Simulation of the 1986 internet is TOO REAL.

[kskunk]

Some of you may have encountered telehacker.com, a simulation of the internet as it was 25 years ago.

 

Back then there was no web, just a command prompt. So telehacker pretends to teleport you back to 1986, and lets you type old internet commands with 1986 syntax. Pretty fun, right?

 

So I was typing commands, admiring the realism of the responses, and then I remembered that Atari was on the arpanet in 1986.

 

So I typed this:

 

$ finger @atari
jpatton    J. E. Patton        pts/15   4h    May 11 03:40
jansen     Mark O. Jansen      pts/13   1h    May 07 15:46
dyer       Landon Dyer         pts/7    1d    May 08 17:50
mui        Derek Mui           pts/14   2d    May 13 16:08
good       Roy Good            pts/8    5h    May 12 20:07
neil       Neil Harris         pts/1    1d    May 09 05:32
leavens    Alex Leavens        pts/6    2h    May 09 19:54
trh        T R Hall            pts/5    2d    May 10 02:42
towns      John Townsend       pts/16   2d    May 10 19:17
jwt        Jim Tittsler        pts/18   2d    May 08 20:57
kbad       Ken Badertscher     pts/10   2d    May 10 00:05
mn         Mike Nowicki        pts/12   1d    May 09 01:34
apratt     Allan Pratt         pts/11   6h    May 09 08:38
danscott   Dan Scott           pts/2    3h    May 13 10:44
figmo      Lynn Gold           pts/19   2h    May 10 19:45
hfp        Henry F. Plummer    pts/0    2h    May 11 02:20
bob        Robert F. Hutson    pts/9    2d    May 08 12:42
kens       Kenneth Soohoo      pts/3    2h    May 13 04:34

Those are the names of the engineers logged in at Atari. And they're real -- these are the guys who were hard at work on the ST or 7800 in 1986. This simulation is too real!

 

- KS

Edited May 14, 2011 by kskunk

[kool kitty89]

That's really cool, they really went all-out re-creating that. (it must have taken a lot of research) . . . maybe they didn't go totally all-out, but included some easter eggs (more or less) that techie sort of people would be inclined to find. (you know, the sort of people likely to visit that site in general )

 

 

Hmm, all we need is something boring and non-tech related that was active on the internet in '86 to test that supposition.

Edited May 14, 2011 by kool kitty89

[kskunk]

maybe they didn't go totally all-out, but included some easter eggs

I think telehack.com must be based on some kind of historical record, because of the dozens of old domains I could guess, they all seem to have historically accurate replies.

 

finger @cbmvax lists Dave Haynie among other Amiga engineers. I even found a coworker since I happened to know he was working for Xilinx in '86.

 

It's impressive how much recent historical data has been archived thanks to digital technology. I've heard rumors that Atari's e-mail record of the development of the ST is in a collector's hands.

 

It would be fun to bring the Atari VAX online someday, telehack.com style, with all that history frozen in time for the curious to explore.

 

- KS

[phaxda]

That screenshot alone brings back some memories. I feel so old and also, strangely, that I should be a lot wealthier. Who know that EVERYONE was going to want to play games and stuff on the internets? I was too busy logging into my favorite MUDs at the time to think about it. Sigh.

[phaxda]

The site, for others who had not seen it is http://www.telehack.com. It's awesome!

 

It did not take much digging in the offered Usenet forums to come up with some more Atari tidbits.... Quite frankly I am amazed at how many commands I remember.

 

2677b ATARI ST GEM in ROM net.micro.atari 10-Jul-85 12:37

2677c most beautiful airplane 4 net.aviation 10-Jul-85 12:39

news> read 2677b

Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!think!harvard!seismo!umcp-cs!cvl!gyuri

From: gyuri@cvl.UUCP (Gyorgy Fekete)

Subject: ATARI ST GEM in ROM

Date: Wed, 10-Jul-85 15:37:04 EDT

Newsgroups: net.micro.atari

Organization: Computer Vision Lab, U. of Maryland, College Park

 

 

Good news for all you early purchasers of the 520 ST's.

