Thirty years ago today, Newcastle's Free & Public access to,the Internet happened

[Chris Baird]

Hello Usenet, my old friend. What follows is an account of a bit of
nearly forgotten Australian Internet history... (No I don't have a
blog.)

* * *

On the 14th of August 1992, 30 years ago today, the Newcastle-based
Public Access Unix system "Scorch", did its first email with the
Internet.

It most certainly wasn't the first 'Internet' access available to
anyone living in Newcastle. The University had computer-based
messaging since the 1980s (DECnet, ACSnet) and joined the "network of
networks" with the TCP/IP-based AARNet in the 1st? week of March 1990.
Access was as you would expect limited to Students, Staff, and
associated organizations (like BHP Labs) and it had a very savage by
today's standards Acceptable Usage Policy:- for Academic purposes
only; and it was enforced with drastic consequences, being: losing the
mainframe computer access necessary for your coursework ==> no Uni
Degree for you.

There was also the companies Pegasus, DIALix, and RUNX, providing a
gateway to Internet email at the national level; but those cost about
$1/minute and had monthly fees, on top of the phone rental and
long-distance call charges.

But Scorch, owned by Michael Brown (aka DoctorRock/ZenHarris), and
maintained with the help of a small group of mostly students and
unemployed, was the first any-nerd-off-the-street access to the
international Internet community in Newcastle and NSW.

* * *

At the start of the 1990s, Newcastle had a well-established
Fidonet-software Bulletin Board presence of 5 years or so, with about
25 dial-up BBSes in the immediate Newcastle/Lower Hunter area. There
were also BBSes that had been operating during the mid-1980s, running
on CP/M, Apple][s, MSDOS, and Commodore 64s, that sprung up when the
need for permits[!] for modems was dropped by Telecom/Telstra.
However, the Fidonet system was a network, where messages could be
sent and received with users on a different Fidonet BBS.

I might as well include a list of local SysOps, as they're certainly
also the forgotten electronic networking pioneers of Newcastle. Do you
remember anyone? (or any of you still here??):

Alistair Harding, Andre Van Eyssen, Andrew Bergquist, Andrew
Glazebrook, Andrew Guy, Andrew Kenna, Arie Upton, Brendan Hancock,
Chris Ruwoldt, Chris Smoother, Daniel Oost, David Jaillet, David
Lyons, Dick Strickleton, Geoff Bilborough, Ian Mason, Jared Quinn,
Jason Bowe, Jason Mulligan, John Cocklin, John Fisher, Jon Fisher,
Matthew Taylor, Peter Deane, Peter Thompson, Phillip Eastham, Raine
Reinikka, Robert Stephens, Ross Slade, Scott Mackenzie, Simon
Phillips, Stan White, Stuart Gibson, Tony & Michael Dodds, Tony &
Helen Terbizan, Troy Harper.

Fidonet had a reputation, and it wasn't a good one--imagine the worst
of social media today, without anywhere near to the amount of
government or police attention that occurs today. (Unless you did
something really attention-attractingly bad ..and a few certainly
did). The scene was very much influenced by the Cyberpunk Hacker
dramatic. But it was still accessible tech: 25-35 years ago, rather
than running your own Discord server and finding others to hang out,
it was running a dial-up BBS.

Michael had been trying to participate in the BBS scene. It needed
more effort on his part because his computer Scorch ran UNIX, and Fido
was almost entirely MSDOS, OS/2, and Amiga systems, with source code
and published standards not being a thing. So everything had to be
created from scratch-- but he was a programmer.

Yours truly never got into BBSes. I was vaccinated back in 1986 from a
high-school friend Peter Cousins' collection of lineprinter printouts
that he'd procured from his Year 10 work experience at the Uni. On the
hardcopy was this incredible free global electronic discussion network
called 'Usenet Newsgroups', made up of Universities/Colleges and
serious Computer companies, and something called the Internet was its
primary way of being distributed.

On the Usenet there was Unix, the C Programming Language, source code
being freely passed around (legally! Go ahead and copy that floppy!),
Richard Stallman's GNU Project, participants from /everywhere/, and
college-level (better than teenage-boy-level..) humor in
net.jokes--type control-X for the good ones.

When I got to University as a B.Sc student in 1989, I leapt from a
Commodore 64 to the mainframes, and quickly became a CPU-time burning
bother, mostly on systems I didn't have authority to use.

