• I would like to introduce myself as a new node in Switzerland.

    From alisha@21:1/220 to All on Sun May 9 23:13:22 2021
    Hello all

    First of all, I would like to apologise for my bad English, unfortunately it
    is not my mother tongue.

    My name is Alisha I am transgender MtF (male to female) I was born on 13 December 1972 in Zurich, Switzerland. I worked for several years in the
    carrier business at ISP's and Telcos until I got tired of the hire and fire mentality in the private sector and the non-stop shareholder value thinking. That's why I decided to apply for a job at the Swiss Federal Railways, where
    I now work in the Rail IP Network division. I work there in a small team of specialists and we are responsible for the entire backbone of the Swiss
    Federal Railways. In addition to office hours, I'm also on standby duty if something goes wrong or another anomaly occurs outside of office hours.

    My hobbies include IT, Cypriot history and myths, and of course my model railway in H0 1:87 and G 1:22.5 scale. I am also a passionate DXer for satellite reception, but unfortunately, I never had enough time to get my amateur radio licence (HB9).

    Why open a mailbox again in this day and age? I think the following words
    under the motto Back to the roots explain it. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask at any time.

    Back to the roots

    CoVid-19 has brought a lot of negative things upon us, however in this
    respect it has also brought something positive. As the title says, "back to
    the roots". Very few people know that swissIRC started as a small mailbox system called "Only you" in the mid 1980s, so let m enlighten you.

    It all started with a Commodore 64 (breadbox) with 2 floppy drives (1541) and
    a Commodore Modem 1660 that could do 300 baud on the parental phone line.
    Which I was only allowed to use from 21:00 to 06:00 in the early stages. The Commodore 64 became a Commodore 128D with 3 external floppy drives (1 x 1571 and 2 x 1581) and the Commodore Modem 1670 which could do 300 and 1200 baud. Sharing the phone line became more and more a problem. My parents were torpedoed with calls during the day, while the mailbox was not allowed to run.

    So another solution was needed. My parents ordered a SwissNet (ISDN) line for me and I now had my own numbers (which would have been the best solution from the beginning). With the reboot, the name of the mailbox changed to MicroVax BBS. By working (newspaper distribution) in the spare time and working in the school vacations, I was then able to afford a Commodore Amiga 2000B. Slowly
    the accessories grew. Second internal floppy drive, as well as external
    floppy drive and an incredibly huge hard disk with 40 Megabyte. Of course,
    this also included a Zyxel 1496E modem.

    The next jump was then to a Compaq Deskpro 486 DX50 with 2 x 80 Mbyte hard disks, as well as an external SyQest 88 Mbyte removable disk. At the
    beginning with the Zyxel 1496E later with two Zyxel Elite 2864i. The SyQest
    was a bad buy. The part howled so loudly, it was impossible to sleep with it
    in the same room. In the following years there were several updates to the system. More hard disk space and integration of external networks
    (Proprietary no FidoNet or so) increased the costs for the maintenance of the mailbox. Because of my mailbox software, which I used in Amiga times and PC times, my hub was equipped to exchange messages in Cologne Germany. This
    meant I had to call Cologne every 2 hours to exchange messages. In other
    words I was investing a large part of my apprentice wages in telephone costs. Sometime in 1995 or 1996 the defect witch caught up with me. In the
    beginning, I was still fixing things. However, at some point, the cost and benefit was no longer right. I pulled the plug from this chapter also because of professional dependencies.

    At the end of 1999 a new chapter started. With a few friends I brought an IRC server into the internet, which was part of a network. As it is, friendships fall apart. So I decided to build up my own IRC network and swissIRC.net was born which still exists today. Currently it consists of 3 servers and a hub with services.

    CoVid-19 is, or was, the trigger to go over the books again. A lot has
    changed in the years. Modem connections are a thing of the past, today IP
    rules the world. Therefore back to the roots with a mailbox BBS but IP based
    to the existing IRC network as a supplement. With the connection to the
    FidoNet and fsxNET to start in the past but under the name swissIRC BBS.

    Best regards

    Alisha

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: swissIRC BBS (21:1/220)
  • From deon@21:2/116 to alisha on Mon May 10 09:13:29 2021
    Re: I would like to introduce myself as a new node in Switzerland.
    By: alisha to All on Sun May 09 2021 11:13 pm

    Hi Alisha,

    First of all, I would like to apologise for my bad English, unfortunately it
    is not my mother tongue.

    Welcome.

