It seems that the older you get, the fonder you grow towards reminiscing them good ol’ days. Last Friday, with my good friends Rodney and Christian, we welcomed back an old friend, Roel Hernandez. Although, he was in town for only a short while. We spent virtually the whole night recalling past events in Davao’s colorful IT history.
Roel now runs a successful IT e-service business based in Makati. But in the olden days of Davao Internet, he used to head up Gatesway Online. That was probably the most revolutionary ISP back then. Gatesway was responsible for educating the layman in the world of the wide Web. Rodney was recounting, during those times Roel and his staff would go house-to-house in the supreme effort of explaining dial-up to a household wife (Trumpet Winsock!! arrgghh…). They certainly took up the cudgels of spreading Internet use in the city.
I remember, Gatesway even used to have a weekly Saturday bash for their subscribers and Internet café patrons. They were an energetic and dedicated bunch! Today, the ISP is no more, but it certainly left an indelible mark, now and then brought to (San Mig) light during maboteng mga usapan. Kanpai!
