Post B1tmGirAz1FH0S47Mm by LoneLocust@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by LoneLocust@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #B1rOGubCXU2gCzENLk by tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
2026-01-02T02:16:47Z
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I bought this fancy-ass document scanner, and finally to getting around to using it.The Fido/FidoNet manual, FIDO THE BOOK, written by Scot Kamins (author of the Apple Hypercard manual) is scanned from the xerox master, but I have to write a bash script to re-collate it.In the mean time here's two minor and old docs:1995 COOK REPORT interview with me, talking about super early Little Garden, and the scam that was CIX. Absolutely not the british COOK REPORT show, Gordon Cook's early internet newsletter. I have no idea why I had printed it out on tractor feed paper, which is sadly out of sync with top of form! lolhttps://www.bleeve.me/COOK%20REPORT.pdfIn 1993 Interval Corp, which I remember as a were-cooler-than-thou think tank thought they'd get in on early social networking. They hadn't a clue. It was me and Dave Hughes, the older texan cowboy supporter of grassroots networking... oh bummer, he doesn't have a Wikipedia page.Anyway here's FIRST EVER INTERVAL SEMINAR ON ONLINE COMMUNITIES. I remember it as a mostly academic types clamoring to make Their Very Acronymic Thing be the primary social thing on teh innernetz. They were very pushy is how I remember them.https://www.bleeve.me/INTERVAL-SEMINAR.pdfHere's a page on Dave Hughes. He was a decent if old fashioned guy, but said some unpleasant things in public before he died; I knew him well enough (but not very) to think it was a bit of decline. https://www.west-point.org/academy/dgrad/Rhein.html
(DIR) Post #B1sMqnKR2fwHKnKaTw by LoneLocust@mastodon.social
2026-01-02T13:35:31Z
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@tomjennings I’ll be interested in reading your thoughts on CIX. I have zero first hand experience with the service itself, but I briefly knew Frank Thornley when he was in Arizona for a week or so.
(DIR) Post #B1tjg8TAaoMTouGMi0 by tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
2026-01-03T05:26:04Z
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@LoneLocust I have and had little hard facts, and long ago.Were you in the biz then? There's a lot of infrastructural backstory of paying for transit and connecting to peers (other ISPs like us) and big ones not wanting to play.As I remember it CIX as a group was trying to claim some advantage as a meetup (router/switch rack in a colo somewhere) and really small fry who had to pay for all transit. "Paycto connect to CIX members and free transit" but it all sounded like empty promises. We paid I think but let it die and I have no further memory maybe some notes if I dug. Basically the real deal was, you paid for rack space in a big colo, paid someone to haul your bits through their network, until you got big enough that we could argue that traffic between our customers and theirs was approaching parity, were not gonna pay and neither are they, so you agree to peer and there that. Lol nothing was written down, it was verbal/email between net engineers. We eventually peered with enough folks we weren't paying anyone to haul our bits, they needed ours as much as we wanted theirs. Peers. We had some thousands of /24s and a bunch of /16. We had customers applying for and getting "swamp" addresses that everyone hated (lots of manual entries in tables) but bits are bits.
(DIR) Post #B1tjynxf49DliWQYMq by tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
2026-01-03T05:29:27Z
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@LoneLocust British frank thornley? Got to be the same guy, ex motorcycle guy? Wheeler dealer guy in the FidoNet era. Stayed at his house once! 87 or 85.
(DIR) Post #B1tmGirAz1FH0S47Mm by LoneLocust@mastodon.social
2026-01-03T05:55:02Z
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@tomjennings I wasn't really in the game. I had my Fido BBS, and I had started doing some tech support work for Marv Carson who also had a Fido. Marv had gone to some Fido conference where he met you and also Frank Thornley. Some time in Sept. '86, Frank came to the US and visited Marv. He was thinking to expand CIX to the US. Marv was lining me up to get a job (I think) and asked me to help Frank. Then something went wrong with Sylvia's visa entering the US, and he had to leave.
(DIR) Post #B1tmSsEFxm7vY5egNs by LoneLocust@mastodon.social
2026-01-03T05:57:15Z
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@tomjennings Nothing really came of it, and I really only had some basic introduction to what CIX was. I gathered they were moving off Fido onto something proprietary (or licensed and customized).I never got a real opportunity to understand how it all worked.
(DIR) Post #B1tnJWFWPgYCjDLmVs by tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
2026-01-03T06:06:49Z
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@LoneLocust Oh I do now remember one thing: there was a LOT of misunderstanding of how internetworking actually works (worked then).A lot of people didnt understand interconnect, and transit. They were hoping that by paying to connect to CIX members, there would be some way to reach networks beyond CIX members. There was not. CIX was an interchange between CIX members, only. Except CIX wasn't real keen on fully informing potential members this wee little detail.... I'm not saying it was a scam, but...This was all TCP/IP stuff, not FidoNet.
(DIR) Post #B1tnLc8bUWGDZP75mK by tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
2026-01-03T06:07:12Z
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@LoneLocust Which (fido) net were you in?
(DIR) Post #B1tnbExnQ8NWKUVdxo by tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
2026-01-03T06:10:01Z
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@LoneLocust We ended up connected to MAE-WEST, an exchange with actual value. That document says we were paying CIX; I think we paid the joining up front fee, but I dont remember any connectivity to them at all. Could be though. Haven't thought about it since forever.
(DIR) Post #B1toh1jbcNNOzbC9rs by tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
2026-01-03T06:22:16Z
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@LoneLocust So this is the same Frank Thornley! I've on and of wondered how he was. Me and some other FidoNet folk crashed at his house in London? or three abouts, after driving back from Amsterdam, where I had been invited to the big annual HCC meeting.It was November cold and rainy.We went to a local pub, but a couple liters/two liter bottles of the local brown beer, drank all of it, had an epic hangover, in the morning a classic breakfast of powdered tea in hot tap water, corn flakes and skim milk, head pounding. Lol. I was about 30, 32. I was a dumb poor American in europe. It was all very fun.Oh right! Frank had this idea to sell modems to folks in Poland, quite illegal (the wall still up). There was a polish FidoBBS, connecting through finland and much subterfuge, taking huge chances. I met the polish guy at HCC. It was all very humbling.Modems allowed in europe were awful, these 1200/75 split things. All FSK stuff, nothing complex. We talked about designing and making our own modems for this. It all amounted to naught. Just as well probably.
(DIR) Post #B1tp77Tws6EuLaJV68 by LoneLocust@mastodon.social
2026-01-03T06:26:56Z
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@tomjennings I was 114/12