(My computing personal history isn't the story for this post ..but let
it be known when the Uni's AARNet connection arrived in 1990, within
an hour I was the first person in Newcastle to download a megabyte of
pron from the Internet! :) ..but back in those days, that meant small
16-colour GIFs of Samantha Fox..)

Towards the end of the first year of Newcastle Uni being connected to
AARNet, there were grumblings in the Computer Services department and
'The Computing Senate' of banning Undergrads from using it. Hmm, it
was time to pursue independent access. I needed my Usenet newsgroups
and Email.

Personal/non-institutional access to the Internet was in 1990-1991
becoming a thing in the USA, and it hadn't escaped my attention that
Mark Gregson in Melbourne had started the Pubnet Unix network
"pub.uu.oz.au" between Victoria and South Australia. However, a
computer with UNIX for an operating system was somewhat required, and
those weren't cheap-- perhaps a $1500 (in 1991 money) spend for the
most minimal-and-compromised MINIX or Coherent system-- and I was
getting just ~$80/week from AUSTUDY.

However, a list posted to Usenet of public-access Unix systems in
Australia had Michael's Scorch on it, and it was only a local call[!]
away in Broadmeadow. A Sydney-side Unix developer Nick Langmaid, who
Michael had been swapping magnetic tapes of source code with, had
dropped his name in there.

Speaking to Michael on the phone was promptly done, and was told his
system was trying to bring UNIX to the (dial-up Fidonet) masses,
however it wasn't connected to Usenet or the Internet.

So I got invited over to 'House Harris' (a SF Movie reference I
believe) at 63 Brunker Rd Broadmeadow (then painted blue, with lots of
suspicious smells and Underground Band noises--Michael was also a
Muso), bringing with me lots of printouts from the Net to show there
were uncountable numbers of University Students in Newcastle who would
prefer the power of the UNIX command-line to the menu-based BBS
interfaces, and how it would be a seriously positive thing to connect
to that global Internet, with its Unix developers and the other
intellectually fun stuff (rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5, alt.tv.simpsons...)

I didn't doubt Michael's interest when I saw his cotton jacket that
had a handmade bikie-style patch on the back with:

U
UNIX
C
P

(UNIX is the computer operating system "that runs the Internet", and
UUCP is the UNIX-to-UNIX Copy Program that handled the dial-up
networking before SL/IP, PPP, etc. became available.)

Scorch-- sometimes known as the Craggenmore BBS-- was a god-box of its
age: an 80386SX running at 16 MHz, with 4MB of RAM, 2 full-height
SCSI1 drives (250MB total storage?), and a Mini Cooper engine
temperature gauge to catch it overheating. (Yes, computers running at
16 MHz could overheat..) It ran a SCO/Microsoft version of UNIX called
Xenix. Back then, the number of UNIX variants available for <$10,000
could be counted on one hand, and remove a few fingers if you wanted
networking too.

The Usenet printouts were studied, and Michael pulled the trigger on
making Scorch Internet-ready and waiting for dial-up command-line
users. Upgrades to Xenix were FTP'd, Usenet software and other free
must-haves (emacs, gcc, perl..) were procured via my student account,
and a bit of a sneaked Newsgroup feed to see it all working.

Meanwhile, I spread the word in the Uni computer rooms that Scorch was
available, and we were aiming at getting email and news access for it.
About 6 were initially interested (and a few who went "eww, UUCP!?"
:P) It was becoming towards the end of the year, when Undergrads lost
their computer access, so good timing. Michael went around telling the
Unix users who he knew on the BBS side he was going to provide the raw
and pure Unix experience, instead of trying to fit in with Fido.

Here's another list of names:- of the original Scorch Public Access
Unix community:

Myself=Chris Baird, Michael "Zen Harris" Brown, Matt McLeod, Brett
Rees, Andrew Glazebrook, Jared Quinn, Leon Garde, Luke Plazier
(Newcastle Linux User#1 just about), David Gardener, Peter Longworth,
Ross Slade, Bill Keir, Chris Deer (who split to start HunterLink
because we thought the 0055/1-900 Internet idea sucked..), Marcus
Westbury, Footlice Theatre, Greg Hore, Steph Curry, Ian Dixon, Philip
Eastham ...and there's certainly more, who were Michael's friends that
I didn't really know.

