1985 Communications

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Cindyt

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It's 1985. The ScareCrow trawler-yacht is on the Atlantic near the Florida Keys. It is equipped with a Commedor computer with CompuServe chat and uses FidoNet email. But. Satellite Internet is over a decade in the future. That means no internet or direct phone calls. All it has is ship to shore, and I don't fancy using that for a personal contact.

All right. So, while he is away, people have called him and sent emails that he doesn't get at sea.

My question is: Would those sent emails and phone calls appear on his devices when he docks in Miami and hooks up his phoneline?
 

Chris P

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My guess is he would have to log in to the server to get his emails. For his phone calls, he probably would have to call in to a voicemail service if he didn't have a cassette tape answering machine somewhere. I don't think there was any kind of automatic synching of devices back then, or before 2000 even.

But, I was in my early teens then and not very tech savvy (first time I saw the internet around 1986, I thought "How stupid. This will never catch on. I mean, just send them a letter and ask for the info.")
 
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lizmonster

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I was a college senior in 1985, and my dad was a tech hound, chasing the new everything. From memory, mostly, so I could have some things wrong:

You'll want to be more specific about the brand. The Amiga came out in mid-85, but otherwise your guy probably had a Commodore 64. Worth keeping in mind that the IBM PC came out in 81, and (according to Wikipedia) was eating everybody's lunch by 85. (My dad went straight from a PET to an IBM PC.) Commodore stuck around for a while, but the writing was on the wall.

That said, email always required logging in to something else. It also wasn't a particularly common way of communicating, outside of universities and a few tech companies. Communications would almost certainly have been phone or snail mail, or telex, fax, or even telegram. Voicemail wasn't in widespread use; your character would more likely have had a tape-based answering machine that had the potential of filling up.

The term "internet" wasn't widely used (IIRC that started around the time Mosaic came out in 1993). People chatted over Compuserve, or they would telnet into a server and connect to Usenet. Compuserve forums were proprietary; Usenet was public if you could get to it.

The TL;DR here is that in 1985 most people were aware of computers, but they were not considered indispensable household tools (most of the families I knew didn't have one). Email existed, but it wasn't considered a primary communication source. If your character is an ordinary person communicating in ordinary ways, they would probably need a physical telephone somewhere, and a way to store messages. Snail mail can be sent general delivery, but if they're receiving faxes or telexes, they'd probably have to pay a service.

If this is a tech thriller, of course, your options are wider. :) But there would have been less for this person to hack into as well.
 

Cindyt

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He does have a Commedor 64. My research says Fido.Net and AOL.com had email aps in 85 That doesn't cancel out what you said about use. Ah, well, I could take literary license, but I don't really want to do that. Snail mail is out for this particular scenero, so I guess it's phones and answering machines. No biggie. I just like tech variety. Thanks!
 

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AOL didn't exist in 1985; it was still Quantum Services. It was still pretty much a BBS, and you had to be pretty geeky.

If you were at a small number of government agencies or universities, like UCLA, you might have had access to email in 1985; I did.

https://time.com/3857628/aol-1985-history/

This timeline is pretty reliable.

Someone who was cool was possibly using Stewart Brand's The WELL

The first Mac was sold in 1984. They were pretty expensive, but were a lot easier to use, and more portable than a Commodore or the like, says she who was paid .05 a line to translate Basic programs from Trash 80s, Commodore 64, and Apple IIs in '79 - 81.

Commodores, etc. were kinda outdated already. People were using DOS on mostly IBM made PCs.
 

Cindyt

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AOL didn't exist in 1985; it was still Quantum Services. It was still pretty much a BBS, and you had to be pretty geeky.

If you were at a small number of government agencies or universities, like UCLA, you might have had access to email in 1985; I did.

https://time.com/3857628/aol-1985-history/

This timeline is pretty reliable.

Someone who was cool was possibly using Stewart Brand's The WELL

The first Mac was sold in 1984. They were pretty expensive, but were a lot easier to use, and more portable than a Commodore or the like, says she who was paid .05 a line to translate Basic programs from Trash 80s, Commodore 64, and Apple IIs in '79 - 81.

Commodores, etc. were kinda outdated already. People were using DOS on mostly IBM made PCs.

All of this just goes to show you can't believe all the info out there. I should have come here first. I have some editing to do. Thanks so much.
 

