Describe Your First Memories of the Internet
 

got this from another site, and it got me to think back.

First time I "saw" the internet was in 92 or 93 through a friend who had an aol subscription. this was also back when AOL charged by the hours I think. Then I went to college in 94 and got my first e-mail account. it was through Telnet. LOL. So, if anybody sent me pictures, it would be in numbers. Then, while researching, I found the magic of internet porn. The rest, they said, is history.

aol...slow connections...rotating beach umbrella.
who knew where we would be today?

My dad had some dial-up, internet, email system since the late 80's. I don't exactly remember what he was doing but he worked at IBM and I think he was working on getting different internet tools set up.
Then, in the early '90s and I was one of the first people who had one of those Prodigy online subscription things. It was slooooow but I was able to email my friends who had Prodigy.
Around the mid-nineties was the first time I discovered AOL.
It was until '96 that I started surfing the Internet. I remember very few companies had web pages. Now, it's a rarity for a company not to have a website.

we had that too, when it first came out. weren't the email addresses random groups of numbers and letters? i had friends that used to come over to play on that since not many people had internet access back then.

Yeah, you were assigned random group of letters and numbers for your "email" account. My was like NQ3...something, something.

This is like the prove your dorkiness thread...

I actually ran a BBS in my pre-interenet days. I worked as a courier (using hacked AOL accounts) for awhile. That was my real first internet experience.

My first computer/modem combo was an Apple //c and a 2400 baud modem. Back when basic VT100 was as good as it got.

It was a funny experience actually.

First experience with the internet was like '93 when I we had to learn about hotmail at school. My teacher told us to type hotmail, so I went and typed "hotmale" instead of "hotmail" and got my first gay porn site. It had one of those crazy pop ups that never stop coming. :o

My first internet experience was in the early to mid 90's...Prolly about '94.. Everybody had started going out and getting AOL, so of course my dad had to go and get ... CompuServe. I hated it becasue it wasn't what everyone else had, but looking back, I missi t!!! I loved Compuserve!!!

The first time my family got a computer was in 1993 - my Uncle built it for us. Then because the internet was out and it helped with searching for things (school related)...our Uncle gave us one of his Prodigy accounts.

That was my first memory - the Purple Prodigy star, people trying to pick me up (and I was underage), and very slow dial up....

1984. 300 baud modem. Franklin Ace computer (Apple 2+ clone). Green monotone monitor. My brother told me about BBSes & gave me some numbers. I got through to some, found discussion boards on all sorts of topics...and I've been online ever since.

In college, I immediately got a Vax account (this was 1985-86), and was a part of the social circle of computer nerds. (woohoo...and a sorority girl too!) One of those national college papers did a story on a few of us who were known as "Vaxers," of course focusing on the romance aspect.

My Prodigy account was DVSm11e, and I got my AOL account in 1992.

BTW, if you're an old BBSer, check out http://www.bbsmates.com/

Late 80s....my mom bought a modem so she could dial into her office. Didn't really think much about it for another couple of years, when I started using it to dial into the public libary's catelogue system. Then around 1994 or 1995, my mom installed the "modern" internet, and I've been surfing ever since. I had my internet seminar at school around that time as well. That was when I received my first email address. It's no longer active, since it was a school account and expired after I graduated.

First Internet Experience
 

Late 1980's with a DOS system.

kdonline, I was a VAX'er, too! Woohoo!

AOIISilver

Man, my first memory of the internet is from 95. They were showing us something on the one and only computer at school that had it. I thought it was pretty stupid and slow at the time. My next encounter with it was in 97 at a friends house. I thought AOL was cool as hell.

We didn't even get internet until May '99. That sucked. :(

The movie "The Net" was my first internet experience. My home didn't go 'online' until 1999.

My parents got Prodigy back in the mid 80s, when I was about 12. I had to set up the account because they couldn't figure out how. :rolleyes:

We had an IBM Piece-o'-Sh*t-2 running some variant of DOS. I think it had 640KB RAM and maybe a 4MB hard drive.

So began my life as a techno-geek... :p

I started with a vic20. First time i was online was through bbs stuff or kermit type crap.

Now I've got a cute powerbook and wireless internet.

-Rudey

I have a cute ibook and wireless internet as well as an iPod!

I was on maternity leave, Dec. 26, 2003, waiting to have my daughter and bored outta my mind. My (then) husband said "Take this and see if you can get on the internet" and gave me a CompuServe disk. I asked him how to turn on the computer! We had a 286 DOS based pc with a 400 baud modem. I got on, and quickly became addicted to chat! It was $9.60 an hour then AND it was a zone phone call to boot. After the first bill, he was really really angry. Within a couple years, I was teaching him things and in 2000, I became an MCSE and now I'm a LAN Systems Analyst. I've come a long way since that "How do you turn it on?" day!

