SERVICES USERS & GROUPS ABOUT OPS CONTACT WEBMAIL Hi. We're skylab.org. What a nice experience to see you. WE'RE AN OLD INTERNET COOPERATIVE PROVIDING SHARED SERVICES. WHAT'S HERE? OUR SERVICES Skylab.org Community-driven Internet Co-Operative Email & Multi-user Shell Access Lots of users want an easy to remember email address and friendly webmail. Some others want a command-line bit of fun. UNIX and derivative systems were meant for multi-user access. Come hang out and interact on a system with other users, the classic way! Personal Web Hosting & Development Tools We used to host a bunch of crappy websites. We've scaled back a bit, but hey, let us know if you need your crap hosted. We're also loaded with the latest dev environments and tools. We're experimenters too. And we like jokes. Ongoing Conversation outside of Social Media's Watchful Eye We share ideas about plenty of technical, personal, and dumb but casual thoughts in our community chat. Come join us in #skylab on Libera.chat USERS & GROUPS Local users and affiliated hosted groups on our system. LOCAL USERS & FUN ZOMBIES A collection of personal webpages SKYLAB.ORG HOSTED SITES Websites hosted by skylab.org (warning: may be outdated) STRATOSPHERE Some of our favorite sites, friends, and forums for expanding perspectives. ABOUT So there's a history behind our little Internet co-operative... 1997-2001 Magic.Hurrah.Com In 1997, four Portland, Oregon based tech-enthusiast friends (Chris, James, Ryan & Michael) fresh out of a technology magnet school got together and pooled their resources together and purchased a tiny 486 computer running Linux, starting out with 16MB of RAM and 170MB of disk space. It kept growing with friendly users, moved between Internet-connected dorm rooms, employer server rooms and hosting sites. Internet services at the time were expensive, so a co-operative made sense to provide low-cost services to the young userbase. User count: about 100. 2001-2009 Growing Up, Scaling Up Some of the original cohort graduated or moved away, but as the Internet became more popular, interest in our services (mail, web hosting, online community) and low-cost pricing kept us cash-neutral and successful. Mahlon and Ged did great work on architecting/sysadmin when we needed them and Zetan and Chuff were often called upon before we invested in official remote hands and hardware control. User count: about 200. 2010-2016 The "Free" Cloud vs. Hardcore Users By the time the early 2010's rolled around, a new breed of cloud hosting platforms existed with a free tier for experimenters and test-users. Userbase in both Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia made life fun and interesting for a little while. However, overall usage decreased, zombie accounts got retired. Backing up personal user data became less important when everyone already had services and data in the global commercial cloud. Having a physical computer to host data stored elsewhere did not justify the cost for the remaining hardcore users still using the system. So, a big cleanup happened, and we moved house again. User count: about 50. AUGUST 2017 - PRESENT The essence of the community. We're grown up but still love fun. Running FreeBSD, was formerly a part of the tilde.club community network, and cautiously welcoming new users still. The resurgence of the BBS is symbolic of this desire to connect, and we're here for those who love both future technology and the fun of connecting with others on a multi-user computer system. Maybe you want to join us. User count: ? BE PART OF OUR STORY! THE REMAINING OPERATORS The spirit of Joe Dietz is alive. Ryan Sayre Co-Founder & Historian Mahlon E. Smith Lead Architect John Borowdowski Hurrah Liaison C'mon, guys, this isn't the real photo. CONTACT US Oh, yes, please, send us a form message! SEND MESSAGE Copyrights are pointless. © Privacy & Acceptable Use Policy