Do you remember your first days on the internet?
Discussion
Not sure why I ended up figuring this out, but I worked out I've been on the internet for pretty much bang on 20 years this week, a few weeks after my 15th birthday in March 1997 (my parents bought me a Time PC!)
I quickly discovered Usenet and spent most of my internet time on there for the first 5 years or so. I was a bit of an outcast at school for admitting that I spent an hour or so a day on the internet (now you're an outcast if you're a 15 year old not on the internet!)
I made friends on some alt horror and music groups; ended up trading the banned 'video nasties' on VHS, meeting up with complete strangers on the other side of the country to go to obscure gigs etc. Never really thought much of it at the time, we used to trade videos on Usenet using cheques (would post them off before clearing!) and never once ran into a bad egg. We also used to buy the tickets for gigs near us for whoever said they were coming down, always worked out and never out of pocket. A (slightly) simpler time!
A quick trawl through the Usenet archives and I found the same username I have now back to 2002 on Usenet, sadly can't remember the name I used prior to that.
I quickly discovered Usenet and spent most of my internet time on there for the first 5 years or so. I was a bit of an outcast at school for admitting that I spent an hour or so a day on the internet (now you're an outcast if you're a 15 year old not on the internet!)
I made friends on some alt horror and music groups; ended up trading the banned 'video nasties' on VHS, meeting up with complete strangers on the other side of the country to go to obscure gigs etc. Never really thought much of it at the time, we used to trade videos on Usenet using cheques (would post them off before clearing!) and never once ran into a bad egg. We also used to buy the tickets for gigs near us for whoever said they were coming down, always worked out and never out of pocket. A (slightly) simpler time!
A quick trawl through the Usenet archives and I found the same username I have now back to 2002 on Usenet, sadly can't remember the name I used prior to that.
chopper602 said:
I don't really miss the phone tones as it connected to the ISP on the other end of the modem.
I don't really miss the line by line drawing of jpegs on the 14.4 modem !
After a few years my folks let me have a separate line installed in my bedroom, happy days, no getting off the internet when Mum was expecting a call from an Aunt or something!I don't really miss the line by line drawing of jpegs on the 14.4 modem !
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.
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