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Good morning and welcome back to the ValorosoIT channel. Today's conference, recorded at Varese Retrocomputing 2023, takes us back to the mid-90s, when three guys, Lorenzo Emilitri, Marco Petino and Gabriele Petino, created Pangea: the first civic network in the province of Varese. They themselves explain to us how it was created, how it worked and also the reasons for its closure, which occurred a few years later. Ah, if you are not yet subscribed to the @ValorosoIT channel and you like retrocomputers and vintage electronics, I invite you to do so and I also invite you to activate the notification bell. I thank Sergio Gervasini for the presentation of the conference, as well as Fabio Massa, known as Biomassa, and Mariangela Sapia for the audio and video recordings. Happy viewing!
So, welcome in the meantime to those who are there, the others who will arrive, because they will arrive. We have the network before the internet, the Pangea project which was born in Varese as an initiative to allow the general public who at that time was perhaps a little far from the internet to be connected to the internet. Let's put it this way, make it known. I leave the floor to Marco Petino, Gabriele Petino and Lorenzo Emilitri. Thank you, thank you very much.
I am Gabriele, Lorenzo, Marco, let us introduce ourselves. Around the mid-90s, we decided to create this Pangea, which was one of the first examples of civic networks and, in particular, it was the civic network of Varese and its province. These are some of the points that we are going to touch on today, that we will talk about. What is Pangea, let's try to explain briefly what it is, what we intended it to be, when it was born, how it was born. In short, the context is the same: we were more or less in the mid-90s and the technologies were the ones we know. We were a bit at the dawn of the internet and so someone already had an email address, someone already knew what they were talking about: email, sites were just at the beginning and most people didn't have the faintest idea of what it was, basically. And the tools to connect were also quite scarce because someone had a PC at home, someone had a modem and perhaps made a phone call to the BBS, but we were moving in a context of certain difficulty also from this point of view. Certainly, the old lady Maria, as I say, didn't have the faintest idea of what the internet or an email address was... probably not even today... but this was the context of reference. But we, who were already passionate about IT, threw ourselves into this initiative and therefore did it with enthusiasm.
What was it, what was Pangea? To make these slides, I wanted to take the text from our website pangea.va.it, which is still active and which we left there like this. And because in these sentences, in my opinion, there is precisely the spirit of that period. We wanted to build a civic network, the first civic network in the Varese province, and the objective was to improve the quality of life through a new sense of connection between people, creating it with this software that we used, that we had purchased. Then, afterwards, we see the technical part. This software allowed, via a floppy that could also be found for free in shops (a floppy), the ability to load this program onto Windows which could be 3.1 or Windows 95 (at the time, there was just that). And with this floppy you could use Pangea by making a phone call to the urban network for Varese, because the number was 0332 (Varese area code) and that was it. Inside Pangea there were no other costs to bear, access was free, there were no subscriptions.
What we wanted, what people paid, eventually, was the long-distance phone call if they had to connect from outside and this was the other advantage, that Pangea could also be used offline. So you could connect, download what you needed, then consult it, with the line disconnected, therefore without paying or without keeping the line busy, because perhaps the parents had to make the phone call. This was kind of the context.
I would add two things. The context, let's say, in which this thing was born, was born around '95. The context was that of modems starting to cost little, people starting to have Windows at home. There was the internet coming, but it was still complex for people to set up, because setting up Trumpet Winsock and everything else was an exercise only for more than expert solvers. And so our idea was to find a point of cohesion, something that was easy enough. That is, a BBS, but designed not like BBSs, but designed as a support for a local community, not so much linked to the internet world initially, with an eye to the internet world, but not necessarily, which could be used at low cost, cost little, had low management costs and a graphical interface. Because the point of the BBS is that the people, the character version, for normal people, would have been too much. So we found ourselves doing it. Exact. And so in the end Pangea was born, born on 15 July '96 in Varese. Thanks to the help of various sponsors, various supporters who made the headquarters available, such as the COOPUF club we supported, some donations, some parents who made some money available for the computer, the modem, the telephone line... I remember when we got the ISDN stud to have two lines, it was a celebration...
