What was the Internet like ten years ago?

[ikojo]

ebaumsworld.com has a Canadian video of a mid 1990s report on "Internet."


The days when it was alt.whatever...sometimes I miss those days when ti was primarily bulletin boards.

[tech3149]

1. I agree

Too much trash and flash. At least there are some content rich sites

[achtung_circus]

2. My first introduction was at a friend's house in 1992.

I was told how a search worked and that sex/porn was a prime use. I picked a word that is clearly sexual/pornographic but not too blatant. I chose dildo and ran a search. When it returned 62,000 hits I said (and I clearly recall) Oh my fuck.

Well I just googled dildo. 12,300,000 hits. Are things better, now?

NOTE: I just ran spell check and neither "googled" or "dildo" was in the dictionary. Hmmm.

[ChoralScholar]

5. my gosh...

we used to TELNET to dante.umich.edu to check the weather... and you could GOPHER to gopher.micro.umn.edu and read humor. To get all the latest shareware programs, you could FTP to ftp.funet.fi or nifty.andrew.cwru.edu. For those who loved to chat there was IRC (which is still around) along with MUDs and MOOs. Things definitely have changed.

[TrogL]

34. You could download one free porn per day

from tudelft.nl

[TroubleMan]

3. I started the internet in 1994

We got it at work (Marine Corps). I'd stay late at work to be on it.

[ikojo]

6. I remember when I would house sit for friends who

had a computer and online connection...I'd fall asleep at the computer because I just wanted to be online.

The first board I ever posted to and read was alt.music.gdead. I recall posting something about the trustafarians (rich kid Deadheads who have dreaddies and obvdiously do not have to work). Man, was I flamed in return!

[darkstar]

42. alt.music.gdead

Me too! Remember the Corvette guy flame war?

[qazplm]

4. I remember 88-90

when I was at school at Purdue and you could actually chat with people sitting at another university computer and it was like super cool lol

You could search and download cool info.

Now, you can download streaming video of a news conference.

Yes, it's much much better.

and worse.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. I first used it in 1992 to

correspond with people at other universities. When I went independent, my first modem was 96 bauds, and I used to transfer files using a terminal emulator.

[achtung_circus]

8. Not too long ago,

1978 university cartography. we entered out data on Fortran cards, dialled up the university mainframe, ran our data in and a dot matrix thematic map was generated.

It was really quite cheesy. It was 26 years ago. I shudder to think what we'll be doing 26 years from now.

[LizW]

38. I remember that

We had to go down to the computer center and drop off our cards, then go back the next day and pick up the printout! :)

We didn't get Internet at home until '95. My first online community was alt.tv.x-files. Those were good times. I still have good friends from there.

Usenet was so much fun. It was easy once you knew the conventions of a particular group, and discussions seemed easier to follow. Web-based message boards have come a long way, but they still don't seem to create the long, in-depth discussions like Usenet did. And the flame wars were fabulous!

[curse10]

9. Slooooooow

:P

[NashVegas]

10. Web Design in 1994

If you had tabled graphics, your page was considered "advanced."

Heck, if you had tabled *anything* that was advanced.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

11. I discovered IRC in the basement of the archives library

at Texas A&M in 1992. Internet Relay Chat, black screen, orange text. Nothing else.

Then in late 1993, hubby and I bought our first computer, a 486, with Prodigy and AOL. Prodigy was horrible, big SEARS ads on the bottom 1/4 of the screen that never went away.

On AOL I sat in a chat room for three hours when we first got it set up because I didn't realize we only had so many free hours then we were charged by the hour. I cannot imagine that now.

I didn't understand how email worked. I used to sit there waiting for a reply like it was chat and would get angry when it didn't work.

We've come a long way, baby.

[libhill]

15. well

all I know is, the 'net is the best thing that ever came down the pike. Long may it thrive, warts and all.

[IronLionZion]

12. how about 10 years from now?

We'll be traveling through space in beams of light! That will be the Internet. Thank the lord for Al Gore!

[amlouden]

13. it used to be great

that was when the internet was new and fun, with not nearly as many ads and spam. after all these years, and to use the words of b.b king, the thrill is gone

[SOteric]

14. Slower, quieter, much less AOHell and a lot more

wit and intelligence.

