Do you remember your first days on the internet?
Discussion
First home computer I saw used an audio cassette and the only program it used was a plane flying thing. there was no image on the screen just data telling you how high the plane was flying and your speed. You had to land the plane and the computer told you - in words - if you had crashed or not.
First computer I owned had 4mb of storage, this was about 1997-8.
First computer I owned had 4mb of storage, this was about 1997-8.
john2443 said:
Can't remember the exact day, but around 1997, we bought a new PC - Pentium 1 633 I think - from Time.
Pentium 1 only went up to 233MHz. We got a 133Mhz Pentium 1 from Tiny computers back in 1996. It was delivered with the wrong graphics card installed. Tiny computers apologised and sent the correct card in the post. My parents were horrified when I took a screwdriver to the £1200 machine they'd just bought and swapped out the card!PC's were very expensive back then. £1200 got you a low to middle of the range computer. These days the equivalent machine would cost less than £500.
Someone offered to set me up with an email address late 1997 for when I went travelling - thought it was really decent of him. Don't recall using the internet much when I was away except for email now and again. Used the internet properly in 1998 when my mate showed me what it was all about. Didn't look at much, didn't know what I wanted to look at. Still don't half the time!
Wasn't long after I bought a PC. Dial up and all that, can't use the phone and the internet at the same time. Downloaded a few tunes on some software and remember thinking how good it was that it only took about 5 mins per song.
Wasn't long after I bought a PC. Dial up and all that, can't use the phone and the internet at the same time. Downloaded a few tunes on some software and remember thinking how good it was that it only took about 5 mins per song.
We were only discussing this last night on a Donny Rovers forum.
My first internet rambling back in '97 was a message of support for the Save the Rovers Action Group as we were in danger of being driven out of business in the 1997-'98 season by an unscrupulous owner who had the main stand burned down for the insurance. I used to have a screenshot of the archive page somewhere.
It's strange to think what a seminal cultural event our generation has been a part of. I know I'm becoming an old git but I do find myself looking at my six-year-old with his iPad, 3DS, Xbox Live & PSN access and thinking "We never had any of that when I were a lad..."
My first internet rambling back in '97 was a message of support for the Save the Rovers Action Group as we were in danger of being driven out of business in the 1997-'98 season by an unscrupulous owner who had the main stand burned down for the insurance. I used to have a screenshot of the archive page somewhere.
It's strange to think what a seminal cultural event our generation has been a part of. I know I'm becoming an old git but I do find myself looking at my six-year-old with his iPad, 3DS, Xbox Live & PSN access and thinking "We never had any of that when I were a lad..."
IanCress said:
PC's were very expensive back then. £1200 got you a low to middle of the range computer. These days the equivalent machine would cost less than £500.
My Time PC cost £1200, my Dad was absolutely horrified several years later when it was essentially worthless, I built a new PC and just chucked the Time one away.Can't remember the exact spec but I think it may have been a 233 with MMX, it had a 3.2GB hard drive, woo hoo!
Building my first website (on Geocities, probably) was an amazing day.
tankplanker said:
I was at Uni had first had access via the Sun Sparcstations so was really spoilt as they were (for the time) very quick and the Uni was directly connected to the Internet over a high speed link. This would have been in 1993, it certainly pre dated the Mosaic port for Solaris as I remember switching from Lynx to Mosaic. My first few weeks on the Internet I spent using Gopher and FTP rather than what we'd think of today as web browsing.
I didn't bother getting Internet at home until I left Uni, dial up was massively slow in comparison.
Also this + a room X terminals. I used to download shareware for my Amiga A500 off Gopher. Upon starting real work in 1994 I don't really remember how it progressed from there. I think at one time we had a single PC in a room somewhere that was "the Internet" so you used that if you wanted to check your email, send one, or look something up. From that perspective the Internet sort of crept up on me, there was no sudden switch.I didn't bother getting Internet at home until I left Uni, dial up was massively slow in comparison.
Also remember the days of PCs and dial up at home, think my first PC cost over £1k. Dial up was horrifically slow, minutes to download a picture, hours to download an album in very low quality MP3. Remember Napster first appearing and getting pretty excited by that. Used to go on Usenet too usually looking for p*rn.
ukaskew said:
IanCress said:
PC's were very expensive back then. £1200 got you a low to middle of the range computer. These days the equivalent machine would cost less than £500.
