Longing for the Past
by Nick
Here I am, writing a submission for 2600 Magazine.
I never thought I'd ever be writing a submission for 2600, partly because I never have anything to talk about and my English writing skills really are awful!
Anyway, I'm 15 years old, live in London, and I am obsessed by telecommunications and computing history.
I own a ZX Spectrum+ (48k). This is from 1982. I love to play the old games through the tape player and I also have a couple of old laptops pre-2002.
When I was around 13, I was looking "for places to Telnet" and found this site called telehack.com. This is a site which gives you an "UNIX environment" and aims to recreate what the Internet was like back in the 1980s and 1990s. The aim of the game for the user is to take control of hosts by gaining root and downloading files from BBS. I still enjoy playing it.
From telehack I found out there was something called a Bulletin Board System (BBS) which was pretty much what everyone interested in computers used to talk to others on, as well as send mail and also download files.
In 2014, I bought a 56k modem so I could try dialing a few of these BBSes I found. Wow, did I have fun searching around! In 2014, there were only two dial-up BBSes left in the U.K.: Nostromo and The Arcade.
When I last checked (about a month ago), The Arcade was no longer around, however Nostromo still is. I know BBSes are accessible through Telnet, but that's no fun! The reason I dial these instead of "telnetting" in is because it makes me feel nostalgic (I really wish I was born in the sixties. By the eighties I would be old enough to afford a computer and a modem, and play around with all this stuff back then.
Eventually, I got a little bored of the BBSes in the U.K., so I decided to look for other dial-up ones. I found a large list (Synchronet) of dial-up BBSes - wow, I was happy, but problem: they were all in the U.S.
I managed to find a way to make a "cheap" call to the U.S. I dialed most of the BBSes on that list until my dad asked me why we had such a big phone bill of 0844 numbers.
I told him how I used 0844 numbers to get a "cheap" call to the U.S. I told him that on the site it was 1p a minute which didn't seem such a big deal to me, but what I didn't realize was that British Telecom (BT) charged 33p to access an 0844) number! He was a bit pissed-off for a while, but whatever. You can't blame me, I was only 13!
Eventually, I got bored of dialing BBSes and I just stopped after about a year of exploring various boards and dial-up numbers.
Only recently has my interest started again as I have read the 2600 1984 Hacker Digest, Volume 1.
It's not so much the BBSes anymore or even the modem that amuses me; it's the phreaking. Back when I was interested in BBSes and modems, I had an idea as to what phreaking was, but not to the extent which I understand it now.
I don't think you understand how much I would love to dial through different exchanges, scan different 1-800 numbers, and play 2600 Hertz through a phonebox to get a free long distance call. It must've been so fun!
I watched the movie Hackers and never really understood it until I watched it again few weeks ago. It's sick! I always understood the movie WarGames - it's a great movie too!
I was surfing the net the other night, trying to find out if there were any exchanges that were "phreakable" and unfortunately the last one closed down just over ten years ago.
However, what I did find is something that really interests me: Project MF.
Project MF is a number you can dial which acts as a "phreakable" exchange. You need a Blue Box whether it be physical, a computer program, or a smartphone app.
You can play 2600 Hertz to seize the line, use KP - number - ST, and it takes you to its extension numbers that are programmed in.
This is only an American number, which is annoying because I have to dial a cheap call to the USA number first, then dial the Project MF number (+1-630-485-2995). If anyone lives in the U.K. and wishes to dial the U.S. for free, use 0333-555-3872. This is an 03 number and, as you know (if you live in the U.K.) 01/02/03 numbers are free to call as they are geographical numbers.
It's amazing. It might be outdated to you guys that grew up in the 1980s and 1990s. You've had first hand experience. But this really does interest me.
I was 11 when I sent my first fax. I kept on sending them to my dad's office, another reason for him to get pissed-off.
Man, I wish I could go back to the past and experience all of this cool stuff, even though I have an iPhone and a Windows 10 PC, which obviously were not around 20 to 30 years ago.
I would rather be in the past than where I am now.