[Radical Activist]

16. Just what I was thinking

I started back in 91 or 92 when most people either got access through the government or a University. My older brother was a grad student and he got me started. I thought Veronica and gophers were the coolest.
I remember people getting pissed off if you didn't abbreviate words often to save bandwidth.

[Union Thug]

17. It was the golden age...

I personally enjoyed the internet much more ten years ago than I do now. The BBS system really promoted a sense of community. My favorite here in the seattle area was The Sacred Grove bbs, run by my old friend, GRENDEL!

Further, there were no pop up ads, the communication wasn't so watered down by 13 year olds making stupid comments in alt news, and all you ever paid for was access to the 'net (if you were a college student, you didn't even pay for that).

Oh for those golden years..

[TreasonousBastard]

18. Quiter.

I was writing comm software in the late 80's and remember the phone bills getting on the BBS's. For some inexplicable reason, I couldn't find an open door near me, so even FIDO didn't help much. Small company and didn't have much in the way of connectivity. Fooled around with VideoTex and some other stuff. Most of what we did was for internal use.

Then came CompuServe and AOL. CS cost a ton of money if you actually wanted to DO anything, and there wasn't much to do on AOL.

Then CS went on the net and I downloaded, at 18K, MOSAIC and a whole new world opened. Usenet, GOPHER, ARCHIE,& VERONICA...

Mostly text, and moved around the world lightning fast with the "incredible" 32k modems. Doesn't seem like much now, but back then it was amazing.

So, in another 10 years do we have "subspace communications" and holographic monitors to get those 200GB 3-D graphics webmasters will be foisting on us? Do we get smell and touch with the audio and visual? Taste?

Maybe we'll have browsers implanted in our brains.

[TrogL]

35. I was a FIDO node

Long distance bill from hell, but people online called me sir (and shithead)

[SmileyBoy]

19. I remember that I used Prodigy.

Back in 1992-93. It was kind of like an internet unto itself.

2400 baud modem on a 286SX Packard Bell.:crazy:

[Cybergata]

30. I used P* as well!

It was my introduction to getting on line before I got connected to the net. I met some friends discussing Northern Exposure on Prodigy who are still my close friends today. I set up a list server for use, and we still communicate daily via email. I've met a lot of people on line, but none that I've gotten as close to as my P* buddies on NO EX. ;-)

I also would visit local BBSes. One of our local newspapers had a BBS where 20 people at a time could get on, and we'd spend hours chatting on line.

But both the local BBSes and Prodigy just seemed so limited once I found a way to get onto the Net!

:hippie:

[baldguy]

20. Compare "Pong" to "Halo 2"

[TlalocW]

21. The internet finally came to my univeristy in the early 90s

When I was an undergrad there. I soon became one of the "experts" - finding Disney graphics for people making a Powerpoint presentation on Disney for a class, etc. Undernet and Efnet chat got to be so popular that when they got some new computers they moved the old ones into a back room and made that the chat room. Two of my friends and I would get computers right next to each other, log onto Efnet, give ourselves names like HulkHogan and MachoMan then go and argue politics in #limbaugh and stay in character, saying things like, "HulkHogan scoops up GunHed and bodyslams him straight to hell so he can sit and visit with Nixon." I believe I was banned from #limbaugh over 50 times in one semester. :)

TlalocW

[NJCher]

22. in 92 or so

AOL only had subscribers in the five figures! I remember, cuz I was one of them.

Dumped them fast, though.

But I do recall CompuServ, Prodigy and AOL were the three big ways to get on the I'net. A friend, a stock analyst who works with technical stocks, told me AOL would leave CompuServ and Prodigy in the dust because AOL was the more entrepreneurial of the three.


Cher

[DemBones DemBones]

26. When I first got online in '93,

I quickly dumped AOL, too. The chirpy voice saying "You've Got Mail" used to bug me. I like my computer to know its place and not speak until spoken to. ;-)

[Susang]

23. I don't miss it, it was slow and boring

I used to dream about having the things available to me online that I have now. Complete libraries, phone books, online shopping....I could conceivably not leave my house if I didn't want to.

I wish all of this had been around when I was in school. I sure as hell would have learned a lot more. The library in my hometown sucked.