My Time PC cost £1200, my Dad was absolutely horrified several years later when it was essentially worthless, I built a new PC and just chucked the Time one away.Can't remember the exact spec but I think it may have been a 233 with MMX, it had a 3.2GB hard drive, woo hoo!
Building my first website (on Geocities, probably) was an amazing day.
SystemParanoia said:
My first days online were almost completely contained within AOL's walled garden.
The chat-rooms primarily.
Same here. Also, I remember the first time I encountered porn, and it was by complete accident! I was really into Rollercoaster Tycoon at the time and loved browsing user-made content. One day, I Googled the game, the official website worked fine, but any third party website I clicked on directed me to a porn site! WeirdThe chat-rooms primarily.
'96, a Toshiba laptop and PCMCIA 14400 USRobotics modem. Fannying around with drivers and Winsock as it was Win 3.11, but I was 14 and my enthusiasm was endless. Remember mum picking up phone while I was online and breaking a download, I was furious but soon found about download managers. A year or two later I got a 33.6 and it was so bloody fast.
About 1999/2000 when I was 14/15
Lots of time on MSN Messenger and chat rooms every night. Completely bizarre times. Got told rather quickly to cut down though because the phone bill costs were huge and my dad was Not Happy about this.
This was before I owned a mobile phone as well, so I had to arrange at school with my mates what time to go online to chat and hope everyone else was on there too and of course, hopefully the girl I had a crush on was online too. Never did get anywhere with her of course.
Two kids in my year had broadband and would tell us how amazing it was that they could download a whole album in less than an hour from Napster!
ASL?
Fan sites and messageboards as well, of course, and then ordering computer games from this strange site called Amazon that mostly sold books.
Lots of time on MSN Messenger and chat rooms every night. Completely bizarre times. Got told rather quickly to cut down though because the phone bill costs were huge and my dad was Not Happy about this.
This was before I owned a mobile phone as well, so I had to arrange at school with my mates what time to go online to chat and hope everyone else was on there too and of course, hopefully the girl I had a crush on was online too. Never did get anywhere with her of course.
Two kids in my year had broadband and would tell us how amazing it was that they could download a whole album in less than an hour from Napster!
ASL?
Fan sites and messageboards as well, of course, and then ordering computer games from this strange site called Amazon that mostly sold books.
First PC at about 11 years old (1995) was a 286 that my dad bought at a car boot, after endless hours of being hassled that I wanted one he said fine and bought me that in broken order, he decided (being an engineer) that should I want to use such a thing I should learn how it works first, so it came with a massive book about "Computers" and how they worked and handily to 11 year old me, how to fix them. So I duly did and then moved onto a hand me down 386 them a giant leap to a Pentium II MMX Box that I built (brand new, scrimped and saved my pocket/birthday/christmas money for a long time and did alot of chores etc).. That ran Windows 95 like a dream (lol) and was my first foray onto the internet in 97 via a 56k dialup modem 
Playing early versions of Warcraft (it wasn't the MMORPG thing I don't even recognise or play that it is today more a C+C type game) over RS232
It was a simpler time!
Should also thank my dad one day for forcing me to "learn computers" it bolstered me into my career where I am today!
Playing early versions of Warcraft (it wasn't the MMORPG thing I don't even recognise or play that it is today more a C+C type game) over RS232 It was a simpler time!
Should also thank my dad one day for forcing me to "learn computers" it bolstered me into my career where I am today!
I was about 14/15 (1996/7) or so and had my own PC in my room as my parents had no interest in it and I used it for school work, well apart from DOOM/Duke Nukem 3d and adult art of course!
Amazing to think how far things have come on, 56k modem to a 100mb+ fibre line into the house.
Funnily enough I had a Dell PC at the time which was really good. 17" CRT screen seemed massive as well.
My first proper IT job was working for Tiny (remember them!) back in 2001 before they went into administration.
Amazing to think how far things have come on, 56k modem to a 100mb+ fibre line into the house.
Funnily enough I had a Dell PC at the time which was really good. 17" CRT screen seemed massive as well.
My first proper IT job was working for Tiny (remember them!) back in 2001 before they went into administration.
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