[cctalk] Re: Charles Stross, replay the bubble of 1995, alt history plus retrocomp
It is funny, but truth be told we dodged a massive bullet by going with the "Internet" and TCP/IP as opposed to the nightmare of AT Connect, IPX, and the blazing speeds of TWO! ISDN B channels. I was there. I remember X.400, and how NDS was going to be the directory system that bound us all together in hell forever. I remember everything... We missed living in that crap-sack universe by six months or so. CZ
[cctalk] Re: Charles Stross, replay the bubble of 1995, alt history plus retrocomp
On 28/04/2024 01:14, Gavin Scott via cctalk wrote: Fortunately, in the US the net wasn't run by the Post Office No, but fore a very long time the phone network was run by a government-granted monopoly, Ma Bell. Hadn't the divestiture happened, AT had their own dinosaur ideas and would have done everything they could to enforce the output of those international committees... US was also the home of AOL and several other walled gardens. But OK, this discussion is really for the internet-history list, except it has been had so many times already... Julf
[cctalk] Re: Charles Stross, replay the bubble of 1995, alt history plus retrocomp
On Sat, Apr 27, 2024 at 6:34 PM Chris Zach wrote: > Seems the USPS was trial building a system where you could bring a > letter into a Post Office, they would scan it, then send it to another > post office in MINUTES using a big packet switched network based on > PDP11/23's connected to RM02's (yes, with Quuniverters) FedEx did this for a while in '84-'86 and managed to lose $320M in the process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapmail
[cctalk] Re: Charles Stross, replay the bubble of 1995, alt history plus retrocomp
Fortunately, in the US the net wasn't run by the Post Office so the mammals were out of the bag and fruitfully multiplying long before the rest of the world caught on and started forming committees to create camel-shaped dinosaurs to perform the same functions. As a result most of those things were fairly short-term distractions for most of the internet as, for example, it quickly became evident that nobody was going to pay postage on email haha. Funny you should mention that. See I met Doug Humphrey and Alan Frisbee at a fire sale in 1986 or so when we split up a set of 10 RM02 disk drives and a pile of Plessy equipment that was from a failed US Postal service contract in the early 1980's. Seems the USPS was trial building a system where you could bring a letter into a Post Office, they would scan it, then send it to another post office in MINUTES using a big packet switched network based on PDP11/23's connected to RM02's (yes, with Quuniverters) That was the future of "Electronic mail" Post office style. I still have the docs somewhere Missed another bullet we did. Lot of fun stories with that one
[cctalk] Re: Charles Stross, replay the bubble of 1995, alt history plus retrocomp
On Sat, Apr 27, 2024 at 10:57 AM Chris Zach via cctalk wrote: > It is funny, but truth be told we dodged a massive bullet by going with > the "Internet" and TCP/IP as opposed to the nightmare of AT Connect, > IPX, and the blazing speeds of TWO! ISDN B channels. > > I was there. I remember X.400, and how NDS was going to be the directory > system that bound us all together in hell forever. I remember everything... > > We missed living in that crap-sack universe by six months or so. Fortunately, in the US the net wasn't run by the Post Office so the mammals were out of the bag and fruitfully multiplying long before the rest of the world caught on and started forming committees to create camel-shaped dinosaurs to perform the same functions. As a result most of those things were fairly short-term distractions for most of the internet as, for example, it quickly became evident that nobody was going to pay postage on email haha.
