I remember back before SLIP and PPP connections (for those of you who even know what those are) to a day when I had a subscription to a dial-up service called - I think - win.net.
It was a newsgroup and mail service that was basically dial-fetch-disconnect and you read and composed your replies and then connected again to send them and get the new messages. Everybody had a subdomain off of win.net and everybody’s account name was the same as their subdomain. I think my address was icp@icp.win.net or something like that. Maybe Foster’s memory is better than mine and he’ll remind me in a post what it was. Maxwell might remember too, but he’s getting old.
I remember a day before newsgroups were innundated with spam when you could actually participate in conversations without navigating through threads upon threads of penis enlargements advertisements. Once in a while you’d say something that struck a chord with someone and they’d e-mail you a personal response rather than reply in the newsgroup. Friendships were formed and every day was filled with anticipation of “what’s going to be in the e-mail today”.
Those days are gone. We have “instant messaging” now and people are too accessable. The beauty of e-mail was - and is - the fact that you can reply at your leisure. Now when your friend IM’s you and you don’t respond within 30 seconds they start crying and have a panic attack that you’re mad at them. E-mail was so much simplier - AND - it encouraged people to communicate in whole sentences.
I miss those days.
I’m definitely with you on this one. It used to be such a joy to check my email and have messages waiting from friends or family. Now, I can go a whole weekend “unplugged” and not miss a thing. All I ever get in email anymore is ads, newsletters, and support requests. Oh joy! I’ve serisouly considered disconnecting from my IM’s for a few weeks and starting back with email as my only means of communicating to see how that goes.
Justin
October 28th, 2005
I was me@spark.win.net….. your were definately icp.win.net, just not sure what your username was.
Boy, the newsgroup and email grab, along with their ‘per connection, and time connected’ charges were pretty bad. Worst than letting Digger use my Compu$pend account for FOUR HOURS while I was visiting the parents for the weekend.
Foster
November 1st, 2005
By, cracky, you chillun got it easy. Us oldsters, had to get up at the crack of dawn in the cold to light up to old wood-fired modem. Now you got your DSL, your WiFi, your Blackberries. I can remember when you had 1200 baud, and were DAMN proud to have that speed, when your friends still had 300! And Usenet! Well, what can I say– when a conversation WAS a conversation and a thread could run for hundreds of messages (that actually made sense!). What am I going to do with all those performance enhancers and penis enlargers at my advanced age in Usenet and email now??? Well must go, the nurse is heating up my pablum.
Mad ” Maxwell might remember too, but he’s getting old” Max…
Stephen Maxwell
November 2nd, 2005