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I'm really loving how Mastodon has become a refuge for all the grizzled seafarers on the ocean of the internet. They pop up in my feed and their bios all say something like

"I've been online for longer than the internet. I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. 56k modems on fire in the light of Usenet. I watched IRC forks glitter in the dark near the Gateway 3000. All those moments will be lost in slop, like tears in rain. Time to deshittify."

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in reply to Janeishly

Tobias Ernst
friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
Tobias Ernst
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@Janeishly My first modem was 14.4k, and I 4an a BBS with it, ha! And yes, it is high time to deshittify.
@Janeishly
in reply to Janeishly

The Sleight Doctor 🃏
mastodon - Link to source
The Sleight Doctor 🃏
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I saw someone say something like "Facebook is where all the boomers and Gen Xers who need help with their computers live. The fedi is where all the boomers and Gen Xers who *designed and built* the damn computers live".
in reply to The Sleight Doctor 🃏

LeighC2
mastodon - Link to source
LeighC2
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@ApostateEnglishman this particular boomer is here because he helped build the networks that the internet and these applications relied on.
@The Sleight Doctor 🃏
in reply to LeighC2

The Sleight Doctor 🃏
mastodon - Link to source
The Sleight Doctor 🃏
• •

@leighc2 Late Gen Xer here (still in my 40s). I can't make such an impressive claim, but I was writing my own games in BASIC before I even hit my teens. I rewrote my version of Boulderdash in GFA for the Atari ST, then rewrote it again in QBasic on MS Dos.

The Atari version worked the best, because the language had specific commands (such as BMOVE) for directly manipulating screen memory. Even uncompiled, it was playable.

I also worked in IT for some years. Hated it, though...

@leighc2
in reply to Janeishly

Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK
mastodon - Link to source
Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK
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I'd thought at first you meant actual seafarers (on boats, posting via LTE or satellite links), and I'm fairly sure there's *at least* 3-5 of those on here..
in reply to Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK

SeaCaptain(Ret)
mastodon - Link to source
SeaCaptain(Ret)
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@vfrmedia Don’t know about boats but ships, yes. When I retired we were using InMarisat for Company only email. I understand that today there may be some internet activity allowed but these connections were very expensive and coms were restricted. Maybe StarLink has changed the playing field.
@Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK
in reply to SeaCaptain(Ret)

Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK
mastodon - Link to source
Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK
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@jfharrison Interestingly about 12 years ago I was helping run a popular online radio station and we had one listener who was using Inmarsat from the ship he was on, and whoever was paying for the bandwidth tolerated this (a 128 kbits/s stream), and this didn't upset the Internet availability for everyone else on the ship so the tech must have improved at some point..

Near the coasts, most people nowadays can get an LTE (mobile) link from the nearest country..

@SeaCaptain(Ret)
in reply to Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK

SeaCaptain(Ret)
mastodon - Link to source
SeaCaptain(Ret)
• •
@vfrmedia Adding: When we were within eyesight of the coast many crew members had access to their phones w/ sim cards purchased for the specific area. It was not unusual for someone to have 5 or 6 sim’s to cover the various countries visited. And this was before LTE, 3G was most common.
@Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK
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