koldfront

.signatures #usenet #email #amiga

🕔︎ - 2024-02-24

A staple of usenet and email is the .signature. I just had a little peek at a usenet archive to find some of my old ones.

1992:

                                      .
                                     -*-
  Adam_Sjoegren@thesystem.bbs.bad.se   \O_  BBS    +45-31-354775
  Copenhagen, Denmark                   |   ANet betatester
  GCChost support DK                   / \  FidoNet    2:230/149

GCChost was software for running a FidoNet node - it was very configurable through ARexx, and at some point I think I started handling licenses for Denmark (the author was in Italy).

ANet was BBS software from Sweden that I was running, it had a cool interface where navigation was done by typing "shortest command prefix", automatically figured out by the software.

My BBS was called "The system", with that capitalization, for some... uh... artistic or otherwise self-indulgent reason.

1993:

 Adam Sjoegren          Interstellar Navigation      DLG BB/OS 24h
 Copenhagen, Denmark      asj@inav.bbs.bad.se        +45 31354775
 EMS/GCCh support DK   * Powered by AGA and 040 *    16.8k USR Dual

GCChost was replaced by EMS, by the same author, which was designed to handle other types of mail/news systems than FidoNet - we all had email and usenet envy in those days - so it was attractive.

By this time I had changed the name of my BBS to Interstellar Navigation, and I had changed software to the Canadian developed DLG, and it was running on my Amiga 4000, which I was very proud of. It was very expensive as well.

I kind of liked the little stick figure in the older .signature, and have taken to putting a variant in motd on my machines these days, eg:

$ ssh virgil
Linux virgil 6.1.0-18-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.1.76-1 (2024-02-01) x86_64
   _.
   \O_.    virgil: PC, Copenhagen
    |              AMD Ryzen 5 2400 GE (8 cores)
 ._/_\_,           64G memory, 1.9T disk
  o   o

Last login: Sat Feb 24 15:20:02 2024 from 192.168.1.102

Just for fun.

🕔︎ - 2024-02-24 - 1 comment

I had that phone number advertised in the .signatures until 2020.

- Adam Sjøgren 🕗︎ - 2024-02-24

+=

Add comment

To avoid spam many websites make you fill out a CAPTCHA, or log in via an account at a corporation such as Twitter, Facebook, Google or even Microsoft GitHub.

I have chosen to use a more old school method of spam prevention.

To post a comment here, you need to:

¹ Such as Thunderbird, Pan, slrn, tin or Gnus (part of Emacs).

Or, you can fill in this form:

+=