Re: Shell accounts in Toronto (was: Apple IIe surfing the internet)

[et472@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Michael Black)]

"Byron Q. Desnoyers Winmill" (BYRON@DESNOYERS.ORG.COM) writes:
> In article <0006bdec719-522-1488@www.goblinsreach.org>,
>  "Adalbert Goertz" <goertz@cyberspace.org> wrote:
>> Dial up to my ISP, log into the shell account, and use the various Unix 
>> software on their Unix machines in text mode.
> 
> Does anybody know of an ISP in Toronto, Ontario which provides a shell 
> account which either: cheap OR provides all of the bells and whistles 
> (eg. LaTeX and compilers).  Clearly the latter doesn't have to be cheap.
> 
> I used to use a shell account to access the internet from a IIe the a 
> IIgs.  Unfortunately, I graduated from the University.
> 
> Byron.

Is the Toronto Freenet dead?  Traditionally, "freenets" have been accessible
no matter what the computer, meaning that while they likely don't offer
shell access, you can connect with a terminal program on your computer (no
ppp) and run a select number of programs on their system, such as a mailreader
a newsreader, and something like Lynx for text-only browsing of the web.  I'm
posting from the Ottawa Freenet, though I'm in Montreal.  My ISP turned off
the newsgroups two years ago, so I telnet to the Ottawa Freenet to get the
newsgroups.

But, the page for the Toronto Freenet should be http://www.torfree.net
but when I try that right at the moment, I get a "Alert!: Unable to
connect to remote host." message.  I have no idea if it's just that
page is dead, or the whole thing has finally died off.

Poke around in the Toronto newsgroups, tor.* to see what you can find.
If not the Freenet, then maybe someone local knows of an ISP with shell
access.

Here in Montreal, only one or two ISPs have had shell access, going back to
1996.  Obviously, it was common in the early days, but then they killed it
off as the boom took off.  My ISP has shell access, though they once turned
it off without warning, forgetting that some were dependent on shell access.
I thought a catastrophe had overcome the ISP, because for two days I
couldn't get access. Then it occurred to me that maybe they'd turned off
the shell, and so I got PPP running for the first time.  Luckily I had
a computer that could do it, which was not the case when I came to that ISP
in the first place because of the shell access.  They blamed an attack on
having the shell, and told us it wasn't fair that everyone pay while
few were using it.  Never mind that we had signed up with the knowledge
that the shell was a basic part of the service.  They turned it back on
two months later, but it's dissapeared from time to time.  I suspect
that is the attitude of most ISPs when it comes to shell access.

  Michael