Unguided Blog

A discussion somewhere has taken me back to a long gone era. Since all holes were fixed and sunlight could not get in, my mind kept wandering to a time not known or forgotten by many I should say, alas. To the Golden Age of the BBS’s, the bulletin board systems, so to speak. They all of a sudden flourished all around the world but especially in USA and Europe. Run by enthusiasts in their homes, usually with custom equipment and a modem, they could barely handle more than eight people online simultaneously, and mind you, eight was a good number.

Some of them reached to such a fame and recognition that they had followers calling internationally. And those international calls, being expensive at the time, created, well, the sublime art of phreaking. Those phone charges had to be avoided. Most being teenagers, many did not have the luxury of paying for them.

Apart from those touchy issues above, they created a literature of their own, a unique culture. With their text files, the ASCII art, they were the pioneers of blogging.

I remembered a text-file named “Fun with Unix”. Originally written and uploaded to alt.folklore.computers by Charlie Gibb on 29 Apr 1991, this text-file was a classic example of the era. Of course, some commands will not produce the same results in most modern Linux shells but you are free to give them a try. I have removed the usual prompt with a dot for easier reading. Lines without a dot are the shell’s responses. Kind of cute if you consider all those were done without a mouse in the command line.
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It leaves without a hassle from Haydarpasa everyday, destination: Adapazari; and so it is appropriately called: Adapazari Express. Filled with workers and students, but especially workers, it runs back and forth during the day. The regulars of early morning and late evening departures are easy to spot. Tired, seldom in the mood for chat, living in their own worlds, trying to get some rest and above all, accumulate strength to make it again another day, for tomorrow.

As soon as it clears Bostanci, it gains some momentum, as if it knows it has its real customers on board now, not those who sneak in to reach the suburbs of Istanbul faster. Electric powered, it runs as if it is tearing the air and the ground apart, regretting the laws of physics that restrain it. Arrogant and selfish, it is way different than its predecessors. I remember.

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