    Dont worry about your English here - we are from all necks of the globe so things get understood eventually.

    My english is not so great either, 'cause I'm 'straylian. :)

    ...ëîåï

    ... Los Angeles' full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula". It can be abbreviated to 3.63%% of its size: L.A.
    --- SBBSecho 3.14-Linux
    * Origin: I'm playing with ANSI+videotex - wanna play too? (21:2/116)
  • From Zip@21:1/202 to alisha on Mon May 10 10:03:10 2021
    Hello Alisha, and welcome to fsxNet!

    What a great introduction, and an interesting read!

    Brings back lots of fond memories from the times back then.

    I've also been through a number of platforms, although modems started with the PC era for me. :)

    Best regards
    Zip

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/04/08 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Star Collision BBS, Uppsala, Sweden (21:1/202)
  • From Avon@21:1/101 to alisha on Mon May 10 20:25:13 2021
    On 09 May 2021 at 11:13p, alisha pondered and said...

    Hello all

    Hi :)

    CoVid-19 is, or was, the trigger to go over the books again. A lot has changed in the years. Modem connections are a thing of the past, today IP rules the world. Therefore back to the roots with a mailbox BBS but IP based to the existing IRC network as a supplement. With the connection
    to the FidoNet and fsxNET to start in the past but under the name
    swissIRC BBS.

    Thank you for sharing your background / history with us. What a fascinating read. I hope you enjoy engaging with people from around the globe who are active in this network. They are a good bunch who enjoy a good chat :)

    Welcome again, it's nice to have you as a member of our online community.

    Best, Paul.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Blue White@21:4/134 to alisha on Mon May 10 16:02:50 2021
    alisha wrote to All <=-

    My hobbies include IT, Cypriot history and myths, and of course my
    model railway in H0 1:87 and G 1:22.5 scale. I am also a passionate
    DXer for satellite reception, but unfortunately, I never had enough
    time to get my amateur radio licence (HB9).

    I look forward to having time to work on my model RR again. It is also in
    HO scale.

    Welcome to the network.


    ... "Mmmmmmmm.....doughnuts."
    --- MultiMail
    * Origin: Possum Lodge South * possumso.fsxnet.nz:7636/SSH:2122 (21:4/134)
  • From acn@21:3/127.1 to alisha on Tue May 11 11:57:00 2021
    Am 09.05.21 schrieb alisha@21:1/220 in FSX_NET:

    Hallo alisha,

    First of all, I would like to apologise for my bad English, unfortunately
    it is not my mother tongue.

    Welcome to fsxNet! :)

    As you've already been told, we are from all around the globe - I'm from Karlsruhe, Germany - not so far away from Switzerland :)

    I'm ~8 years younger and never had my own BBS back in the days, but I had
    a point system (using CrossPoint) in the late 90s.
    My first computers also were a C64 (and a CBM 8296 from my school), but I went on to the PC side afterwards, skipping the Amiga.

    So, have fun in fsxNet and have a nice day!

    Regards,
    Anna

    --- OpenXP 5.0.49
    * Origin: Imzadi Box Point (21:3/127.1)
  • From NuSkooler@21:1/121 to alisha on Tue May 11 20:08:25 2021

    Twas Monday, May 10th when alisha said...
    Hello all

    Welcome, I won't comment on each line (I'm in a rush) but I think you'll find a lot of likeminded nerds around here :D



    --
    |08 â–  |12NuSkooler |06// |12Xibalba |08- |07"|06The place of fear|07"
    |08 â–  |03xibalba|08.|03l33t|08.|03codes |08(|0344510|08/|03telnet|08, |0344511|08/|03ssh|08)
    |08 â–  |03ENiGMA 1/2 WHQ |08| |03Phenom |08| |0367 |08| |03iMPURE |08| |03ACiDic
    --- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.12-beta (linux; x64; 14.15.4)
    * Origin: Xibalba -+- xibalba.l33t.codes:44510 (21:1/121)
  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to alisha on Wed May 12 21:34:00 2021
    On 05-09-21 23:13, alisha wrote to All <=-

    Hello all

    First of all, I would like to apologise for my bad English,
    unfortunately it is not my mother tongue.

    Welcome aboard Alisha. :)


    ... Wars are not fought to decide who is right - only who is left
    === MultiMail/Win v0.52
    --- SBBSecho 3.10-Linux
    * Origin: Freeway BBS Bendigo,Australia freeway.apana.org.au (21:1/109)