Still, with a 3-digit password, nobody will EVAR break in!
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Here’s my Cool Story Bro:
In the early 90’s, USA internet service was basically limited to dialup to CompuServe, Prodigy, or via a University you worked at or were enrolled at (if you were in the appropriate field such as math or computers). I had none of that, but I did have a Gateway 2000 AT clone and 2400 baud modem with appropriate Windows terminal emulation software. I even tried going 100% DOS with DOS versions of “Winsock” and Mosaic, but for me, this just crashed after a few minutes.
I had been a member of the local BBS scene from the beginning, so I’d tried various VT100 terminal emulation software like Telix (which was my favorite), ProComm, Qmodem, and more. One of the local BBSs was part of FidoNet and received nightly updates of various Usenet groups, similar Fidonet-only groups, and actual Internet email (at a funky address containing “bangs” [!]).
I discovered the University had a free dialup number to access the library’s card-catalog and do other searches. This used Gopher, a precursor to web pages, for the menus and search fields. Some of the menus had links to Archie, Jughead and Veronica search engines, which were the Yahoo and Googles of the era. From there, I could search for free, public Gopher-to-telnet gateways which permitted connections to a server of your choice (instead of restricted to a particular one). I had to search, since offerings and restrictions changed frequently, and I had no way to “bookmark” links at the time. 
From one of these gateways, I could telnet to a “shell” service provider called “cyberspace.com” which granted 1-month trial memberships to anyone who could reach them. Once an account was established, I could set up Pine to read newsgroups and email! Anything that was important could be forwarded to my email box on that Fidonet BBS.
While the University’s dialup would kick me off after a few hours, it didn’t seem to be set to a particular time limit. If I got on late at night, I rarely got kicked. The telnet gateway filtered some control characters, so I couldn’t X-Y-or Zmodem files straight to my machine, but I could attach wares and other binaries to an email and send them to myself at the BBS. It worked like a charm for several years, and by then it was just worth it to pay for legitimate dialup through one of the new ISPs popping up.
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I was using an Apple II+ clone, the Panasia. It was still really expensive, like $850. It had one disk drive, and I used our old B&W TV for the monitor. We didn’t spend the extra money to get the 16K 80 column card, so it was a 48K computer with uppercase only.
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MOdulator-DEModulator
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You know, in spite of Radio Shack annoyingly always asking me for my phone number and such — even when I simply went in there for some batteries — I kind of miss them.
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I remember a system that would convert binaries to HEX representation. i.e. it would send two 8 bit characters for each byte, in a text file, like for 10101110 you would be sent AE. Really great for people who thought 300 bd was “too fast”. But at least it got through 
Spammers should be forced to use old school setups like this as punishment.
That’s some crap opsec. Now I know his password
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If he hasn’t changed it in 37 years he deserves what he gets.
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This talk of BBSs And the recent post about Fred Firth have me all nostalgic for the hours spent in 1984 dialing into the Ralph Records BBS, Big Brother. You could page Hardy Fox and he would just hang out and chat one on one with you!
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This kind of tech was science fiction for most people in Germany until the very late 1980s. I remember seeing my first Akustikkoppler back then, but owning sunny like this?
I think I had my first proper e-mail account in 1996, I think, when our local Fido node started slowly moving away from that network because it started draining to much energy to moderate. Funny enough, I can’t remember the TLD of my mail provider…
That was around the time when 19k modems were available already here.
Shortly afterwards, I started using a university-provided address, which was a garbled mix of letters and numbers. I still remember it. And the password. Sadly, in about 2007, it got cancelled. The original owner must have finished his studies, I guess… 
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Ya, lots of fun to be made. But at the time, seemed amazing.
I bought a 300-baud modem for my C-64 in ~'85 while in the CAF as a lowly Private living in barracks. Spend better part of 6 months trying to have a phone line into my room. Not possible, no way, no how. So I gave the modem to my section commander how live off-base in PMQ (Private Married Quarters I think). I was then subjected to wonderful tales of BBSes and Compuserve.
A year later as a civilian, got another 300 baud modem. Three BBSes in the local (free) area. One of them ran some software that allowed for 450 baud if your modem (or UART??) could support, which was awesome!
I ran a BBS that ran on a Radio Shack TRS-80 motherboard mounted on a wooden case, with not one, but TWO 8" floppy drives; one for the program, one for the BBS data. This BBS eventually grew to have 4 lines running on a PC clone, connected to the Internet via FidoNet (Yoo-Hoo!) somehow.
Memories…
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Ah BBSs. The quirk I remember was seeing the text “GO VOICE”. Suddenly the modem cuts out and the speaker that normally monitors the connection noises has a human voice talking over your modem. You pick up the receiver, turn off the modem, and you are talking to the dude who ran the BBS out of his basement. Happened several times.
Other memory: upgrading to an autodial modem, which meant it connected to the wall instead of the handset jack on the phone. Didn’t work on all phones since many were still hardwired to the wall.
I honestly still think it’s amazing.
When I watched the first Mission Impossible movie (which was a decade after this) there’s a scene where people are using mobile phones to connect their laptops to the internet while traveling on the Eurostar. I was blown away by that, I thought it was the height of sophistication to be able to do that while travelling at 300 km/h Since then I have used a computer on a bullet train many times and every time I am struck by how surreal it really is.
That it was (theoretically) possible 10 years earlier really is almost like magic.
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I remember when I used to check my mail by getting a butter knife out of the cupboard and using it to slit open the top of the envelope …
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That’s not the real future. People wear roll-neck shirts with jackets in the real future, not ties.
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Well, the future isn’t what it used to be.
Still waiting for my jetpack spandex jacket.
I think you’re talking about “UUE / XXE” encoding? Which is still basically how binary files are enclosed in email today, only it’s called “MIME / base64”. Or perhaps you’re talking about how KERMIT, XMODEM, YMODEM and ZMODEM file transfer protocols padded out a binary file while transmitting? Padding being necessary so that the modem wouldn’t see the contents of the file as a list of control characters, causing it to go nuts.
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Yup, same as UUE encoding. My first encounter was on a Prime system, though, don’t remember what they called if. Just remember I had to write my own decoder
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For Gen-X Brits, his voice is the sound of quiet authority. His name was Tony Bastable, he was the presenter of the long-running ITV children’s programme Magpie. And he also presented the Thames television motoring show “Drive-In” … there’s loads on the Thames Archive YouTube channel and they’re unintentionally hilarious. From his Wikipedia page, he seemed quite the renaissance man, the kind of confident auto-didact who used to be much more part of the TV landscape than today.
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