For those of us who grew up at 300 baud, those for whom BBSes were the bad neighborhoods, textfiles.com is like finding a box of snapshots from adolescence, ones that you never knew existed.
At the Tokion "creativity" conference a couple weeks ago, they brought Kool Herc and Melle Mel on stage, and it was kind of amazing to just see these guys who put those first footsteps on a whole new planet. And I remember hearing that stuff, but not as well as I remember the other forgotten heroes: Captain Crunch, Captain Midnight, the Legion of Doom. Emmanuel Goldstein. Count Nibble. I could go on.
I was a lot more like a commuter than a resident back then, but still. Still. With these files I viscerally remember the neighborhood that was never there, and it was so smart and so stupid, the way home is, the way family is. So smart and so stupid.
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(found the link through the always-on always-reliable consumptive.org)
Posted by kevin slavin at September 23, 2003 01:25 AMin another life I used to sell 5 1/4's full of textfiles at computer shows... when I wasn't cracking poorly protected apple ][ games.
Posted by: dbrown on September 23, 2003 11:21 AM