Duberman, the users' group liason confirmed that when

GEM becomes ROM-ified, we'll get the ROMs (maybe) free.

--

Gyorgy Fekete --- University of MD, Computer Vision Lab, (301) 454-4526

 

gyuri@cvl.{ARPA,CSNet}

 

...seismo \

...allegra +-- !umcp-cs!cvl!gyuri.UUCP

...brl-bmd /

=!=__XXEND__=!=

news>

 

That screenshot alone brings back some memories. I feel so old and also, strangely, that I should be a lot wealthier. Who know that EVERYONE was going to want to play games and stuff on the internets? I was too busy logging into my favorite MUDs at the time to think about it. Sigh.

[kool kitty89]

maybe they didn't go totally all-out, but included some easter eggs

I think telehack.com must be based on some kind of historical record, because of the dozens of old domains I could guess, they all seem to have historically accurate replies.

 

finger @cbmvax lists Dave Haynie among other Amiga engineers. I even found a coworker since I happened to know he was working for Xilinx in '86.

 

It's impressive how much recent historical data has been archived thanks to digital technology. I've heard rumors that Atari's e-mail record of the development of the ST is in a collector's hands.

 

It would be fun to bring the Atari VAX online someday, telehack.com style, with all that history frozen in time for the curious to explore.

 

- KS

I think Curt and Marty have a lot of Atari Corp emails in their archives. (a lot of the more recent updates/corrections/clarifications in Atari history are thanks to those emails iirc -both on the corporate/bureaucratic/business and technical sides of things)

[calimero]

Some of you may have encountered telehacker.com, a simulation of the internet as it was 25 years ago.

 

Back then there was no web, just a command prompt. So telehacker pretends to teleport you back to 1986, and lets you type old internet commands with 1986 syntax. Pretty fun, right?

 

So I was typing commands, admiring the realism of the responses, and then I remembered that Atari was on the arpanet in 1986.

 

So I typed this:

 

$ finger @atari
jpatton J. E. Patton pts/15 4h May 11 03:40
jansen Mark O. Jansen pts/13 1h May 07 15:46
dyer Landon Dyer pts/7 1d May 08 17:50
mui Derek Mui pts/14 2d May 13 16:08
good Roy Good pts/8 5h May 12 20:07
neil Neil Harris pts/1 1d May 09 05:32
leavens Alex Leavens pts/6 2h May 09 19:54
trh T R Hall pts/5 2d May 10 02:42
towns John Townsend pts/16 2d May 10 19:17
jwt Jim Tittsler pts/18 2d May 08 20:57
kbad Ken Badertscher pts/10 2d May 10 00:05
mn Mike Nowicki pts/12 1d May 09 01:34
apratt Allan Pratt pts/11 6h May 09 08:38
danscott Dan Scott pts/2 3h May 13 10:44
figmo Lynn Gold pts/19 2h May 10 19:45
hfp Henry F. Plummer pts/0 2h May 11 02:20
bob Robert F. Hutson pts/9 2d May 08 12:42
kens Kenneth Soohoo pts/3 2h May 13 04:34

Those are the names of the engineers logged in at Atari. And they're real -- these are the guys who were hard at work on the ST or 7800 in 1986. This simulation is too real!

 

- KS

interesting - Roy Good is there, but there is no Shiraz Shivji... ?!?

[Cyprian]

The site, for others who had not seen it is http://www.telehack.com. It's awesome!

 

It did not take much digging in the offered Usenet forums to come up with some more Atari tidbits.... Quite frankly I am amazed at how many commands I remember.

 

net.micro.atari is still on-line:

https://groups.googl...net.micro.atari

and it is a mine of information

if I remember correctly it was renamed to comp.sys.atar.st

Edited June 1, 2013 by Cyprian_K