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jclarkdawe

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If I remember right, the Keys aren't in the Atlantic Ocean. Southerly it is bounded by the Straits of Florida, westerly (I think) by the Gulf of Mexico, and northerly by Florida Bay. The further easterly boundary might be the Atlantic, but I don't think so. Sailors know this sort of stuff, even if they've never sailed there. (I haven't). Miami, which mostly likely means Haulover, if rather rough close to shore. It improves several miles out. I don't know how I'd chart a course between Key West and Miami, but my guess is I'd be going several miles off shore. Wind and currents abound in that area.

Speed would probably be below 10 knots for cruising and fuel range is an important number.

A lot of confidential information goes over marine radios. It's still the easiest way to communicate.

Especially back then, you'd most likely arrange with a service to receive your mail and messages. Shipboard electronics have lots of problems because of the salt and moisture constantly in the air. I rather wonder whether any computers from that era would have survived on a boat for long. Also remember that space is very valuable on boats. You never have enough. You'd probably also be spending a lot of money on dial-up phone service.

Jim Clark-Dawe
 

Cindyt

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Might want to read up on this timeline: https://www.computerhistory.org/internethistory/1980s/

That said, a BBS service might fit your character's needs better. Up until the mid 90's, BBS services were how people connected electronically, much more so than proprietary sharing service such as AOL and Compuserve. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system
Thank you!

If I remember right, the Keys aren't in the Atlantic Ocean. Southerly it is bounded by the Straits of Florida, westerly (I think) by the Gulf of Mexico, and northerly by Florida Bay. The further easterly boundary might be the Atlantic, but I don't think so. Sailors know this sort of stuff, even if they've never sailed there. (I haven't). Miami, which mostly likely means Haulover, if rather rough close to shore. It improves several miles out. I don't know how I'd chart a course between Key West and Miami, but my guess is I'd be going several miles off shore. Wind and currents abound in that area.

Speed would probably be below 10 knots for cruising and fuel range is an important number.

A lot of confidential information goes over marine radios. It's still the easiest way to communicate.

Especially back then, you'd most likely arrange with a service to receive your mail and messages. Shipboard electronics have lots of problems because of the salt and moisture constantly in the air. I rather wonder whether any computers from that era would have survived on a boat for long. Also remember that space is very valuable on boats. You never have enough. You'd probably also be spending a lot of money on dial-up phone service.

Jim Clark-Dawe
You're right. I don't know why I said Atlantic. The yacht has enough range and fuel capacity to carry it much farther than the Keys. As far as current, Travis McGee pilots his houseboat from Fort Lauderdale to the Keys, so my Billy Estrella shouldn't have a problem with his motor yacht (offshore). I'm just into the second draft, so I really appreciate your information. Thank you!
 
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WeaselFire

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It's called a modem. It uses a phone line. And you could do ship to shore phone calls. IAt dock, he hooks up electric, water and a phone. Call your local Fidonet BBS or Compuserve node. MCI and Down Jones were the other options. First BBS was 1979, by 1985 there were quite a few options. Lots of us used the WELL, Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, out of San Francisco.

In 1985, the only one I remember for Key West was Ed Unrein's TBBS consultant node. Keys' Paradise was more popular but didn't open up until later. Mike Jenke was running the Kendall BBS out of South Miami and was pretty big.

Jeff
 

lonestarlibrarian

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My grandfather had been with computers since the 60's, with the military. My dad was big into computers as well; we might have had two or three Tandy's in the early 80's--- the TRS-80 Model II, and the Model III, at least. But we always treated computers as being stand-alone things--- word processing, playing games, etc. I knew modems existed, but in my head, they were something major businesses or universities had, rather than casual playthings for ordinary people. I didn't get my first email until the mid-90's, when I went off to undergrad--- Hotmail started July 4, 1996, and I signed up for my address in August, plus the school email I was given.

DH was older than I was in the early 80's. He and his brother mowed lawns to save up for a Commodore 64. Again, they used it mostly for playing games, rather than as a communications device--- but he did mention that they would talk on BBS boards, do programming, and stuff like that. I don't think they used private mail in the same way we do during that time period, but I can ask.

Fwiw, I know I didn't see my first mouse until the mid-80's... and I had to go to the aerospace engineering department of a university. :p They were invented, of course, but it wasn't really until Windows got big that they became more mainstream... you were just typing in your MS-DOS or BASIC or whatever commands to run your programs from your floppies. I think we got our first personal computer with a mouse around 1989 or so, on an IBM computer...

But in general, I would expect a 1985 trawler yacht (goes off to GIS if a trawler yacht is more fishing trawler or more yacht) to rely more on radio communication than on computer communication in 1985, unless it's owned by someone fabulously wealthy who has all the latest and greatest in technology.
 
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