[Reverend_Smitty]

24. do you have the link to the exact page?

There is alot of info to look through on ebaums

[ikojo]

54. Here's the link to the story about the Internet

in 1994...

http://ebaumsworld.com/theinternet.html

[DS1]

25. BBSs were popular, as was text based gaming, people flirted

some got something out of it, others didn't. Not much has changed, there's just more pictures now. :shrug:

[ze_dscherman]

27. I could get HTML-pages emailed

to try out a Lynx (IIRC) browser and see myself what hypertext was all about.

We had some very interesting BBS systems with lot of political/net discussions going on in Germany at that time - I did learn quite a lot of things then.

[Cybergata]

28. Not as Colorful, but I still loved it!

I would telnet into a Unix Server to get on the Internet using ProComm software. Going into a Unix Server was like entering a Klingon Ship. No frills!

Most of the time I'd get on line to read the Usenet groups, but I also would FTP files to read, search through Gopher holes, and get help finding files via Archie & Veronica.

When the web first showed up, I hated it until I got use to using a Lynx browser. The web didn't use GUI, and there were no graphics at first....at least until Mosaic showed up. At that time I never used my mouse. Everything was done with your keyboard.

Of course we did all this a 300 bauds, and whoppiiie....finally 9600 bps and when the web started showing up I believe we were up to 24,000 bps. Hee hee, it was nothing like the cable speed I use today.

I got on to the net via the public schools I work for who hooked into the University of New Mexico's server. The only national server that connected was Delphi, and it was $20.00+ for 10 hours on line per month.

We all hated AOL when it first plugged into the net. AOL was quick to plug in, but not as quick getting their software to interface well with the Unix infrastructure of the Net. When a AOL user posted to a Usenet group this single post would show up 30 to 50 times. It was like suddenly the system was overloaded with spam. Everybody was very concerned with bandwidth, so we were all pissed AOL.

The culture of the net has changed a bit, but I swear, whenever there are people posting within a group, there are always people who take certain roles on those groups. Somethings change, but somethings will always remain the same.

:hippie:

[mrboba1]

29. I remember downloading cool games

from our local BBS in like 1991(?). They took about 10 minutes to get them 'cause they were sooo big! 300KB I believe...

[Philostopher]

31. I remember there being more good personal pages.

Back when you had to be something of a geek just to go to the trouble to set up your own personal webpage, only geeks made web pages. It was, to be honest, easier to find stuff that was interesting, even though search engine technology wasn't anything like it is now ... you pretty much had AOL's Spider/Web Crawler thingy or Hotbot, that was about it. But it wasn't nearly as difficult to sort out the chaff to find things that were interesting when most of the pages were at least relatively interesting because people either knew a lot, or were passionate enough about what they knew to go to the trouble to put the information up on the Internet.

Now, every six year old has a site full of Jeffspeak, and there are probably millions of sites dedicated to their favorite anime character.

I was an early adopter, though -- had a C64 with a 300baud modem that we used to use to troll bulletin boards in and around Cincinnati (and Myrtle Beach, my first hubby was stationed there for a year when he was in the Air Force). You could actually get Internet e-mail when we got back to Ohio, I believe it was through Dragon BBS. I didn't have an Internet connection and e-mail addy of my own until about '94 or '95, though, when I separated from him and got my own apartment. And yeah, it was AOL, but once they added a browser to AOL it wasn't as bad as everybody wants to make it sound. Beat the hell out of CServe or GEnie for user friendliness, back then, and it was a couple of years before they started sending free CDs to every fixed address on the continent and had 5 million subscribers, and you couldn't dial in from Friday evening through Monday morning, anymore.

[TrogL]

36. wtf is "Jeffspeak"?

[Philostopher]

41. A web site called Somethingawful

developed a teenager character called Jeff K. seven or eight years ago, he was kind of a melange of all the 'script kiddies' stereotypes:

http://www.somethingawful.com/jeffk/

Not everybody knew it was a spoof, though -- some people took Jeff K. seriously.

The whole 'l33t spe4k' thing was around earlier than that, actually, since there was a guy who used to post on Usenet using all the 'l33t' (elite) vernacular even before that, but Jeff K. was sort of the 'uber script kiddie.'

