The 30th anniversity of public internet access in Newcastle, Australia

Fun times. After a stint as a user on SATNET (arpanet) in ucl-cs and the CSIRO as "spearnet" got formed and morphed into AARNet I had been running UQ email systems 88-92 with others and then doing tech work for ISPs in Queensland. These early systems were transformative for a lot of people. Felt good to help people get online.

Acsnet and mhsnet were good. Broadcast user@host model, it was theoretically possible to mail *@* and Piers Dick-Lauder (who wrote the s/w with Bob Kummerfeld) did in fact cause a bit of an Oz wide mail storm at least once. Slowly, at the speed of modems.

I take my hat off to this Newcastle mob. Doing great work.