SF Net

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may not meet the general notability guideline or one of the following specific guidelines for inclusion on Wikipedia: Biographies, Books, Companies, Fiction, Music, Neologisms, Numbers, Web content, or several proposals for new guidelines. If you are familiar with the subject matter, please expand or rewrite the article to establish its notability. The best way to address this concern is to reference published, third-party sources about the subject. If notability cannot be established, the article is more likely to be considered for redirection, merge or ultimately deletion, per Wikipedia:Guide to deletion.
This article has been tagged since July 2007.

This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2007)

This article or section needs to be wikified to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please help improve this article with relevant internal links. (July 2007)

SF Net was a BBS in San Francisco, California, started in 1991. Originally founded by Wayne Gregory as a resource for trading music CDs, the introduction of a chat feature eventually led to the creation of an online community that spanned the San Francisco Bay Area. SF Net offered dial-up and telnet access to subscribers, but its most prominent feature was coin-operated terminals located in many cafes and bars throughout the Bay Area. These text-only computers, with monochromatic screens, established a computer network presence predating the first Internet cafe. Despite the network's name, there was at one time at least one coin-operated terminal in a Los Angeles-area cafe. Though one could send and receive netmail with an SF Net account, the majority of activity was confined to the BBS itself, fostering a sense of community for the users, who referred to themselves as "netters." Frequent face-to-face gatherings, called "Net-Gets," were organized by the netters, and typically involved alcohol and loud music. SF Net went offline in 1996, during the Internet and World Wide Web's ascent.