DOD's thread about the archived usenet got me to thinking... What is your personal history with the internet? Did you start with AOL? When? When was your first dial-up? When did you go to broadband? What was the slowest modem you ever had? Just thought it would be interesting to get a picture of how geeky we really are! I FIRST got "online" in 1992 - Prodigy first for a month or two then America Online. My wife was "serena@aol.com" for a couple of years - try getting that name now. We had a Macintosh Classic - TINY little b/w thing. My wife actually sent text via email up to UH and back for stories she was working on at the Daily Cougar. That was my entrance into the internet. Ah, the 25 minute photo downloads on the 2400 baud modem. My first internet account - non-AOL - was with a small company right down the hall from where I worked - InSync - that is still doing business today. The owner was this really nice guy who used to be a photographer for the post. Of course, I also remember back in the mid 80's hitting dial-up bulletin boards (like the one KLOL had) on mine or my friends Commodore 64. Mmmmmm, 800 baud modems. Finally got DSL (and eventually Roadrunner) two years ago after suffering with various dialups throughout Houston (although Houston Internet Connect was great for me for a long time). My first website design: The Rocket Zone - I don't even remember the address but that's how Clutch and I met! Wild.
Wow. I have a similar story right down to the Mac Classic (though mine was a Classic II). I got online on Compuserve in 1992 and AOL soon after that. But in late 1993, I canceled my Internet all together and didn't get online. Then in the summer of 1995, I got on AOL again (still with the Classic II). I got a regular dial-up that December (and a new Mac clone. A Power Computing model). I got DSL in August of 1999 and have been on broadband ever since (though I've been on cable since Summer of 2000. They don't have DSL in Plano, I've continually been told).
Do you still have your Classic II? Mine is up in my closet (along with a Mac SE/30 and a Mac SE). It still works just as well as it did back then.
You still have yours!!!??? Wow, that is cool. No, ours got sold just like the Performa 680, the original Blue iMac bought one month after it came out, the purple iMac, the orange iBook, a couple of Dell PC's, an OLD IBM, my old Texas Instruments (my first computer), my old Commodore 64 and, of course, the old Mac SE. Amazing how many computers you can go through, huh?
I first got onto the Net in Houston - at U of H - in August of 1995. I hardly had a clue about what the Internet was. Then I was exploring the campus after I got there and I saw all these computers standing around - at the law library and at the main library. I think they had Mosaic on them as the Internet Browser. Coming from a law school in Germany that did not even have the library catalogue in a computer (in fact, the whole law library was not providing ANY computers for students), I found it pretty amazing that any student could just sit down and use one of those computers. Then I was trying it out and discovered that I could actually read German newspapers, which I found incredible - I had been wondering before that about how to manage to not read anything about German news and especially soccer for one whole year, so that was a really positive surprise to me. I got my e-mail account at bayou.uh.edu and started using it a lot quickly - then, just about three or four weeks later, I got my own student homepage at the law school - so I actually had my own page on the Net before companies such as Lycos... . When I had to go back to Germany, I was still with my girlfriend in Houston and I wanted to stay in touch with her since I could not visit her more than once in three or four months or so, so I bought her a computer and installed a program called Wintalk on it and also got her a quickcam...that's how I started to do instant messaging... Well, today, I work at a big Internet company in Europe...so coming to Houston and discovering the Internet there changed my life in many ways...
In college used IRC or other chat time wasters around 1985 with fellow college students, and used ftp for downloading software. Used Compuserve and GEnie and local bbs's starting around same time or so. Earliest record of me on Usenet is 1993 according to google. Didn't use a web browser til 1996 or so if I remember correctly.
When I first used AOL, it was version 2.5...on a 3 1/2 inch floppy! Man, I had a lot of fun times in those AOL chat rooms...especially Heckler's Hangout. I actually got my account cancelled TWICE while I was on AOL, for cussing people out in chat rooms. I actually made up this story about my friend getting my password and going into a chat room using my account. I still can't believe that that stupid AOL operator fell for it. Then, when I finally cancelled my account, they sent me a letter saying how much they enjoyed me as a customer, how much they wanted me back, and that they would hold my screen name for six months...I figured that they would be glad to get rid of me! There's no way I'm telling anybody my old AOL screen name, though...It was a pretty stupid name, now that I think about it... Gawd, I can't believe people pay almost 24 bucks/month for DIALUP access now...
I first got on the 'Net in the mid 80's via FidoNet (a network of interconnected BBS's). I got on using my old Apple //e. I remember as a kid thinking, "this is cool, I bet this is gonna change a lot of stuff". Of course as a kid, I just wanted to play games and never took advantage of it. I'm guessing my first time on a Usenet newsgroup was back around 1986 - 1988. I then ran my own BBS for a while and I had Usenet newsgroup feeds via my FidoNet node. That was in the late 80's early 90's. I continued using things like peer-to-peer chat over the Internet at UH. I still remember using those Mac LC's, SE's, and original 512k Macs. My first Internet account I could call my own was back around 1993 or so. I made my first HTML web page back then. My first ISP was Hudson Trinity in Houston. I had to mail a floppy with my website on it for them to update it. Hehe.
