Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Care To Explain Your User Name?

Ah yes, i remember Pine.
I started in '91.
Univ. of Waterloo.
Great school for engineering, math and computing.
They also have the largest on campus bar in N. America which holds something like 1200 ppl.

I remeber that too. Anyone go further back with Archie and Gopher.
Back then I comunicated via IRC when that earthquake hit the bridge in San Fran.
Years before that using dial-up modems hitting BBS using HSLINK to transfer files and chatting at the same time. The only way to go outside your area code was hacking corporate PBX and jumping and jumping PBX to get long distance...back in the good ole days of 9600 and 14.4 baud modems.

Those were the days. Hence I work in the Telecom industry now. We hire lots of co-op Waterloo guys. Smart kids.

Ahhh.. the days when you had to use more than one program to get information.

I had the privilege of going to a high school that had a leased line running at 56kpbs (through a local company) to the internet. I remember using Archie and Gopher, but I'll never forget the day the computer teacher got Mosaic running was cool, too. We had a few DECs in the lab, but the rest were Macs.

Of course, previous to that, I had been active on a number of local BBSes.

What was the biggest BBS in Cali back then...before the FBI sting on all the illegal file boards. Up here it was Untouchables in Toronto and Park Central in NYC. I think the Tubs is still running even today. I used to hit a site in Cali and I just forget what name it was. It was pretty huge. 12 dial lines @ 14.4k back then and up to 24 lines at 56k before they went all down.

I think this thread deserves a once-a-month revival...

I also noticed you guys were talking about PINE based email, I thought you'd be interested to know that we still use it. Our grain company's archaic computer system uses pine email. We've slowly changed over in the last 2-3 years and use GroupWise email now for almost everything (can use PINE for some communication but why would you want to???).

I've really enjoyed this thread. Thanks for reviving it, Sid. I've wondered about many of the regulars' names. Now I know. Mine's easy. As you can tell from my signature, my first name is Jack. Actually, it's a nickname for my legal name, John. But, I've been called Jack since birth. So, therefore I am "A Jack." Just changed the "ck" to an "x" for fun, and because it made it a common word. I have nothing to do with cleanliness (no wisecracks, now);)

My user name is a pun of sorts...and a jibe at my sister's Texas accent.

My last name is Furrer (pronounced "fur" to make it easy...too many Fuhrer references over the years from those trying to pronounce it correctly).

Derived from the question upon viewing one of my brothers doing something they shouldn't..."Wonder what Furrer that is?"...

Or the Texas slang answer to a rather dumb question: What fur?

WhatFurrer

Mine follows a simple formula:

City of residence + Last name + species.

AustinBirdMan.

PS - Now we need a thread where we try to identify the source of the quotations used as taglines. Anyone know where mine comes from? Should be easy for fans of epic movies.

Lawrence of Arabia, I believe.

Yes, Omar Sharif.

I wanted to use my favorite quotation from Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find," from the Misfit about the old lady, but some might misinterpret it as misogynist: "She'd a been a good woman," said the Misfit, "if there'd a been someone there to shoot here every day of her life."