Very curious if others have memories of a service in the 80's called Portal. I recall using it in a few ways, one of which was UseNet and UUCP access. The host in this context was cup.portal.com (Cupertino, perhaps?) and appears in historical posts as "sun!portal!cup.portal.com!"
I'm also seeking history on "tronsbox", a host I used to relay for my Amiga-based, dial-up UUCP node: "uunet!tronsbox!alpine!"
Please relay to more relevant hashtags, too!
#retrocomputing #vintagecomputing
@AndyHat Yes! UseNet and email were my uses and I, too, was relying on Telenet. I'm trying to recall how I originally came to find it, what else I was doing with it and how much it cost on a monthly basis. I was probably ~12-14 years old.
I wish I could recall when I stopped using it (and why), but I know I was using it in the late 1980s (further confirmed finding UseNet archival posts of mine citing a portal address).
As to the "cup" part, I'm just speculating on it representing Cupertino.
@halfpress https://www.krsaborio.net/internet/research/1988/1204.htm has it as $10/month in 1988. I feel like it was $12 by the time I started using it. I definitely would have found it on a list like that, though.
I started college in 1992 which meant free Usenet starting that summer. I remember one of the last things I did with my Portal email was emailing the college IT department at the beginning of summer to ask if I could get my account early, and it worked!
@AndyHat Odds are good I found my way there from a similar list. This list also appears to confirm the Cupertino assumption from cup.portal.com.
Thanks for finding and sharing this! Portal is one part of a number of historical threads I'm following back through my childhood. :)
I graduated high school in 1992, so we appear to be about the same age with similar experiences in this regard.
Aaron Mahler
AndyHat