Sorry, Gabriele, if I can add a detail. You were talking about the distribution of floppy disks in stores. On this occasion, I would like to remember Massimo Toscano, founder of Runner Computer, who many of you will know is now one of the largest national IT distributors. And then, in '96, we met and he had the shop opposite the Prealpina headquarters in Varese, in a garage. It wasn't that big of a garage and was starting to sell the first assembled computers. We had asked him if he could kindly, by selling the modem, and therefore only having the profit from the sale of the modem, attach our ready-made and pre-installed, pre-configured floppy disk to his modems. So we told people that if they wanted to connect and also needed the modem, to go there and they would get the modem and the floppy. Of course, they also went there to just get the floppy. And so I like to remember Massimo Toscano, who passed away, among other things, not so long ago.
Oh yes, basically we were trying to create a network of supporters around this initiative. Then we also tried to contact bodies, associations, and gradually widen the circle a little. With the institutions, from which we actually expected so much, love never arose, honestly. Indeed, they have always snubbed us a bit, perhaps precisely because at the time the idea of a network, I don't know, was not understood. They didn't understand it. I remember when we went to talk to the club hospital with the president of the hospital or the director, we... well, he kept us there for 5 minutes... but he really didn't even understand why we were there and he didn't understand what we were asking of him.
In the end, we managed it ourselves because we were interested in doing it and we did it, with the limits of the case, with all the limits of the case. Because then, in the end, they were the ones who influenced us a little. And basically, at the time, Pangea was innovative for us because it had, as Lorenzo said, a graphical client that ran on Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98, on a self-installing floppy disk. PANGEA.EXE, double click and the little program that managed the phone call was installed. So, from then on, you no longer had to worry about configuring the whole part relating to telephony: double click and he made the call to 0332. This was the number with the two lines. Does this number still exist? No, it will probably have been given to someone else.
He still gets modem calls! But there were... that is, in any case, the software was quite interesting because it had, I don't know, all the email and messaging parts on the forums inside, all offline if desired. It had the download inside that you could even schedule offline and it would move forward step by step when you're not doing anything else. It had real-time chat in it, so you could chat with other people. All this graphically, plus a kind of hypertext that you could navigate through. In short, it was a lot of stuff at the time. That is, you avoided installing Eudora, the browser, FTP, in short, at the time it was a nice toy. Yes, yes, yes.
And the great thing is that we had five simultaneous users. For us there were many: we had taken the advanced license, five users, two of which could connect via the ISDN connection, and therefore the phone call, one was the SysOp who sat at the console, and the other two were always us who arrived at the office with the desktop computer and connected the landline. And yes, the five of us spent Saturday afternoons chatting, but it already seemed like a lot at the time.
Indeed, it was beautiful. It was beautiful. Yes. Here, I'll leave this one to you. This was the structure. Oh well, very easily. Now we have something that is three quarters of this, in the sense that we had... basically the software was based on an American software called Worldgroup, which was the graphical version of a very famous BBS software called The Major BBS, commercial. Which, in short, was not something we were enthusiastic about, it actually cost quite a bit. And then, later we found out, 30 years later, you find out that shortly after we bought it, the founder of Worldgroup committed suicide, so we were doomed to decline anyway. So, this BBS was the part of BBS. We had two ISDN lines, we had a client, an old Vobis computer with Windows 3.1 as a client and a Linux staging machine that did backups. And above all, we offered to those who did, because you could connect and enter demo mode, you could then register with your identity card and if you wanted you could give us, I don't know, 10,000 lire and we would enable you to have your email: name surname@pangea.pv.it which was a real email, which we exchanged with Inet with Luca Spada who did that job for us there, on Venus Inet it who acted as a relay for us. Then when I connected this Blunzer which was the machine in the middle it exchanged mail and constantly spoke in SMTP with Pangea, in short. And this exchanged mail two or three times a day which seemed like an interesting thing and in fact many people used this function. It was a very simple thing. In short, but it basically worked.