And the non-human members, being the computers on the local network
being their own Internet email deliverable sites:

scorch, glencoe/brushtail, albion, wotan, cleopatra, columbia,
beastmaster, toaster, guardian, kumear, helix, kastlore, krikkit,
rlyeh, vortex, comtel, elands, darkside, nemesis, nest, tomaree,
yoyodyne, zzap (...and 30 or so more, but I recall these being the
earliest machines connected)

At the time, dial-up Internet didn't exist...because the protocols for
wrapping up TCP/IP network traffic for sending through a modem, like
SL/IP and PPP, hadn't been invented! Users were doing dial-up
command-line/shell, and those who already had a Unix system at home
had a UUCP connection. I recall Brett Rees' IBM/RT Wotan as the first
site to network with Scorch.

With UUCP now up and running, and a good number of enthusiastic users
who would support the idea no matter what (net.addicts like me who
would give up all their available income for access..), Michael got in
contact with the pub.uu.oz.au guys to set up a long-distance 2400 baud
UUCP connection to Melbourne to join the Pubnet network. (Telstra
charged something like 55 cents per minute for Newcastle-Melbourne
calls!)

..and the first successful call with traffic passed through it from
the outside world happened at 5pm on the 14th of August 1992.

The long-distance email connection with Melbourne wasn't /scarily/
expensive, being about $1 per call, but obviously an entire
Newcastle's worth of Freenet traffic couldn't happen with it. So I
made a written application to the University of Newcastle's Computer
Services Department to request an external-user account with mail
forwarding ("an MX"), as was available to members of the
AUUG/Australian Unix Users Group.

The University's Computer services staff were actually very supportive
of the idea (..it'd get all the trouble-makers off their system,
wouldn't it? :) and they already had Australian Computing Society
customers with its $1000/year MHSnet software (..which they tried to
talk us into using..but..no). After everything was approved, Michael
was asked over to the Uni to upgrade and configure the UUCP software
on Seagoon, the Uni's primary email server.

We now had a local-call, untimed, and unlimited 9600 baud connection
to the Net!! It was asked to use it during off-peak times, and with
the size of the newsfeed we asked for, it still took from about 5pm to
2am each night. Internet traffic was growing exponentially then, and
it didn't help that a number of users wanted the alt.binary.pictures.*
newsgroups what used about 75% of the traffic (we secretly hated those
guys..)

It wasn't a /real/ Internet connection-- you couldn't FTP, Telnet,
IRC, or MUD with the outside world. However, the UUCP connection was
configured so that Email had priority, and when the Uni connection was
up during the evenings, emails in either direction only took a few
minutes to be delivered, so you could spend all night back-and-forth
chatting with others on the Net, from around the world, with your own
personal computer, and it was allowed!

We also had an internal network, and you could access servers on other
users computers. My own computer Brushtail had an FTP archive of
mostly MOD music files, its own Usenet newsserver, a few Majordomo
mailing lists, and a recently released thing called a World Wide Web
server.

If I remember correctly, It cost about $80-100 a month to run Scorch.
$60/mo being the fee the University charged for dial-up and use of
Seagoon (the email/news server), and the rest in phone rental. While
we asked the hardcore users to pay $10-$40 a year (maybe a dozen
did?), it was mostly paid out of Michael and mine's unemployed
pockets.

But, it was untimed and unlimited access, like you couldn't get
anywhere else before 1994. At its peak, there was about 50 regular
dial-in (human) users, 30 networked systems of the Linux or BBS
persuasion (who had their own unknown number of users), and thousands
of guest accounts created. Michael also ran a gateway for Fidonet, and
several Fido BBSes got their feed directly from Scorch (..but those
guys had to pay up-front).

Michael and Matt Mcleod did look into going commercial, but no-one
then knew what the Internet was or saw it has anything valuable.

I'm going to finish up this recollection of Newcastle's early Internet
at this point. There is still a lot of history with dramatic stories
to tell from the years following 1992-- the rise of Scorch, the
arrival of Linux, the incorporation of APANA, the creation of the HNA,
when Bill Gates invented the Internet, the arrival of the commercial
ISPs sch as Hunterlink and Connect.com.au, the impromptu
Woolongong-Sydney-Wyong-Newcastle TCP/IP net, those who cheat at
Tetris, the fall of Scorch and the rise of Brushtail (an Epic Tale of
Sysadmin derring-do), Freemasons coming to the rescue, when Telstra
tried to make every BBS, Freenet, and ISP pay them $70/month for every
dial-up, the rise of Kastlore-Brushtail and Octopod... but I've given
myself only a fortnight to write this, so I'm calling it quits here.

