bbs, modem people, hackerdom in Thailand, call for history...

If you have any info/pointer you think it may (or may not) related, please do send them to me at arthit # gmail,com or just leave a comment below. Thank you.
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ผมกำลังทำการบ้านอยู่ครับ จะทำเรื่องวัฒนธรรมแฮกเกอร์ในเมืองไทย ใครมีข้อมูลบอกมาเลยนะครับ ผมอาจจะขอสัมภาษณ์ด้วยใครอยู่ในยุคบีบีเอส ยุค ZzzThai, LTN, TLWG พวกนี้ เรื่อยมาจน LinuxTLE, ปลาดาวออฟฟิศ, OfficeTLE, มาถึง Blognone และ *Camp ต่าง ๆ ใครเคยเห็นงานทำนองนี้หรือที่เกี่ยวข้องที่ไหนก็แจ้งมาได้เลยครับ — และแน่นอนว่าถ้าเห็นว่ามีอะไรผิดหรือไม่น่าจะใช่ ก็ท้วงได้เลยนะครับ — ขอบคุณมาก ๆ (ส่งต้น ๆ เดือนตุลา)

Good news guys, I decided to do my term project on ‘hackerdom’ and hacker subculture in Thailand :)

So to speak, the definition of ‘hacker’ in this project goes wider, it could be a coder, a radiofreak or a hobbyist/professional playing on electronic sound toy ... if one hacks a thing for fun, she's a hacker.

At the first place, I dated back Thailand's hackerdom to around mid-1990s, where a group of Thai students/professionals in Japan started a ZzzThai (สื่อไทย) project to develop/fix Thai features in free softwares. Also a number of then NECTEC-employed (like P'Samphan and @theppitak) that actively contribute codes on Thai language processing — together with other hackers. As my current understanding, these activities later resolved into Thai Linux Working Group, in which still more or less active til today.

Anyway, eventually, @sikkha reminds me that things actually started, before the Internet time, since the BBS era. @kijjaz also agree on this, and make me realized that it's not just only programmers who were active in that old days, but also experimental-hobbyist musicians who play around midi/mod trackers (@kijjaz used to run music-computing-packed Wildanty BBS, while I used to run a short-live SmileSite, around 1994-1995, but the Thai BBS scene dates back further at least two years — no solid data at this point, yet .. used to blog a bit about this four years ago). On the coding sides, in this BBS glory days, I still remember how people exchange their Turbo Pascal codes with others. Codes from Microcomputer magazine's SoftMail also available for download in many sites (yes, via that Z-modem protocol, a lot faster than Green Bangkok WiFi today! :p).

So, if you know anything about Falcon, ManNET, Close Loop, @rma (of AR group), or any BBS. Or things about ZzzThai, Linux.Thai.Net, Thai Linux Working Group, or any circles you think it may related. Please contact me na krub :)

A reason that I write this in English is because I realized that hackerdom in Thailand does not solely consists of Thais, no doubt there should be foreigners participated. At least in this era of BarCamp, @luke_bkk and many others show the examples.

Hmm... will update more in progress na, cheers :)

technorati tags: Thailand, hackerdom