Yes, among other things, we also had a fair amount of traffic in terms of messages and, for many people, it was a bit like the beginning of using e-mail with a client, which wasn't bad either, precisely through Pangea. It was the first experience via post, the possibility of attaching files, in short, although small because we didn't have many weapons available anyway, it was actually fun. In short, in those years there, we were experimenting, it was nice. Yes, yes. And in this presentation, then, upstairs (Varese Retrocomputing 2023) at our table, there are two machines on which Pangea runs. We tried to reproduce it, so if you want to see it working at our table, you can see it above. There's the client, there's the server, all in a virtual environment, obviously, but it's possible to play with it. If you want to come and see the latest version. And the restoration of the last backup made of the working machine, which you will then understand the epilogue at the end, of why we could no longer continue. Exact. However, we tried to put some screenshots here. This is the help page with the version of the software it ran on. This here is the administration part, and then if you want to see better it's above, clearly. In fact, I recommend seeing it interactive, which is certainly more fun, in short.
Then, if you wanted, we still offered access via normal modem, that is, if you were a slightly more sophisticated user, you could connect with a terminal emulator and with a menu function (it's C) the client was downloaded so that you could either go and get the disk from Runner (or perhaps there was also someone else who gave it), or you could load it yourself. It downloaded an EXE we had made, about 1.4MB. The first time, since there wasn't everything there, only the most important parts were there. The first time it would sync and then it would and then it would work. Or if you had a Mac, for example, you could still use everything offline with the offline reader. But it was for an already different audience, let's say, which still exists if desired, and here you can see the part, the administration panel, which... the blue one, let's say where you see the lines and could see the various other things. This thing ran entirely in DOS, so it was a marvel with its own whole world that they had developed to manage a lot of channels, with cards. In re-setting it I discovered a whole series of neurons in my brain that I had forgotten about. When I tried to turn these things back on, I realized… because I forgot. Ethernet card interrupts. These things I say... what a bad life. In short, however, in this screen you can interestingly see on one side the side of what was Pangea's home at the end and above you can see that sort of floating window in which there are the two little lights and whether you are connected or disconnected. No because you could call at 8:00, chicken, get the mail, close this thing, do everything you had to do, then you were back on in a minute, exchanged mail and sent all the messages to your friends, or whatever you had to do, you know.
This page is the homepage. Then we will also see the first version on the next slide. This homepage was already a kind of hypertext, in fact, it was actually made in a hypertext format, so you could draw and these are all the buttons that needed to be edited and which led to some sections of the navigation tree structure. This was actually a homepage made with this software, which was then Worldgroup Manager. This is the last one.
It's not there in the slides, but above you can see that, by entering the associations page, each association had created its own space with the association's information and so on. And precisely, since you could edit the graphics, each page is different. This was really a very powerful thing, in fact, the next page this here is the first version we had done and it's very different from the other one. Yes, the nice thing is that, since the editor is integrated into the client, one could (an association, an organization with the appropriate logins configured) create their own pages. Not just posting emails or chatting or posting in newsgroups or discussion groups, he could actually have his own space and draw his own little corner. Then inside Pangea, our aim was a bit like that, that's it. This was the very first version and this is the last one, which is the one we have above, which is the result of the restore.
And then, in fact, I'm seeing this thing on the slide, the other nice thing about it is that we had the survey of the month, so this was a function integrated into the client. So you could do surveys on things and then we made a kind of bulletin called, perhaps the pangeante if I remember correctly, which was a kind of broadcast that we made to everyone with what had happened in that month and our stupid things, in short. Here we have also placed a screenshot of the message center with the latest messages. You also see the thread, the death of the forum, here we are approaching the end, because here we are already in '99 and more or less halfway through '99 when - it is May '99, in fact - these are the last messages we exchanged before making the last backup and closing everything.
