Apple II Bits

I heard of BBS: The Documentary before I knew of Jason Scott. I reviewed the film for my first issue as editor of Apple II publication Juiced.GS and thought a good follow-up would be to interview its creator. My first interview with Jason ran in December 2006, though it wasn’t until the inaugural ROFLCon in April 2008 that I got to meet the man himself. I found him colorful, knowledgeable, opinionated — and, most of all, passionate. He’s somebody I found worth keeping tabs on, which is why Computerworld publishes my second interview with him today, the week that his second film, GET LAMP, debuts. Less than half of what Jason and I discussed fit into Computerworld‘s print edition, just like the “PAX cut” of his film shown at KansasFest was only an excerpt of his larger work. Fortunately in the latter case, the final product will be shipped free to all KansasFest 2010 attendees by the end of next month. I can’t wait to review Jason’s latest accomplishment for Juiced.GS.

It is actually not typical for this keynote speaker to put his audience to sleep.

I have not sought to complete my familiarity with Jason’s non-cinematic productions, so it was by happenstance that I recently stumbled across an MP3 recording of “Apple II Pirate Lore“, a presentation he gave in 2003:

[This is an] overview of the Apple II Piracy Community of the early to mid 1980’s, presented at the 5th Rubi-Con Conference in Detroit Michigan. Subjects covered include the unique aspects of the Apple II microcomputer architecture and culture, the methods of removing copy protection from software packages of the Apple II, and a very large helping of trivia. To illustrate some aspects of the “crack screens” and other Apple II graphics, an Apple II clone and several programs were provided. Speech delivered on March 29, 2003.

The file is almost exactly 46 minutes in length and discusses the stratification and traditions of early computer users and hackers. What generalizations can we make about Apple II users, and what motivated some of its users to become hackers? What language and practices existed within that subset of users? Jason delivers his speech eloquently while using but not relying on visuals, making his presentation surprisingly effective as an audio-only recording.

Most important to me, this presentation clarifies why Jason made a great keynote speaker at KansasFest 2009. Sure, Apple II users are part of a broader retrocomputing community of which Jason is a member — but his experience with the Apple II is personal and memorable. This small bit of knowledge quickly transformed my perception of him from that of an outsider to that of a peer.

When interviewing Jason about GET LAMP for Computerworld, he told me, “A lot of my stuff was slow-simmering and is now coming to a boil.” I’m glad to see the fruition of more of his work, because I know the Apple II community to which be belongs will benefit.

Last month, I attended ROFLCon II, a conference that originated two years ago at MIT as an occasion to study and discuss the nature and propagation of Internet memes, such as LOLcats. The event afforded me the opportunity to meet many of my heroes, from Matt Harding to Jason Scott (who I’d next see giving the keynote speech at KansasFest 2009). At the first ROFLCon, Scott presented a session, “Before the LOL“, on the history of digital communications. The full presentation is available online, as is a four-minute video summary.

In 2010, Scott returned to ROFLCon and was part of a panel on the history and heroes of the Usenet. His panel consisted of celebrities both lauded and loathed, from Brad Templeton, former chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, to Laurence Canter, the Internet’s first commercial spammer. Despite the variety of backgrounds and reputations, it was an enjoyable and revealing session for all present.

I covered ROFLCon II for Bostonist.com, but with 13 pages of notes from 11 different sessions, I was able to summarize only a fraction of what I learned that weekend. My writeup unfortunately did not touch upon the Usenet session, which brought back memories of using my Apple IIgs, a 2400-baud modem, and ProTERM to dial into my local ISP and access a variety of newsgroups. Although I was not active in comp.sys.apple2 (aka csa2), I made regular use of the other resources Usenet provided, and I lament its unpopularity today.

I’m talking about the sense of an intimate community that existed before everyone and their mother got onto the Internet. Usenet was also a valuable reference for anyone looking to discuss shared interests. Today, if you had a modern Mac support question, where would you go to ask it — discussions.info.apple.com maybe? For cooking advice, you might think allrecipes.com — but there are no message boards there, only recipes and comments on same. The Grateful Dead? I wouldn’t even know where to start. For more esoteric topics, like the Apple II, you have several options, from Applefritter forums to the Low End Mac mailing list — but which one do you choose?

I’m not against diversification of resources or even multiple communities, but there is no standard today. By contrast, with Usenet, you could take a single identity to multiple newsgroups and find all the information you needed. The tools for reading these boards made it effortless to keep track of as many as you wanted — something that modern message boards still have difficulty reproducing. (As a community manager for Computerworld.com, I still long for the powers I had as a CLI sysop.) Scott’s session had me yearning to return to the days of the text-based reader tin. (Unfortunately, I can’t get the Mac OS X installation instructions to work.)

When I graduated from college and lost my shell access, I never explored how else I might access Usenet. It wasn’t until a few years ago, when I discovered Google Groups offers Usenet messages via RSS, that I again started lurking in csa2. RSS is my preferred method of content delivery, and depending on your ISP, you too may need to look into such alternatives, as fewer of them are offering their own news servers to which to connect your NNTP client. Even Duke University, which originated Usenet in 1979, is shuttering its newsgroups.

Regardless of your access method, Usenet is still available, and csa2 has shed its former reputation as a flame pit and has become a cordial environment in which to ask questions, pose problems, and suggest solutions, from the esoteric to the mundane. As long as people keep using it, there will be those dedicated to keeping it alive. Usenet isn’t going anywhere — heck, if we’re lucky, it could even be the basis of Wikipedia’s successor.