From: Tom Whore (tomwhore@inetarena.com)
Date: Fri May 26 2000 - 09:20:41 PDT
A few old geezers where sitting around a table the other week
talking, as we do, about this that and the other thing. The talk moved
backwards to the past for a bit and we all recounted, ala the jaws "show
me your bobo sceen", the ragged road of our online idents.
Mine goes somethig like this
1982-83 after some shoulder surfing I log onto several BBS's as Harry Mudd
Some freinds and I grab accounts on cserve and some other tymnet
nodes. No major crimes, justlots of bungling and learning
1984-86 never registering for classes as a student I BS my way into an
account on the EIES system over at NJIT. Murray Turrof was the
prof behind the project. I think, though im not sure, my user
number was 2123. EIES and the NJIT computers had hooks to
the motherload, ie the internet. Serious sleep deprevation
ensues. My buddies who are actualy taking classes cant keep
up with my schedule. Dialups in to the system only deepen the fun
(on a whim i just called up the EIES help desk. Talked to the kid
in charge and rambled on about the hsitory of the system. Seems
they are up into the 20xxx accounts. Sadly it seems eies is
shutting down to be replaced by somethign called WebBoard(?).
Passing of an era. All praises.)
1986-89 Hary Mudds appear all over the net. I take on the name Uncle
Hagbard and Simon moon (not to be confused withthe latter VOx
Simon Moon who was someone else.) Life is good, FTP is amazing
telnet is god and things are looking connected.
1989-93 After my buds leave higher education(89) im adrift with just
commercial access. Im like a junkie cut off from his source.
I scrounge access back to the net in snatches. The place where
I work becomes the center of my dialup fun. I find all sorts
of places to get a net hit from, none for too long. At one low
point I join Genie. God help me.
1993- I hear there is a dial up BBS with real net acces in NYC,
my home and bredding grounds. I jump on one of the first two
places I find listed. One was Panix the other was Mindvox. Panix
phone person was a dork and Mindvox had me online in 10 mins.
It was on this call that Tomwhore was born online. Tomwhore
was my band name with the group Media whore
(http:/www.mp3.com/mediawhore)
When asked for a user name that was up to eight letters
it jumped out of my mind and onto my UID.
When I ask what I owe them the voice says "Drop us some
money". I think the voice was stoned. I had found a home.
Tomwhore flourishes on mindvox. The net is mine again.
I quit my job and go to work for MIndvox. This lasts less than
a year. I grab accounts on a few other dial up ISPs, all as
tomwhore. I start getting quoted in print mags, i get 5 secs on
tv in a report about email privacy. I get a few choice quotes
in JC Hertzs early net book Surfing the Internet. This leads to
a few gf's and ultimatley to my move to portland. Portland leads
to my job here at the .gov as a contractor (t1higgin@or.blm.gov)
which leads to working with my soon to be wife. Along the way I
get DSL, WSMF becomes a large hobby and I put maybe 10 years
back on my life expectancy.
In 2000 my oldest working email address is tomwhore@phantom.com
(created feb 13th 1993 or there abouts) Tomwhore , online, is 7 and
a half years old, I wonder if I can claim him as a depnedent.
[---===tomwhore@ []wsmf.org []inetarena.com []slack.net===---]
WSMF's web site ----http://wsmf.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri May 26 2000 - 09:23:46 PDT