How to send an "E mail" 1984

[hunter]

59. I remember the release of 2BSD in 1979. It was magic.

After that I wrote most of my term papers (and a great American novel... ) using vi. I don't recall how I got started, but I can surmise they were looking for fools to test the system. I still have some of the original documentation handed to me.

At some point I remember sending an email to someone across the country and getting a reply right back. Wow! I was still using Western Union telegrams to communicate urgent matters overseas then, because phone service was too expensive and unreliable. At the time the entire University was connected to the internet by the equivalent of a 56k modem which everyone shared.

Email changed everything.

When I first signed up to DU I was still using a highly modified version of Windows 98 SE but I soon switched fully to Linux, which was like coming home again.

The "ed" password makes me laugh. I once used a four letter password, all lowercase and easy to type with one hand, on a low privilege account that had been assigned by a professor newly infatuated with "educational" software. Someone stole my password, probably as they passed glancing over my shoulder. The next time I tried to log in I was locked out, the password had been changed. It amuses me to imagine the thief learning he could run nothing more than the most hideously boring "educational" software ever devised. I was always careful with other passwords, past reasonable precautions into paranoia.