I bought the Apple ][ back in 1978 for around $2000.00. It came with 16K of memory. There was no disk yet, I had to use my cassette recorder. In 1979 I bought an additional 16K (that's right K) of memory for $500.00 (FIVE HUNDRED) dollars! I still have it and will probably keep it forever. The disk drive came out and it was $500.00 as well and those 140K 5 1/4 inch floppies were $5.00 each.
I first starting using the Net back win my sister had free access to the "text based" internet through trumpet I believe in 1994. It was mainly for her to check her email but you can browse also, just text based. Then we went through numorous "Free" hours of AOL. I remember logging on to AOL after the Rocks won the first championship and Robert Horry with his hat and the OBrian trophy around his arms, was on the start page with the news of the first championship. In Middle school my friends thought I was da sh*t for having codes for video games way before they were even published in magazines. Also, here is short funny story: I took this math class called GPS (which stood for Geometry, Probabilty, and Statistics). We were talking bout how Houston was gettin the 281 area code number. The teacher asked "what do we use phone numbers for these days?". While other students said "beepers" "cell phones" "fax machines", I said "computers". Everybody in class laughed at me and the teacher gave me this ugly look like I was just tryin to make the class laugh. I was like, I use my computer to dial up to AOL. But she just ignored me. Stupid teacher (her name was Ms. Lalor) After going through the trial versions of AOL, we finally subscribed to it and also got PDQ. My dad needed it to use PDQ to do some home business stuff. So, I was one of the lucky few to have "TWO" ways to connect to the net. After the home business thing failed, we canceled PDQ and stuck with AOL well into 2000. I created my first webpage back in 97. I was going through the cheap version of AOL's WYSISYG web publishing software. Then in March of 2000, I got a job working at Everyones' Internet in the tech support department. As a employer, we were entitled for a free dialup account, but we still used AOL. We then got DSL on Aug 2000 through EV1 but the DSL company, Northpoint, went bankrupt and stopped service in April 2001. After going through DSL for months, there was no way i was going back to dialup, so since April 2001, we have been going through RoadRunner. I still keep a homepage running but go through Dreamweaver and managed to get a free domain with banner ad, but will purchase my own once the free one expires. Its hard to notice that I have been using the internet for almost 10 years!
I started out with computers back around 1988 with an old Apple clone made by Tandy. Learned the insides and outs of that thing. Then, it vanished in a move. I didn't have another computer until 1995. Of course, being a newbie all over again, it was a Packard Bell and two months later, my family signed up for AOL (2.5 on a floppy). We still have that machine, though it recently crapped out on us. We stuck with AOL for a few months, getting into their beta program. We finally got rid of the account around the time that AOL 32-bit testing started, probably mid 97. Then, as school facilitated it's need, we signed back up with AOL. Still on the old 14.4 modem - which we still have as a backup today! - AOL was so slow to use, no wonder we about killed ourselves! Finally upgraded to 33.6 and then 56k soon thereafter, though. Ever since then, about early 98, we've stuck with AOL. I worked for them for a year and a half in their academic assistance center, then left once I had more important things to worry about. Changed accounts around that time with my new computer (a Gateway Select 800), though AOL is about to be canceled. Thanks to college, I've finally entered the world of high speed connections! (Comcast high speed internet still sucks)
I didn't know Al Gore posted on the BBS? I first got on in '94 at college in FL. It was the first computer that was mine, not the families. It was cool. I remember thinking, 2 gigs.... thats all I will ever need. LOL That computer lasted about 1 year. All this makes me remember how far the net has come is 7 years.
damn, I'm only about 5 years on the interenet! Used the public Library computer for a few years to email my friends in Mexico City and brother in L.A. Finally got the same P3/500mhz I have now about 3 years ago. I hand-typed all the HTML to my first webpage! I had no idea there were programs for that stuff! DAAOOOHHHHH!!!! Oh well, it help me better understand it so nowadays I kinda know what to look for if something is screwy on a webpage. Started off with the trusty 'ol AOL disc for a bout a week then went to Texas.net They were very friendly, 200megs free webspace, but nonetheless suck-ass dial-up. I switched to RoadRunner cable modem about 2 years ago and have been loving it ever since. P4 will probably be in the near future late this year or early next year.
I hit it first in late 92 or early 93. A biostatistician I worked with was using it to confer with leading statisticians around the world; I was hooked. Anyone remember terms like gopher? Veronica? Archie?
Hmmm.... Bought my first computer, used, in '91 (a Tandy 1000 something circa mid 80s I think). Took a screwdriver to the chasis and that's all she wrote. Built my first 3 months later... On-line w/AOL, Prodigy, Compuserve later that fall...or something like that...eventually dropped all but Compuserve (for it's technical base). Moved to Atlanta and pick-up Mindspring. They were the best! My account followed me back to Texas. Went to Roadrunner (broadband) last year. I can't image life without broadband... RR
