Reminiscing our first internet connections (WAS) Re: akamai yesterday - what in the world was that

Mon Feb 17 18:20:22 UTC 2020

> On Feb 17, 2020, at 10:38 AM, Gene LeDuc <gleduc at sdsu.edu> wrote:
> 
> I was a student worker at a computer lab at USC in the 70s and a buddy had a system operator job at ISI in Marina Del Rey.  One day he connected to his office from my lab via a 300baud acoustic modem and then got on the ARPA-NET.  From there he connected to a system called ATLAS in the UK.  I had no idea what to do at the prompt so I typed
> 
> > ?
> 
> to get list of commands.  My global eyes were opened when the response was
> 
> Pardon?
> 
> instead of the usual rude or cryptic error message that I was used to. There was a big world out there and we were definitely not in Kansas anymore!

It was about 1980.  My C-128 came with one of those CIS snap packs to let you test connecting to the 'net via Compuserve.  So I connected with my 300baud modem and..whoa!!!

When I got my next computer (and first portable) shortly thereafter (a TRS Model 100) I got acoustic cups for it, and suddenly I was connected from anywhere and everywhere there was a phone - including from my job at a Fotomat booth (remember those?) :-)

Anne

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