The content of the messages, they are already reading it, I think you can imagine the content of the messages. In short, in reality I was getting married in a week because I got married on June 5th and therefore there were also messages of congratulations. You're getting married! Congratulations, etc. Let's say so, in a certain sense, yes. Anyway, yeah, basically then we got to the end of '99, where for a variety of reasons, then the number one reason was… do you remember the whole Millennium Bug campaign? That the world would shut down on 12/31/1999. Well, practically nothing happened, everything was done and they managed to get everything out, except Pangea which wouldn't have survived anyway. Or, in reality, he survives with the only problem that he is very convinced that '99 is after '23 so if you see the login log above, the last login was always done in '99. There's no way to change his mind. For the same reason, notification of, for example, new emails, newly arrived emails, etc., does not work well. And so then, oh well, our substantial problem, but I think for me personally, a very educational question was on the issue of financing. In the sense that I am, as I think many in here, a person who likes the technical part and therefore tells me: okay but what if you, if, if you make a better mousetrap, people will follow the trail to get to your house, right? All bullshit. The world, especially the institutional world, did not understand us, in the sense that at the time there was something about civic computing, there were essentially two interesting realities, which were on the one hand the civic computing laboratory of the University of Milan with De Cindio, it was called perhaps, which had everything on Macs.
Now, nothing personal, I have become too, I have converted after many years. But, at the time, from a technical point of view, it did... it was extremely, shall we say, poor. No, it was really Lamer: they were ugly, expensive, it was all online in a world where people phone you, it wouldn't have worked for us. I mean, it wouldn't have been very usable for me.
The other world, however, which worked, in my opinion, very well, I believe it still exists today, RecSando, which belonged to a student who was in San Donato Milanese, who created the civic network using Worldgroup, at the time. But they started from the Municipality. So they had very good support from the municipality side. They had a little money, which wasn't much because it was laughable, they can't even repair it, I think their budget didn't even repair the pothole in the road, the municipality planter. But it was enough to have some lines and have some presence. They had a great party. It's a reality that worked very well, and which I believe still exists today. Then they evolved, they became a forum, a presence, but that was significant. We had neither one nor the other and therefore at a certain point we found ourselves essentially closed.
Considering that the necessary budget was not who knows what. Eh. That is, it was simply being able to pay for the ISDN line, which in any case was already too much for students. And the ISDN line would have been better to have two or three ISDN lines to make it work, because the limit of having two people connected at the same time, for a city like Varese was... that is, in the sense, at a certain point we had even asked ourselves the problem. I went to talk to the university about getting a baseband modem which was the cheapest thing ever to connect us. I also only asked for 9600 with the university network. But it couldn't be done, so, well, after so many years it's fine, but this thing was, for my personal life, very educational. In the sense that I understood a series of things about how the world works, which were then useful to me professionally, but it's another thing.
And nothing, in short, so oh well, at that point the internet actually arrived. At that point other things could be done. At that point the browser became a universal interface and so oh well, probably not… But I think it was an interesting experience. Personally, it introduced me to a lot of people and I found myself rather strange looking back at it after 25 years. Eh, 25 years was pretty, pretty impressive stuff to put in there. Another thing that I don't know who knew, I think we talked about it... Do you remember the mailing list of AIDS patients? Ah, we had something that couldn't be seen in there, but we created a support mailing list, let's act as a technical person, for a very simple support mailing list for AIDS patients. Which had a few hundred members, confidential. Confidential because people's emails were first and last names... And in short, no, clearly. But this thing I think the feedback I had with the person who asked me to do this thing was that it was a very useful thing for many people, in short. Yes, extremely interesting. Thank you, thank you.