Weekend Open Forum: Online since...?

[Jos]

The world wide web turned 20 this week. Though I haven’t been online for that long, it got me reminiscing about the first time I heard my computer make that choreographed sequence of noises that allowed it to piggyback on a phone line and access the series of tubes known as the internet.

It was around 1996 or 97 and it was quite new in my country. I hadn’t even heard of it before my brother had it installed on our computer -- a Macintosh at the time -- and told me this thing connected us to the whole world. “You can even go to Playboy if you want!”, he exclaimed. I don’t remember exactly what I did the first time I got online, probably look up Playboy if I’m honest (don’t judge), but I do remember reading a lot and having fun chatting on an early IRC client as it quickly became popular among people from various local schools.

So yeah.. that was my first online experience of many that followed the next few years, including long C&C gaming sessions as well as building an mp3 download website on Word gathering working links from around the web. How long have you been online and what are your first memories of it?

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https://www.techspot.com/news/52474-weekend-open-forum-online-since.html

 

[mevans336]

Before 1996. Here is the first post I ever made, archived for eternity: http://www.ale.org/pipermail/ale/1996-January/000302.html

(It was "leet" not to use caps for certain things back then.)

 

[Guest]

I recall the first time going online. my exwife had a friend who lived at home still and her dad had the net. Was summer of 1998, I asked if I could see the internet since I saw an ad in a car stereo magazine. The ad was for audio warehouse direct? or something similar. I was "wow, this is great!"

 

[yRaz]

1996. I was only 6 years old. I remember playing soldier of fortune and command and conquer. When I went to download it have to choose the demo with videos or without. The one with videos was 7mb and the one with out was less than two. This was a problem because we only had a 32mb hard drive. I think I made my first email in 2001, it was a hotmail account and I liked playing on MSN gaming zone. Before that my dad made me use his.

 

[cliffordcooley]

Ahhh, the sound of a dial-up modem. I think I still have headaches from the collection of sounds used. I remember putting tape on the modem speaker to muffle the sound.

The only memory I have is leaving the PC on all night just to download a 10MB file.

 

[yRaz]

Ahhh, the sound of a dial-up modem. I think I still have headaches from the collection of sounds used.

The only memory I have is leaving the PC on all night just to download a 10MB file.

the ring tone on my first cell phone was the dial up noise. This was after we got DSL, man was that fast.

 

[TS-56336]

Since 2003. I remember using Prepaid Internet cards here in our country and at the same time using the Dial-Up modem.

 

[veLa]

Well I had used the internet for school research but I finally got my own home internet connection during 2001.

 

[Julio Franco]

For me it was around 95 or 96. Quite the eye opener, I remember writing down cool website addresses on a yellow pad. Not sure if browsers had bookmark capabilities but I clearly hadn't discovered the feature at the time (Netscape 1.x I think). From then, I went on creating my own local homepage so I could simply click a link and visit my favorite sites every single day. Then I hosted it free on Fortune City. Then I opened my own site about tech. And well, the rest is history.

 

[mailpup]

I don't remember exactly but I think it was around 1996 using a work PC. I didn't buy my own until 1999.

 

[Darkshadoe]

1994 or 1995 using AOL.

 

[soldier1969]

1998 with Aol 2.0 dial up with one access phone number in a town of 50,000+ and Windows 98 second edition with a brand new Dell Pent II 400mhz with 512mb of ram , 16 megabyte (not GB) video card, a DVD rom and CD RW and 21 inch Sony CRT, very top of the line for that tme.

 

[yRaz]

For me it was around 95 or 96. Quite the eye opener, I remember writing down cool website addresses on a yellow pad. Not sure if browsers had bookmark capabilities but I clearly hadn't discovered the feature at the time (Netscape 1.x I think). From then, I went on creating my own local homepage so I could simply click a link and visit my favorite sites every single day. Then I hosted it free on Fortune City. Then I opened my own site about tech. And well, the rest is history.

They were teaching us to use computer in elementary school they made us use Netscape on the old school Macs. It was right when they came out with the colorful egg shaped ones. At home we use internet explore but switched to Firefox as soon as it came out. Can't for the life of me remember when that was. That was so long ago it seems like an epic of time has passed. I actually enjoy those days. There was a certain wonder computers gave you at that time, I miss that. As amazing as computers are today it all seems trival now. For some reason I miss ISA slots...

 

[Cycloid Torus]

Internet? World Wide Web? Oh, you mean DARPA, no? ARPAnet! Nope, it was before that...50 k baud, timeshare, teleprinter, Hollerith cards, did we have tape then? (can't remember) but it squealed and connected to a timeshare at MIT and that teleprinter made terrific noise...everything else since then is kind of a blur. Ah, I remember now...AOL about 1993...no later than that...well, anyway, it happened...but it seems to be just a continuum. Or is it a mobius?

 

[cliffordcooley]

For some reason I miss ISA slots...

OMG, how could you possibly miss programing each card with its own IRQ to avoid conflicts?

 

[Jad Chaar]

2003; I am not that old .

 

[LNCPapa]

Since 93-94 on Prodigy. Prior to that I was crusin' the BBS's.

 

[cliffordcooley]

2003, I am not that old .

Your not 10 or 2003?

 

[Jad Chaar]

Your not 10 or 2003?

I should have used a semi colon lol. The grammar police are gonna hunt me down .

 

[Guest]

Around 1996-1997 I think with a dial up modem. It took 5 minutes just for downloading 100 kB

 

[p51d007]

Did the BBS thing until our local public library had "free internet" (1 hour at a time).
It was all text based, but I remember using gopher to "search"....it wasn't that good.
When fee based internet came along, at the blistering speed of 9600 bps, and it had
GRAPHICS....well, it couldn't get any better LOL.

 

[EEatGDL]

First access ever... 2005; got it at home the next year. Because I got it late; I grew up with solo-playing or LAN parties, I think I ventured in online gaming by 2010 with Halo, C&C 3, and Age of Mythology. 2 years ago I bought Crysis 2 and played it online a lot, recently moved to WarFace but overall I'm scarcely surfing the web or playing [either offline or online], too much work -mon-sat, morning-night.

 

[highlander84]

I don't know exactly was early 90's...I remember the web address to the chat room I was always in chatting with people... xenu.denverweb.net/chat/125455 Sadly it no longer exist...It was a chat room you could post HTML code in directly. Was very "cool" at the time.... there were other chat rooms (end number) but I've since forgot them...

 

[highlander84]

For me it was around 95 or 96. Quite the eye opener, I remember writing down cool website addresses on a yellow pad. Not sure if browsers had bookmark capabilities but I clearly hadn't discovered the feature at the time (Netscape 1.x I think). From then, I went on creating my own local homepage so I could simply click a link and visit my favorite sites every single day. Then I hosted it free on Fortune City. Then I opened my own site about tech. And well, the rest is history.

They were teaching us to use computer in elementary school they made us use Netscape on the old school Macs. It was right when they came out with the colorful egg shaped ones. At home we use internet explore but switched to Firefox as soon as it came out. Can't for the life of me remember when that was. That was so long ago it seems like an epic of time has passed. I actually enjoy those days. There was a certain wonder computers gave you at that time, I miss that. As amazing as computers are today it all seems trival now. For some reason I miss ISA slots...

Netscape!!! I remember staying after school to play some game like a treasure hunt with Netscape... ahhhh good ol' days...

 

[SirDigby]

Born in 1996, started using the internet 1999... although all I did was play games. Speaking off, that was when I first started playing Age of Empires!