The geminauts (Was: Gempub 1.0.0 ; A new eBook format based on Gemini Protocol's Gemtext

[Chris Brannon]

"The Doctor [412/724/301/703/415/510]" <drwho@virtadpt.net> writes:

> Were you on any BBS networks, in particular?  I used to hang out on
> VampNET quite
> a bit; made a lot of friends there that regrettably I've lost contact
> with.

I was on PODSnet and FidoNet sometimes, but mainly spent time on local
echoes.  Most of the friends I made in the BBS world were local.

> I had AOL access for a time in high school.  Not ashamed to admit it.  The
> libraries and encyclopedias had MLA citation formats with them, so it was
> easy (albeit weird to the baselines) to use them when writing papers.  They
> had an AP newswire, too,

Funny you should mention that.  I was on the debate team for a while,
and access to news and libraries for debate team purposes was my
justification for getting set up with CompuServ.

> Excellent.  I was a telerama.com customer for quite a few years.

I also used concentric.net quite a bit.  If I recall correctly, they
were one of the first ISPs to offer unlimited plans.  Initially I used
my friend's shell account, but I lost that access when his religious
parents discovered some of the stuff I had been saving from usenet and
anonymous ftp sites.  Concentric shell accounts were where I learned
Unix.

I eventually moved on to local ISPs, and there were a lot to
choose from.  That is one of the things I miss from dialup; there was
real diversity of choice among different providers.