Napster.com banned at some universities for clogging networks (2000)

Re:Napster.com banned at some universities for clogging netw... by poulsbohemian on Sunday September 26, 2021 @02:04AM (#28658761)

I vaguely recall there was some kind of chat built in to Napster and it was the era when people did sometimes turn off their computers and/or where in some countries they paid by the minute for internet. I recall getting a message from a German on the other side of the world that I was able to read and respond to because I just happen to speak German letting me know he was headed to bed but that he'd leave his computer on so I could finish grabbing my files. Those are the kind of quirky interactions I miss about the good old days. Likewise, the chats and email exchanges in the early 90s before this web thing came along. There were relatively few people on the internet, so the signal to noise was strong and it was easy to connect with experts.

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Re:Napster.com banned at some universities for clogging netw... by mpol on Sunday September 26, 2021 @05:27AM (#28659528)

Ah, yes, chatting on Napster :) It was just IRC with DC, while the GUI was mostly built around the DC.

I was sharing some music from the early times of classic heavy metal, the NWOBHM. A compilation album done by Lars Ulrich with the songs that had inspired him. One day I received a message from someone in England. He was very surprised to find a song from the band of his brother-in-law on napster. He had always thought it was a band that had amounted to nothing. A week later I chatted with the bass player or drummer (I forgot) where he talked about the band. They felt forced to either go commercial, like Def Leppard, or go thougher, like trash metal from the US. The band was divided and that is where it ended. I forgot the name of the band.

The album is now even on wikipedia :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Wave_of_British_Heavy_Meta...

By the way I was using a console client for linux, nap.c. Does anyone remenber that? I ran it on my 486 pc on a console. Just like virtual tty's it had virtual screens built in with search, shares, chat, etcetera.

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Re:Napster.com banned at some universities for clogging netw... by no_time on Sunday September 26, 2021 @03:12AM (#28659021)

μTorrent had(has?) a chat feature as well. Quite sad that on public trackers like mininova it was basically the place where everyone would write SEED PLS and not much else.

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Re:Napster.com banned at some universities for clogging netw... by kkodaxeroo on Sunday September 26, 2021 @08:40AM (#28660425)

And here you are on Hacker News, chatting with thousands of the smartest people in the world. This is the kind of quirky interaction you should be enjoying Right Now.

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