What year did you first discover the internet?

Post Reply New Topic

The word "internet" I first heard 1995. But my brother and our cousine used to send computergames over the phone line already in the 1980s. I first made use of internet in the form it is today in 1998.

What was the Internet like, in 1994?

..

1995. I remember because I was one of the first customers of the business that, at the time, called itself the Earth's largest bookstore.

Around 1994 I had Windows 3.1

In college (early 90's), I saw other students had bulletin boards (BBS's) for music/games. Required intro. session on using the campus "VAX" totally baffled me. Only able to do a couple messages with help, wanted nothing more to do with all that.
Voted "after 2000", because I didn't use "the net" or get online 'til 2003. Resisted getting a computer-finally did so in 2004, being dx'd AS caused me to search out more info. than was available in print/book form (at local library).
Grew up in low-tech ("late adopter" of new things) family/household.
I got cable tv for first time only a few months ago (apparently, everyone else has had it for years). I'm cautious about what I let into my home/environment, I hate spending even more money, and I'm uncomfortable with novelty. Once I get used to something, I feel deprived without it, which leaves me even worse off. So, being online or having cable tv, air-conditioning, etc. are addictive luxuries (that perniciously morph into needs instead of wants) for me.

I was using it at work way back in the day when it was texed based bulletin boards, and newsgroups. That would have been, I'm guessing '91 or '92. I had a 9600 Kbps modem on an old 286 (32Mhz I think) DOS based computer - pre windows! It had 16Mg of RAM and a 10Mg hardrive, which was HUGE at the time. The company I worked for was one of the founding members of Deamon Internet, one of the UK's first ever ISP's.

I remember installing the companies 1st ever 1Gig Hard drive, it was a massive full hight unit, heavier than a house brick, and cost over £1,000 - we were all very impressed with it at the time.

Oh no - I'm just showing my age, aren't I?

Technically in '96, for me.

I was in Arkansas, and my family was in Asia. But my parents had registered an Asian e-mail address under my brother's name to get a student price rate. LOL. So I was in some Christian education training (aka Youth With A Mission's "DTS"), and I'd have my teachers e-mail letters to my parents for me, from the YWAM base's CompuServ account (back when CS was all about numbered addresses!); I'd type the letter, save it as a document, and then give them the floppy disk (3.5"). When I got a reply, my teachers would print it out and put it in my mail slot.

I began surfing the Internet later that year. My family had this dial-up thing called Winsock (on a PC with Windows 3.1 or 3.11). So you'd click on that to get the internet browser going...Netscape I think we had. So I found a chatroom and was super excited, trying to understand the technology of it.

I couldn't find the first chatroom I was using, so I tried a generic search engine and discovered WBS.net - the WORLD'S GREATEST CHATROOM SERVER SYSTEM!! !! I was addicted. I got online whenever my parents weren't home. WBS let me set up a simple homepage on their server:

Example -- http:// www.wbs.net/w/r/o/wrongplanet.html

That was how they organized their users' pages. Anyway, I soon found Hotmail and signed up. In '98 I was living in Rapid City, SD, when I bought a WebTV. I miss that sometimes.

1989. My friend had prodigy on his computer since '88. Was an interesting, fun service. One of my favorite things was playing twisted tails. Anyone remember that? It also had a primitive form of Instant messaging.

My family did not get a computer until 2001

september of 1999. I look at bsb sites.
then, in feb of 2000 i started playing chess on yahoo games.

I was homeless and living under a bridge in Pittsfield, Ma, USA, from 1993-????. Last week, I went into a public library to steal books to use as kindling, and I found an open computer terminal. It took me awhile to realize that it wasn't a big briefcase that I could sell for money. A librarian showed me how to use it, and I've been addicted since. I've spent all of my free time, that is to say, all of my time, in the library, except when they kick me out for smelling like a rotten dumpster.

1998, at elementary school

I was 11 years old, and one day the president of the parent's society went to my classroom. He gave us the notice : "We have internet". I didn't know what was it, but when I discovered it I was caught

1997, when I bought my first computer. I say first, because the only computer I'd ever had before then was a Commodore 64. Remember loading games on one of those? The game was on a tape, and took about twenty minutes to load (while horrible glaring patterns of color appeared on your TV monitor). Then five times out of ten, after waiting patiently, a DOS message would come up that there'd been an error and it hadn't loaded properly, and you'd be filled with horror at the prospect of having to start all over again!

*eighties nostalgia*

For email-- 1995. For everything else-- 1996.