Welcome to this remote system. It's a x86_64 computer with FreeBSD 14.2 running M-Net/Arbornet.

M-Net (1982) is the first Public Access Unix System to offer conferencing, real-time chat, shell accounts, free email, web hosting, and more.

Originally built by Mike Myers in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA using an Altos ACS68000 minicomputer running Unix System III.

M-Net users were traditionally allowed - even required - to write programs for it. Early contributed programs included Party and PicoSpan, while others were created over the years: watch, bank, vote, several useful filters, and many more.

M-Net was sold to Dave Parks in 1990.

Arbornet was founded in 1984 by Network Technologies International (NETI) as a profit making enterprise that provided similar services to M-Net. On 1985 was transformed by its voluntary users into a membership-based non-profit.

M-Net merged with Arbornet in 1992, with the Arbornet non-profit corporation taking over the operation of the M-Net computer system.

Currently M-Net runs under the umbrella of SDF.org, which allows you to use this vintage system.

• You can log in to M-Net/Arbornet using “k” option on the SDF's Vintage Systems Menu.
• You can also log in to M-Net using SSH as a guest user:

ssh guest@m-net.arbornet.org

After your successful login, the M-Net Main Menu will be displayed:

  M-Net Menu 3.1
                               Copyright 1994
                                 Dave Parks

Port: pts/3                  m-net.arbornet.org               Login: guest
Editor: nano                    Thu   Feb 6                   Users: 7 total
Terminal: xterm                                               Shell: bash
                            *  M A I N     M E N U  *

        I). Info on Supporting M-Net            X). Express Access Upgrade
        W). Who (who is on the system)          Y). Yell for help!
        B). BBS (Conferencing/YAPP)             C). Change Password
        M). Mail (Check your mail)              R). Run a Unix Program
        S). Send Mail                           F). File Utilities
        P). Party (M-Net Multi user chat)       O). Other MENUS
        G). Games (M-Net Unix games menu)       U). Utilities (basic)
        A). Answer (Answer talk)                D). Display Message Of The Day
        T). Talk (Talk to another user)         E). Exit menu system
        Q). Help: Frequently Asked Questions    L). Logoff M-Net

Command: 

Traditionally, M-Net was operated through this menu, but you can leave it using the e option. You will get to the Unix shell:

Leaving M-Net's menu system...
Type: menu (to go back to it)

m-net%

You can return to the Main menu issuing the menu command:

M-Net community uses Yapp, a conferencing system similar to a structured Electronic Bulletin Board. A conference consists of a thread of topical discussions, such as sports, parenting, music, or scifi. Dozens of conferences are available on M-Net.

To enter YAPP, use the b option at the M-Net Main Menu. You will get into the Conferencing (BBS) menu, Then use the y option to run YAPP.

                        *  Conferencing (BBS) MENU  *

        Y). YAPP: Enter M-Net's discussion forums
        I). Run an interactive Introduction 5-minute tutorial (recommended)
        L). A full List of conferences (discussion forums) you can join

        V). View .cfonce/.cflist
        W). Work on .cfonce/.cflist
        E). Exit this menu

From the M-Net shell you may enter yapp to run the discussion forums.

Once in YAPP, You will be asked for the name of the conference you wish to join (pressing Enter key will take you to General, the default conference).

Since thousands of users have participated since M-Net's inception in 1983 – and since its users can vote to create new conferences – it should come as no surprise that there is a vast quantity and quality of topics.

A conference screen may look like this:

YAPP 3.1.1  Copyright (c)1995 Armidale Software
Registered to: Arbornet


                                       welcome to the
                                    General conference
       
       
                                    fairwitness:  tod       


1 newresponse item and 1 brandnew item
First item 1, last 2

Ok: 

Each conference consists of different discussion items on a particular topic. For instance, the Movies conference might have one item on “The Red Violin”, and perhaps two items on “The Blair Witch Project”.

Each item contains original text entered by the item author, followed by responses, authored by different users. Hot discussion items may include hundreds of responses. Each new response is added to the end of the others.

After reading an item and its associated replies, Yapp will prompt you if you want to “Respond or Pass?”. Respond or r will let you add your own reply to the item. Pass or p will let you proceed to the next item.

Yapp registers which items and responses each user has already seen, so the next time you visit a conference, you will only see the new items and responses. With a single keystroke, you can read new items and responses in the order in which they were entered.

Once you join a conference, you will be greeted with an “Ok:” prompt (although some conferences may have specific prompts).

Several commands can be entered at the Ok: prompt, for different types of responses. For now, we will focus on two main features: Browse and Read.

The Browse or b command is equivalent to an index or table of contents. Those will show you the conference items. If you want to know about item's author and creation date, you should issue the browse long command.

It may be convenient to specify ranges of items; for instance:

browse 1-10
browse long 5 7-10
browse new

The read or r command works in similar fashion; if entered alone, it displays all new items and responses for a given conference. But you can provide ranges too:

read
read new
read 5
read new 5 11-13 20-

Note that “read 5” will display the entire item – whether new or not – while the last command will only display any new entries in the specified items.

After reading an item, the “Respond or Pass” is a common prompt. You can enter r to respond, press Enter to skip, or read particular responses by typing their numbers as follows:

5
only 5
5-10

• The first example will display all responses starting with the number 5.
• The second will display only response 5.
• The last example will display responses 5 through 10.

You can abbreviate the Read command by just typing “r” and the browse command with “b”. When you join a conference, all you need to do to view new responses is type “r” (or “r a” to read all).

The first time in Yapp, you should be able to see the item “Introductions” where you can introduce yourself.

Think of this item as a class yearbook. Enter a response here and tell us a little about yourself.

This can be used to experiment further (create items, responses, read, browse). Once you feel ready, enter “help conferences”.

At the “Ok:” prompt, you can join other conferences you are interested in. Use the command “join conference_name”. Once there, use browse, read, respond, etc.

The main M-Net conference is probably “General”. It has a large user base and gets a lot of activity – just about everything. In fact, there used to be so much activity, that it starts over every month. For this reason you may hear people refer to the General conference simply by the name of the month. It is currently the December General, and you can join with either “j dec” or “join general” to join it.

The next time you log on to the BBS, you will automatically join such conference.

Shortcuts work too. For instance, to go to the classifieds, you can enter “j class”. To get a complete listing of conferences you can join, type “help conferences”.

For more information about games on M-Net, please “join ugames”.

For high-level discussions, enter “join hitone” at the “Ok:” prompt.

If you are interested in world events or American politics, these forums have been combined, and you can join with either j world or j politics.

To participate in discussions about the Unix operating system (such as that used by M-Net), including Linux, *BSD, help with command line and shell usage, system development projects, programs that run under Unix, data networking problems, or anything related to the operating system, use “j unix” at the Ok: prompt.

As a pioneer of Pubnix, M-Net was the pioneer in providing all users with a Unix shell and access to compilers and utilities. To learn more about these, use Yacc and enter “j scripts”, and “j programming”.

M-Net provides email with alpine, mutt or mail, and web browsing with Lynx or w3m.

Other services, including telnet, ftp and irc, are limited to M-Net members. You can try the “!support” command for more details.

M-Net offers its own real-time chat service, known as “!party”. Use Part to communicate directly with online users.

If you run into problems, this is a good place to find someone to help you.

Characters can be entered In Party, characters could be used when there is no prompt. They will act as commands.

Entering Ctrl+d at any of the Party prompts will silently return you to Command mode. Enter “!man party” for more information.

That's it! You have now passed the preliminary lesson. You are now ready to log into the M-Net and participate in the conferences and services.