FLINTON@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Fred E.J. Linton) (02/08/91)
Following a hint of the Moderator's some time ago, my first act upon
settling in at my Dallas UniForum motel earlier this month was to look
up Telephone Pioneers in the local phone book -- Eureka, there it was,
with a Museum to boot, housed in the SWBTL building right in the heart
of downtown, open daily 9-5, admission free ...
Spent a pleasant afternoon there Monday -- displays included: Watson's
ringer; Watson's magneto; Strowger's original 50-pair stepper; a bank
of steppers behind see-through plexiglass, stepping in response to
visitors' pulse-dialing; an Alexander Graham Bell mannequin seated at
a replica/model of the Bell workbench; and much, much more.
208 S. Akard, a.k.a. One Bell Plaza, corner of Akard & Commerce, 2nd
floor, +1 214 464 4359. Well worth a visit.
You've already been corrected about "Allied Radio Shack" -- but
perhaps someone can fill in further details about the life and death
of the original Allied Radio's principal competitor -- Lafayette Radio
-- or about how such other former competitors as Newark Electronics,
Hatry, et al., managed to survive after all.
Finally: Internet folks _can_ TELNET to both mcimail.com and
attmail.com -- login prompts appear, but whether using my username, my
userid, or my account number there, and whether using my password or
any of the preceding at the password prompt, I am barred entry.
Should it _not_ be possible for me to access my accounts with these
services via TELNET, or am I just doing something wrong? (Methinks
DREUBEN, fellow Wesleyan local, might also like to know.)
Fred <FLINTON@eagle.Wesleyan.EDU> <fejlinton@{att|mci}mail.com>
[Moderator's Note: You can't *really* 'telnet', 'rlogin' or 'ftp' to
MCI Mail or AT&T Mail ... what you wind up reaching are the gateway
sites which handle their mail. For example, I tried 'rlogin
mcimail.com' and wound up connecting with NRI in Reston, VA. Trying
the same with 'rlogin attmail.com' simply got me some system within
att.com which serves as a gateway. Since you do not have an account on
the machine at NRI (or the machine at att.com) then your login will
fail. Your MCI Mail (ATT Mail) login/user name is meaningless to the
gateway itself. I also tried 'telnet' with the same results. I think
(am not sure) that the phrases 'mcimail.com' and 'attmail.com' are --
to the Internet's point of view -- just basically aliases that point
to the respective gateways rather than the end sites themselves. I'm
sure 'alias' is not the right term, but you probably know what I am
trying to say. Also try 'finger @mcimail.com' to see what happens! PAT]