[TroubleMan]

51. dupe....

oops didn't see your reply

[southpaw]

32. Ten years ago...

The 'internet' was 8 guys in California posting messages to each other about Star Trek and Dungeons and Dragons.

And Mr. T Ate My Balls...

[MsUSA]

40. Here too playing the "mud" games.....

I'd go back to my office at 1:00 - 2:00am and play Dungeons & Dragons too....I don't know all the tech stuff about it, just that I'd have about 10 different university lines I could use, dial ups. Was fun watching people type their message to you. Seems so long ago now.

[m-jean03]

33. Anyone here from alt.tv.x-files.fanfic?? Or rec.music.tori-amos?

That was where you could find me in junior high, about a decade ago. :freak:

[LizW]

39. alt.tv.x-files.creative

is still in my list of groups on Agent. :hi:

[m-jean03]

43. Were you there about 9 years ago?

Do you know or remember a funny woman named "Gizzie"? :hi:

[LizW]

44. I think so

I was never a writer, just a reader. I did most of my posting at atxf.

Gizzie was very funny. I always laughed at how she referred to her husband as "the EP" (Earth Partner).

There were some good writers in that group. I used to keep in touch with several, but we've fallen out of touch over the years.

[m-jean03]

45. Me too. I'm completely out of touch with all those folks.

It was lots of fun at the time though. I used to write a lot of fanfic, actually. Do you remember the "Tears" epic? Or "Que Sera, Sera?" :D

I'm sure I'd be totally mortified to read my old stories now. :P

There used to be a site that hosted x-files fanfic from that group, but I think it got shut down for copyright reasons.

[LizW]

46. I think maybe I remember

"Que Sera, Sera".

I know Gossamer went down, but Ephemeral is still up. It's hard to search on, though.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

37. Ah...the memories come flooding back

My dad was employed with a university back in the 1980s and throughout most of the 1990s and therefore my sister and I were able to access the Internet from a relatively early period of time –at least going back to about 1990. At that time we predominantly used it for e-mail purposes –we had a cousin in the US who also had access to the Internet and we used to write to her on a regular basis. When my dad or mom travelled overseas, we used to stay in touch over e-mail and I will never forget my 80 something year old grandparents using the Internet to send an e-mail to some of their grandchildren. We actually went online entirely for the purpose of communicating with the limited number of our friends and relatives who were online at that point.

We only really started regularly accessing the Internet for chat groups and other purposes from approximately 1994 onward. I was a slow convert to the Internet and it was my mother and sister who accessed the various chat and discussion groups much more than I used to. I regret that now –I was too young to fully appreciate the early days of a developing medium

[burythehatchet]

47. someone posted this link to the Wayback Machine

http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

I found it very cool. Archived web pages from waaaaaaay back.

[ikojo]

50. A link to DU from 2002....

Not that long ago but it's what is in the wayback machine....

http://web.archive.org/web/20021121151654/www.democraticunderground.org/

[BritishHuman]

48. I started on Usenet

rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan - though his writing has gone downhill, it's still a bastion of sanity in a sea of top-posting all-caps trolls.

[Cuban_Liberal]

49. It was sssssssssssslllllllllllllllooooooooooowwwwwwwwwww......

I had a Hewlett-Packard with a 486DX processor and a 9600 baud modem.

[onebigbadwulf]

52. It was the only place a 7th grade boy like myself

could get pornography. God bless the net.

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

53. Gopher & FTP & Freenets

Thats what I recall.

The first time I used was much earlier, in the early 80s or late 70s, to play a computer game called "Adventure R" or something like that...then in the late 80s or early 90s a military e-mail system.

[LTR]

55. First tried out the internet in '93 or '94

I remember a few of the big sites at the time, including Metaverse, Ultimate Band List, and this one:

http://web.archive.org/web/19970414193354/http://www1.thespot.com/

Remember that one? Scary thing is, it's still around:

http://www.thespot.com/

I worked the overnight shift back then, and we got web access. I actually got into this cheesey web soap opera, but nowadays, it seems pretty stale.

Ahhh, the old days. Back then, everything was interesting on the internet. Just like TV in the 50's.