[cctalk] Re: Charles Stross, replay the bubble of 1995, alt history plus retrocomp
It is funny, but truth be told we dodged a massive bullet by going with the "Internet" and TCP/IP as opposed to the nightmare of AT Connect, IPX, and the blazing speeds of TWO! ISDN B channels. I was there. I remember X.400, and how NDS was going to be the directory system that bound us all together in hell forever. I remember everything... We missed living in that crap-sack universe by six months or so. CZ
[cctalk] Re: Charles Stross, replay the bubble of 1995, alt history plus retrocomp
On Fri, 26 Apr 2024 at 21:52, Sellam Abraham via cctalk wrote: > > Seems like a hormonal problem. No, there is a problem, but it's your knee-jerk reactions. Sorry, man, but it is. Charlie's bang on. Also, he's very British and very sarcastic, in that British way many Americans of my personal acquaintance find hard to parse and hard to handle. I have some very close American friends, but they're the bitter sarcastic type. :-D Try finishing it. It's worth it. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Charles Stross, replay the bubble of 1995, alt history plus retrocomp
On Fri, 26 Apr 2024 at 03:25, Tomasz Rola via cctalk wrote: > > Well, if you are into this kind of stuff (I am)... Stross is an s-f > author, formerly a programmer (ages ago but I think it still shows - > perhaps he secretly writes his own tools in Perl) He wrote the Linux column in the UK version of Computer Shopper from its launch until the late 1990s, when his novel-writing career took off. That's when I met him; I worked for sister mag PC Pro, from the same publisher on another floor of the same building. Charlie's been a mate ever since and I've stayed at his place a few times. I still own 2 of his cast-off Macs. :-) He is very _very_ smart and also extremely technically knowledgeable. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Charles Stross, replay the bubble of 1995, alt history plus retrocomp
On Fri, Apr 26, 2024 at 01:51:48PM -0700, Sellam Abraham via cctalk wrote: > On Thu, Apr 25, 2024 at 7:25 PM Tomasz Rola via cctalk < > cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > Well, if you are into this kind of stuff (I am)... Stross is an s-f > > author, formerly a programmer (ages ago but I think it still shows - > > perhaps he secretly writes his own tools in Perl) and he has a > > blog. This time, he explores the idea that internet "bub" delivered on > > its promises, rather than sucking investors up. [...] > I stopped reading when I got to this part: "...and it's clearly being > pumped up by fascist-adjacent straight white males with an unadmitted > political agenda, namely to shore up the structures of privilege and > entitlement that keep them wealthy." > > Seems like a hormonal problem. Oh? Maybe. The thing is, I may read Stross (and other people) to feed my own opinion making machine but I do not necessarily endorse all of theirs. In a "good old bad times" I was growing up with agitprop coming at me in full spectrum - from things which were obvious manipulation to subtle, gentle pulling of strings with one or two words. I guess my brain learned to notice what was transparent enough to be noticed, mark it with red circle and move on - thus I noticed the words you mentioned and moved on to his remarks about OS/2, Linux and Newton (because my brain found those to be more interesting). As of his mentioning of fas*-leaning groups who want to use AI (and other modern tech) in order to propel themselves, I am not sure if you agree that such groups exist or not. Myself, I am willing to believe that yes, humans have wast potential to misuse any good invention... and while some humans may think it is good to screw some "others", I believe it all comes back to them, only later and no matter if they want it or allow it, they still receive it. Probably. I do not mean some higher being and legendary Judgement, I only mean laws of physics, psychology and other such things (kind of, if one shits too much into a river, because it all flows down to other guy, one may finally notice that rain became somewhat smelly - as it becomes obvious when watching the news nowadays). Looking back, what seemed great around 1995, like certain Manifestos from that time, nowadays seem to me as very naive, now that I grew older and learned a bit about ways of the world (i.e. ways of the people). -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_r...@bigfoot.com **
[cctalk] Re: Charles Stross, replay the bubble of 1995, alt history plus retrocomp
On Thu, Apr 25, 2024 at 7:25 PM Tomasz Rola via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > Well, if you are into this kind of stuff (I am)... Stross is an s-f > author, formerly a programmer (ages ago but I think it still shows - > perhaps he secretly writes his own tools in Perl) and he has a > blog. This time, he explores the idea that internet "bub" delivered on > its promises, rather than sucking investors up. > > http www.antipope.org > charlie/blog-static/2024/04/the-radiant-future-of-1995.html > > Of course, readers make comments, so it gets a bit more interesting. I stopped reading when I got to this part: "...and it's clearly being pumped up by fascist-adjacent straight white males with an unadmitted political agenda, namely to shore up the structures of privilege and entitlement that keep them wealthy." Seems like a hormonal problem. Sellam
