54. Retro-Computing - Tell your Stories. What do you miss, not miss

54. Retro-Computing - Tell your Stories. What do you miss, not miss

54. Retro-Computing - Tell your Stories. What do you miss, not miss
Tom Stevenson 22:41 Sun Jun 18/23 17 lines

Since we are all on this system, we must find some use to
the old conferencing tools. Since the shutdown of MTS at WSU
and UM (1999, 1996, respectivly), so much has happened in the
world of technology.

You can now embed video in your webpages. In fact, with Youtube
(nasty censors) and Rumble (a real American company that cares
about free speech), most business apps are webpage based, and
pictures and audio are all over the internet.

Some say that this noise sometimes obfuscates real conversation -
like the stuff we had here in our little walled garden of computing
Eden.

So, what are your memories of the good old days? What do you like
about the simpler times that you think we may have lost in this age
of multi-media information overload?

54/1. Siobhan Medbhb O'Roarke 22:49 Sun Jun 18/23 30 lines

When I returned to MTS in November, I was struck by
how much noise was eliminated.

Just imagine being in a bar / restaurant with a lot
of people. Everyone is talking all at once at all of
the tables and its hard to have a conversation with
anyone.

Now, imagine going into a quiet room away from all of
that noise. The sounds linger in your head for a few
moments, but after a few minutes, your head clears.

Now, imagine that a few friends come into the room.
They speak clearly and frankly. No background noise.
Your brain is hyper-alert because it can finally find
signal and not noise.

Thats how I felt when I came back on MTS. Oh, did I
miss it so.

Also, when you only have text, you are forced to think
about things - because writing is a form of thinking.

It takes no effort to upload a twerking video to
Tiktok (which should be banned, in my estimation).

It takes time, to formulate, in words, a coherent,
thoughtful composition. (call out to JBP!).

Those are my initial thoughts on this subject...

54/2. Lucien Hoydic 22:52 Sun Jun 18/23 9 lines

I can't help but think that someone is planning
to distract us. Its hard to use today's modern
internet to have a reasonable conversation. Its
been commondered by commercial interests and those
who are manipulating it for the purpose of distracting
us from the important - God, Family, Country.

MTS (and systems like it) may be the tool that we
can use to save it.

54/3. John Palmer 23:07 Sun Jun 18/23 57 lines

That's EXACTLY my goal.

I started out playing with MTS for geeky, technical reasons - I
grew up with the system in my university years and always found
it magical. When I was young, I didn't fully understand, and now
I do.

MTS and the few other systems like it (but really, MTS with
*Forum and Confer were in their own league) were places where the
information age began, especially things like conferencing and
e-mail.

Of course, technology would advance to include things like
"graphics" (a term that means things like images and videos,
etc), something MTS doesn't have.

Most people would assume that this march of technological advance
would be good. Thats the voice of the utopian optimist. We need
that, for sure, but it ignores the potential downside.

The internet was supposed to "democratize" information. It was
supposed to allow the common person the ability to look for "the
truth" without having CBS, NBC and ABC curate the information,
usually applying a political bent.

I have come to the conclusion that, unfortunatly, the internet
has been captured by the "establishment". Just do a search on any
controversial topic, even on Duck Duck GO - the first 10 PAGES of
responses are all mainstream media websites, some with headlines
that are almost an admonishment to the searcher, as if we were
dumb, bucktooth superstitious hillbillies' that "don't know whats
good for us" and "why would you want to search for that"?

The simplicity of MTS can allow us to fight this by forcing the
poster to WRITE, which as Siobhan says, is a FORM OF THINKING.
Without the distraction of flashy images and videos, people
can THINK.

Maybe we won't get that many to join us, but we will get people
who value these things, and thats good.

My plans for the AWI MTS Systems is exactly that, to take us back
to a simpler time. Oh, how I wish Jeff Ogden and/or Mike
Alexander would PLEASE just take an hour to put Confer into an
virtual tape file and put it on the Bitsavers website. I'll take
it from there. In the meantime, *Forum will have to do.

As I have said, I hope they can find the time to finish the d7.0
distribution, but more importantly, to get us Confer, PLEASE.

So, I will do what I can.

54/4. Lucien Hoydic 23:21 Sun Jun 18/23 (revised) 24 lines

Thank you, John for your efforts.

Its people like you, who have lived longe enough to have some
wisdom. One of the bad habits these days is for people to
disregard the wisdom of the past. They arrogantly think that the
world began with them and that they can re-do it.

I don't blame young people. They are energetic, idealistic and
ignorant of the forces of human nature that drive the lion's
share of the problems we have.

I really do beleive this forum (i.e. systems like this) will be
useful in filtering our the noise so we can THINK again.

I wonder if Mike A and his buddies, sitting at the kitchen table
in that rented house in Ann Arbor so many years ago understood
that their creation might one day save our Republic and our
Civilization?

Probably not. None of us can predict the trajectory of our lives,
or how much we affect the world as a whole (the entire theme of
"Its a Wonderful Life").

Keep at it, John (and Mike A!). We appreciate it.

KEYWORDS:
RETRO_COMPUTING

Back to Conference Index