Computing like 1995
===================
It's strange sometimes how we go full circle. 

When I first connected one of my PC's to the internet, back in the
mid 90's, I discovered IRC, Usenet, Email and the WWW was in its
infancy.

Fast forward 30 years, we're almost in 2025, and guess what? I'm
using IRC, Usenet, Email and now also Gopher.

My interest in computers lead me down a big rabbit hole. Into a
career as a perl programmer and web developer and eventually, once
out of the rat race, computing returned to being a hobby. 

Thankfully my career was spent mostly with open source software and
operating systems. I got to learn a little bit along the way and
not to be easily fooled by the gloss on the surface of software. Once
you have seen what lurks beyond some of these shiny web front ends
and the infrastructure of some seemingly high status companies, you
realize that it is much more about appearance than substance.

IRC
---
If you want to find groups of people with a similar interest to talk
to in real-time then this is the place. 

There are still numerous public IRC networks out there, and private
servers, that you can join and participate in the conversation. 

Usenet
------
The original federated platform. Now that google have relinquished
their grasp, and stopped bridging Usenet to the internet via google
groups, the Usenet world is a much nicer place.

There are literally groups for every possible interest, although many
may have not had activity for a very long time. That doesn't mean
no one is subscribed to them. I have been surprised a few times when
posting to a seemingly dead group. It often appears people are very
grateful to have something new to read!

Revive this wonderful resource, there is no better time.

Email
-----
What can you say about email? Part of daily life for most of us. I
still have a couple of accounts with large providers, as backup and
for things I think might generate spam. However, I host my own mail
server and have done so for many years.

I don't trust third parties to not read my emails.

Gopher
------
Gopher is perfect for micro-publishing; blogs, news articles or even
file distribution. There is narrow scope for defining the appearance
of plain text, so appearance is not a great consideration.

All my articles are exclusive to gopher, I have no social media
accounts, no Gemini capsule and no personal website.

Commonality
-----------
What does everything above have in common? They can all be accessed
using netcat or telnet. A client is not a requirement to interact
with these services, if you learn a little about the protocol.

The Future
----------
The future is the past. The command line, a companion that follows my
will, with awk as my aide and where all errors are my own. You can
visit any time, the port is always open, as long as the lights are
on.

When will we transcend our teletype emulation and our typewriter
keymap? Once upon a time someone had a plan, or 9, but they too
became corrupted by the world and their new master. Won't someone
pick up the mantle so that we may once again see the light? 

  Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient
  means for going backwards. -- Aldous Huxley