IN OTHER NEWS

i just reckoned i have been online for 42 years. started using the internet at the University of Puerto Rico. compared to my friends, twas living in the future using Gopher:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_%28protocol%29

my digital footprint is older than most Millennials and Zoomers.

which protocol did you first use to pop your internet cherry?

#getOffMyLawn

Gopher (protocol) - Wikipedia

@blogdiva

Pretty much gopher here too.

I had to dial into a VAX, and all I could do was telnet to other sites. So I would telnet to a "gopher site" (really a gopher client that was publicly available via telnet) to browse the internet. I didn't have ftp access, and many gopher sites didn't have sz installed, but boombox . micro . umn . edu was one of the few, and through that I was able to download FreeBSD and other stuff.

Shortly after that, I found slirp and a local free net provided free shell and so I used that.

#getOffMyLawn

@encthenet @blogdiva oh wow slirp I'd forgotten about fiddling around with that, and other tricks to run TCP/IP applications via a shell account

@mxchara
I even did bonded slirp connections to increase d/l speed. That is, have two modems connected at once. It was pretty nice to have a bit more speed.

@blogdiva