And with Michael's permission, I'll finish with a link to a photo of
him with the loved-by-many 386SX16 that did real Internet email for
everyone back in 1992...

https://imgur.com/a/2pYAlED

(And with thanks to Michael for giving this message a look-over to see
if anything was off, and the suggestions to prevent me from being
sued. :-)

[Chris Baird]

Here's a few extra bits of story that were a bit cluttery or
irrelevant to the main post...

The system "albion" was a 386 Linux desktop installed in Michael's
Mini Cooper S (a car with its own email address in 1993..). iirc it
was powered from a battery with a DIY voltage regulator, with the
normal PC power supply being removed. There was also a coax Ethernet
cable from the house to the driveway-- laptops with Wifi hadn't been
invented then!

The FTP site where I downloaded that diskette's worth of Sam Fox?
ftp.apple.com! There was a "/pub/tmp/images/" directory on the
Macintosh IIsi that was the company's first Internet server. There was
also a good collection of Space/NASA images too, which I also took. Oh
god why do I still remember that..

Our email addresses back in August 1992 were a bit of a mess, in
having to use a few hacks to be passed through several networks. That
first message sent from a Maths department machine to my account on
Scorch had to be addressed to <scorch!chr...@werple.pub.uu.oz.au>

Michael's friend (of the not-involved-much-with-me category) Adam
Walsh bought a newly-released 2G mobile phone while visiting the
States, those not being available in Australia as yet, and Michael
gave it a good hard test beating: sending a 16kB SMS through an
experimental Telstra email->SMS gateway. (Ever tried the read the GNU
Public Licence on a tiny 80x48 pixel screen? There's someone who has!)
It was a pity the technicians monitoring the system immediately
knocked down the maximum message size for the rest of the night, and
it wasn't long before the 140 character limit and paying for SMS
happened. It would be another 10ish years before email to phones
reappeared in Australia. Damn Telstra.

* EVERYONE HATES TELSTRA *

In 1994, Telstra was pushing so that any use of landline phones for
data/modem calls had to have a 'business' line service, those being
something like $70 a month, instead of the $11/m residential rate.
This would've killed off all the Start-up ISPs (that didn't kiss the
Telstra ring), APANA public-access systems, and the Fidonet BBS
communities (who were still around until about 2001). I went along to
the big protest meeting at a ?Hamilton RSL with about 60-80 other
people-- likely the biggest gathering of BBS operators that'd ever
happened in Newcastle. Luckily, a member of APANA (I haven't explained
yet: The Australian Public Access Network Association, made up of
public-access Unix systems like Scorch and Brushtail) who was a
Secretary for a Queensland State Minister and everyone's go-to for
understanding the Internet up there, was able to have a chat with the
Federal Communications Minister Richard Alston to explain that
something really bogus was about to happen, and two weeks later the
attempt was officially quashed.

But that was nothing new from Telstra: in 1993, there was a leak of a
confidential Telstra memo to the aus.aarnet newsgroup (AARNet having
being recently handed-over to Telstra-- only the guy who got a job out
of it thought was a good idea) that they were going to push for all
Internet use necessitating the users spending $200/month, comparable
to the spend for ISDN leased lines, and trying to have it legislated
so ordinary voice-line data use be categorized as such.

(And in 1995, Telstra did get "B-class networking" made illegal. It
didn't affect the HNA or APANA, but commercial ISPs couldn't share
their mutual traffic or give their nearby customers a zero-cost
Ethernet cable run-- all Internet had to go through Telstra and their
coin-box, which at the time was about $75/gigabyte. Telstra were also
lying about the costs of International traffic-- when they had Tier 1
Network no-cost peering agreements with the rest of the world.)

Older netizens would certainly remember that Australia used to be the
\*3rd\* biggest user of the Internet... before Telstra came along, and
they systematically and legislatively blocked all innovation and open
access which the Net was all about. We then found ourselves ranked at
#50 by the mid-2000s. Don't blame Rupert Murdoch--everyone saw Telstra
Management were at the same mental level as a bogan who drinks all
their wage while their kids go to school without shoes.

*There's some of us out there who would rather live and die with no
phone at all than to use Telstra...*