this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2023
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Before getting home Internet access, my "online" world was BBSes. Local BBSes, of course, because we couldn't dial long distance without repercussions. My favourite demogroup was Future Crew and I hated that it took months (or sometimes never) to get their releases on our local BBSes. Even with Fidonet, a lot of BBSes would only sync with remote nodes a couple times a month to save money, so it was slow going.
I remember a few days after we got home Internet access, I was eating breakfast and I suddenly had a thought. Wait...doesn't Future Crew's BBS run an FTP server? I think I saw them mention that in one of their nfo files. If they have an FTP server, I could just...connect to it. Like, directly, myself, from my house.
The implications of this were so strong that I started shaking. I couldn't finish my breakfast.
I ran downstairs and booted up the computer and typed in
ftp.mpoli.fiand...there it was. Future Crew's home BBS was just available for anyone in the world to connect to. I navigated around a little bit and found a song I hadn't seen before on any of the local BBSes. I started the download, and it worked, and a blazing 3kB/s. I remember I just started crying at the implications of what a worldwide network meant.