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Top:Computers and Internet:Internet:My Connection:History

My friend John Cavanaugh and I first started playing around with the Internet in 1988 when we were students at Willamette University. Back then, I ran a bulletin board system (BBS) called Uff Da Express (UDX) out of my apartment. The BBS software I used was GT Power Comm (which is still around, albeit seven or eight full versions later). John was an avid reader of Usenet newsgroups. Back then, a full newsfeed could be transmitted over a 9600 or 14.4 kbps connection with a little room to spare on a daily basis. There were a few hundred newsgroups instead of thousands.

GT Power also included a networking module that allowed BBS sysops to set up a WAN with each other to exchange e-mail and echo groups (like FidoNet). John and I started playing around with this and met a bunch of really interesting people all over the world.

Enough of these people were interested in the comp.risks newsgroup that I resolved to write a gateway program to bring comp.risks into the GT world, since John had a partial newsfeed. It worked. After I moved to Portland, I closed my BBS and that was the end of the gateway. I didn't really do much with the Internet for the next three years or so. Then I got an e-mail account on agora. Then John became our housemate at the Tigard House and then SplatNet came into being. SplatNet meant a full-time connection to the Internet via 14.4 kbps modems. Pretty cool.

After Kim and I moved to Salem (and SplatNet moved across Portland), I had to find another way to get my fix. Enter Teleport. I have been a customer of Teleport since mid-1995. At first, I just used my 14.4 modem to dial into their Salem POP for my PPP account. Then I upgraded to a 28.8 modem after a few months. Life was great!

Then, in late 1996, 28.8 started feeling a little too slow, so I began to think about ISDN.

In November 1998, I got a mailing from USWest regarding their xDSL service (which they call MegaBit). It sounded like a pretty sweet deal, so I signed up. That brings us to my present connection.


Page created 2/18/97 by twisted@teleport.com.
Last updated 03/17/03 at 14:34.
© 1997 by Michael Heggen. All rights reserved.

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