[lug] Old stuff that still works(gopher pages)

[Rob Mohr]

I am still stuck on gopher pages.  Pixes are just a distraction, and they
let in the masses.  


Long before the 'net bubble and companies just trying to put up a biz
model to sell stuff via the net, I remember buying some khaki pants from
J.C. Penny, via my XT-PC, with a newly installed 50 meg hard drive, a 1200
baud modem, I dialed into a bulletin board for Pennies.  I remember it was
fast, clear to understand, and the pants came to me via UPS three days
later.  No, no stinking icons to fuz with, no flashy web pages, just
clear, green ASCII.  This was about 1994, maybe 1993.


I purchased my first cheap airline tix about the same time.  And I bought
a used only once 165 cm Burton snowboard via a usenet listing, this was
circa 1995.  (Right now I can't remember what I used for fido net; oh, I
used something called GEnie.  What was that, a General Electric entity?) 

Call me square.  Call me an old putz.  But I thought gopher pages were
just cool, better than having to dial this or that bulletin board. 

Scroll ahead to 1999, I could not figure what the hype was about "buying
things via the 'net" as I had done that six years before, and I did not
catch a shower of V.C. money for having been on the vanguard.  Not even a
single stock option.  

End of story.  You can be early.  But don't be *too* early.  And go
gophers!

Rob Mohr 
eof