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Valleywag
Computing pioneer and author Howard Rheingold has jumped on the buzzword bandwagon with a vlog, and the two most recent entries are a peek back into the pre-Web days when "geek" was still a term of scorn. Possibly because of some astounding fashion choices — Rheingold's taste in vibrant colors and eye-splitting patterns pictured here seem to have influenced Marissa Mayer's taste in couture. That said, as an early BBS dialer myself, I find this footage of a party at the Sausalito offices of The Well in 1989 fascinating. For a list of the people in the videos, the comment thread on BoingBoing's post gives the details. Watch and learn, you kids, after the jump.
I find early Well systems administrator Elaine "Booter" Richards' comment at 1:23 to be strikingly prophetic: "If it's lunch time at the office and I don't feel like going out, I'll log into the Well and go into the pets conference and talk about my cats." So, so little has changed.
Comments
"Waiting for blip.tv..."
Howard Rheingold is a "computing pioneer and author"? Oh, come now, we expect better from a Gawker Media site. How about "computing pioneer and inhalant aficionado"? "Computing pioneer and stevedore chaser", maybe? Pageviews, people.
Got it. And part 1 is here:
[www.boingboing.net]
I logged on to The Well in 1989 or so but didn't get what all the hype was about. I guess my age had something to do with it (was 17 in 1989). Most of the folks on there were older. I spent a great deal of time on other BBSes, though, especially the NirvanaNET and Fido networks.
Funny to see Stewart Brand -- I saw him last week at a Long Now event and he pretty much looks exactly the same 20 years later. Can't say that for anyone else on the video.
Where's Billy Idol? He had his Well e-mail address printed on the cover of his seminal work 'Cyberpunk'.
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