Dee

Cut my teeth on my old man's Trash-80 but didn't get my own computer until 1991 - a 386DX with 8 MB of RAM. First got online on Compu$erve, then went to AOHell, and in 1996 subscribed to an independent ISP.

First saw the beginnings of the internet on Usenet newsgroups way back in the late '80s - then only the domain of the seriously geeky or the university student.

December of 1991. I got a VAX account at IU. (all students could have one. IU was one of the few schools where everyone could have email and it wasn't just limited to computer science students.) I still miss the VAX system at times...VAXphone and BITNET were loads of fun! I logged onto QuartzBBS and ISCABBS soon after. My life was never the same after that. :D

My mom got Internet access shortly thereafter. (she taught at the Illinois Mathematics & Science Academy at the time) In the summer of 1992 we got AOL but I couldn't get to the rest of Internet from there. I remember driving 40 minutes to her school every so often during that summer to check my IU email. heh. We got actual Internet access at home from a local company in the summer of 1995.

1997, sophomore in high school.

AOHell with a 28k modem.

It was the year 1995 and I first learned how to check emails using these computers with orange lettering. Those computers were sooo cool. Too bad the lab got rid of them once they upgraded to pcs.

It was in 8th grade computer class, I think the year was 1996. We all used to look up famous stars we had crushes on. I had one on andrew Keegan at that time.

I think it was Netscape Navigator that the school used.

Wow... an MCSE and a time traveler to boot... :p ;)

Thanks for the link, Annie!

Started with a 300 baud modem and a DOS based 64KB system around 1989. Before that I'd used school or friend's computers. My husband had an old Commodore 64 (don't have the system anymore, but he's got all the manuals and support docs saved around here somewhere.) Got myself online around 1989 doing local BBS--Telnet is our friend--later on found Prodigy and AOL, dumped AOL quickly and kept Prodigy for a few years.

I was so excited to upgrade that modem to a 2400 at one point, thinking, "wow, this is so fast!" Now I grumble that the cable modem isn't fast enough!


ETA: Anyone have a version of Zork that will run on WinXP? If so, please PM me! Please!

senior year of hs, 1996 at my friend's house. we went to chat rooms and had absolutely nothing to say to these people but we still thought it was cool. they charged by the hour so we were only allowed to be on less than an hour.

MY powerbook could eat your ibook. And I wardrive and don't believe in paying for the internet - you probably do :)

-Rudey
--Who's a bigger nerd now?

Rudey,

I don't pay for my internet either. And MY BOYFRIEND'S computers could eat yours for lunch. I think that man could run NASA with the computer power he has. He is a computer nerd who has been online since before many GCers were born, lol. :D

-Peaches-n-Cream
--loves a computer nerd :p

I thinkmy VERY first internet experience was at my public library. My mom used to make jewelry, and they had a Christmas bazaar at the library. I was bored out of my mind, and they said I could use the computer. This had to have been the late 80's or early 90's.

Didn't think MUCH of it, but it was fun.

In high school, we had a partnership with a government agency that donated computers and internet access. I was one of the kids who was "trained" to use it before the official launch. I don't know the connection speed, but "Mosaic" was what we used before Netscape came out.

And of course, when you're dealing with a bunch of 15-18 year olds, the porn soon followed, lol.

That summer, most of us then got internships though that same government agency, and we learned how to create web pages there. All of this was in 1995, and I have been online ever since.

If you're 45 you'll still be looking for what's out there.

-Yedur

Hahaha, yeah my first experience was with compuserve too. It was great! That's was '94. But my parents shut it off and swiched to another service because we were on it all the time and of course they charged by the hour and they charged us in U.S rates so with the exchange it was 10 times more expensive.

I started on Mosaic too

My dad bought a directory (like a yellow pages book) for all commercial websites out there in 1993. Guess how thick the book would be if there is one now!

It was the summer before I was going into 8th grade or high school I think... was at my best friend's house in Texas visiting her and we got on AOL and we thought the chat rooms were the coolest thing ever, then came home and got my own AOL account and the rest is history.

my first exp was in 93 while in college at univ of arkansas...... i realized what email was and the WWW. I than really got hooked/ addicted to IRC/MIRC and i think i majored in that instead of Political Science. I lived onit for 24/7. than i got my first aol acct ...when you were paying for hours.....

Oops! 1993 that was!!

Dee