====== SDF ======

The Super Dimension Fortress ([[https://sdf.org|sdf.org]], also [[https://freeshell.org|freeshell.org]]) is a public-access Unix system and nonprofit organization that has run continuously since 1987, making it one of the oldest online communities still operating. It provides shell accounts, web hosting, and a community on shared NetBSD machines.

Adapted from [[https://brennan.day/a-love-letter-to-the-super-dimension-fortress/|A Love Letter to the Super Dimension Fortress]] on brennan.day.

===== History =====

SDF began in 1987 as a single [[https://subnetzero.info/2019/08/15/before-the-internet-the-bulletin-board-system/|BBS]] running on an Apple IIe, before the modern Internet reached most homes. It grew into a public-access Unix system running NetBSD on DEC Alpha and Opteron hardware, surviving everything from the commercial web's rise to [[https://sdfeu.org/w/faq:basics02|termination by its own ISP]]. Founder Stephen Jones's [[http://snh.freeshell.org/sdf30/|30th-anniversary retrospective]] and a [[http://bsdtalk.blogspot.com/2006/03/bsdtalk021-interview-with-stephen.html|2006 bsdtalk interview]] cover the full arc; cmccabe's [[https://cmccabe.sdf.org/files/pubax_unix.pdf|History, Evolution and Future of Public Access UNIX]] places SDF in the pubnix lineage documented at [[tilde:tildeverse|The Tildeverse]].

Members describe it the same way the early Unix designers described their systems: "more than a shell account, it's a community." The site is deliberately not corporate and not modernized for its own sake.

===== Services =====

  * Shell accounts with web hosting at ''sdf.org/~user''
  * [[https://wiki.sdf.org/doku.php?id=gopher_site_setup_and_hosting_features|Gopher]] and [[https://wiki.sdf.org/doku.php?id=gemini_site_setup_and_hosting_features|Gemini]] hosting
  * Fediverse instances: [[https://mastodon.sdf.org/|Mastodon]], [[https://pixelfed.sdf.org/|Pixelfed]], and the [[https://toobnix.org/|toobnix.org]] PeerTube instance
  * [[https://ttrss.sdf.org/|Tiny Tiny RSS]], [[https://git.sdf.org/|git hosting]], and internal IRC and bulletin boards
  * [[https://twenex.org/|twenex.org]]: a restored TOPS-20 system for historical computing
  * [[https://wiki.sdf.org/doku.php?id=domains_available_to_arpa_members|Domains for ARPA members]]: the one-time-lifetime membership tier that funds the operation

The hardware itself is part of the story: the [[https://sdf.org/?tour|pictorial tour]] shows the actual machines, including a stint housed in a telephone museum.

===== See Also =====

  * [[tilde:start|tilde.town]]
  * [[tilde:tildeverse|The Tildeverse]]
  * [[tilde:pink|tilde.pink]]
  * [[protocols:gopher:start|Gopher]]
  * [[protocols:gemini:start|Gemini]]
  * [[indieweb:internet_as_place|The Internet as a Place]]
  * [[start|Return to wiki home]]