about a year back in the days when 1200baud was fast and the 2400baud modems we had on the BBS were out of this world

Same here, never got into Compuserve but was into FidoNet and BBS's in a big way back then.

 

[expertc]

Anyone remember Jungle.com ? Bought by Amazon.com .

The company I worked for that time had a corporate account with them. And the were also offering dial-up service. Still have tons of used green JungleMedia CDRs somewhere...

 

[expertc]

On VAX we were running symbolic math (solving differential equations). That time I was doing Theoretical Physics. It was taking the whole night to run the code.

Fido... expensive but one of best places for techies. My first website was up till last July, when they have closed ourworld completely. It even had ... frames!

 

[monaghan]

With my VAXes my users were running mostly ADA & Coral 66 cross compiling down to custom hardware for military radio systems on one system, PCB design on another and a bespoke (Fortran) parts management system on another.

Anyone use the Tower BBS systems? Not as popular as Fido, but still a good community base.