XPost: alt.amateur-comp, alt.folklore.computers
On 10/4/21 4:14 PM, ronda hauben wrote:
[...]
Does anyone know of any Freenets that still exist or are in use?
Some links below might be useful to you.
[...]
I wonder if anyone knows if any of the existing FreeNets
offer Usenet?
Link to the Tildeverse below has more information on a open NNTP server. There's also
https://news.aioe.org and
https://www.eternal-september.org. Some long-running cypherpunk NNTP
servers are intentionally run as open access but don't advertise that
fact. We can find each other's goodies by scanning ports ;)
[...]
I hope this isn't too much information. I'm really holding back a bit ;)
Many links await toward the bottom of this message.
Following your train of thought about the good 'ol days has me feeling
effusive and ready to go full-on grandiloquent of oratory. I too was disconnected from the wire for quite a long spell, so long in fact I
almost forgot any of it existed.
I know of some old public access systems still in business, lots of
BBSes still running, and a horde of newer generation public access and nano-niche communities with old-timey netizen nostalgia. Even Fidonet is
still chugging along.
Good news is some of these freenets are slowly growing! A new freenet, Tildeverse, popped up and something like a thousand people jumped
onboard in no time.
Some of the freenet sites haven't updated the style or UX of their web
pages in decades. This links to a great example of an old site with
freenets listings:
http://www.afn.org/~alplatt/freenets.html.
This web page is like a present-day Pennsyltucky / Georgiabama
boondocker with a 80s-style mullet and a wife-beater T-shirt, clueless
that he appears anachronistic. Change goes in his pocket, not on his
fashion. Times may change, yet Bubba doesn't.
I love it that these old communities are still around. Nothing says olde
tyme like logging on to a BBS that's been running for 30+ years to chat
with the SysOp about retro terminal fonts or ASCII graphics or learn a
modem from the 80s _still works_ and is still walking Fido on a copper
leash.
The Super Dimension Fortress
SDF Public Access UNIX System .. Est. 1987
Everything from shells to gopher sites to dialup to irc
https://sdf.org/
Nyx - The Spirit of the Night
World's oldest ISP, still in existence
Free Public Internet Access
https://www.nyx.net/
Tildeverse (much newer community)
They also provide Usenet access, link on their page
https://tilde.club
FidoNet (still many BBS setups, esp. w/ synchronet)
https://www.fidonet.org/
PolarHome
Lots of servers for shell accounts, forums, email.
http://polarhome.com/
Many Newer Public Access Communities
(some of the current generation 'grok' ye olde schoole)
https://tilde.club/~pfhawkins/othertildes.html
A walk down nerd memory lane, explaining the formation of the Tildeverse
https://medium.com/message/tilde-club-i-had-a-couple-drinks-and-woke-up-with-1-000-nerds-a8904f0a2ebf
Poking around the googlesphere for 'free shell accounts' one can sift
out some old communities still hiding out. God only knows what fun and mischievous things lurk in these spaces.
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