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Usenet was more widely available than that, lots of small tech companies and individuals were connected, you didn't need an internet connection, anyone who coul
by Taniwha 5y ago
Usenet was more widely available than that, lots of small tech companies and individuals were connected, you didn't need an internet connection, anyone who could swing UUCP (ie a unix box and a modem) could join - the whole continent of Australia joined by air-mailing magtapes (ping times were low)
- Turing_Machine 5y agoYou didn't even really need a Unix box. There were implementations of Usenet (and the underlying UUCP transport protocol) for other operating systems, for example the Waffle BBS for MS-DOS. Ah, the joys of getting a $500 long distance phone bill.
- vidarh 5y agoI got Usenet via UUCP on my Amiga exchanged with a BBS that in turn exchanged with their upstream over dialup as well, about 4 times a day. My first "web" access was via CERN's e-mail to www gateway. If I timed it right, and CERNs e-mail gateway was fast enough, I could request a URL, exchange with my upstream, have them send the e-mail to their upstream and download the result in one exchange, and then I'd dial back in 15-20 minutes later and get the page. If I was unlucky I had to wait for the next exchange 6 hours later. It's my "and we walked uphill both ways, in the snow" story.
- TomMasz 5y agoI ran UUCP on a Mac Plus, of all things. But it was a local call for me.
- mbreese 5y agoI’m still surprise my parents didn’t kill me from long distance bills in high school. I had a BBS that exchanged mail with Fido and Usenet with UUCP. Sadly, the nearest nodes were outside the local calling area. When a new ISP started up in the next town over, I was so excited to finally have a local number to call.