Subj : I would like to introduce myself as a new node in Switzerland.
To : alisha
From : Tinman
Date : Wed Jan 15 2025 12:50 am
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
> 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
This , friend I've never met but through words,
... actually made my heart flutter.
Through many trees we can finally see home again =)
