The InterNet -- Your First Exposure

[Vic Tory]

I'll start.

1980: Not really the InterNet, but a taste of what was to come....

Control Data Corporation hired me as a salesman. The Cyber 205 was their newest computer and it was a BEAST. It was (at that time) the most powerful computer in the world. I was ASTOUNDED at how quickly a solid model of a locomotive engine could be *built* on the monitor. CDC's previous top-of-the-line super computer, the 176 would slowly "paint" the engine's components onto the screen -- taking about 20 minutes to complete the solid model. The same image would *FLASH* on the screen when the 205 was driving it.

CDC figured a way to network their super computers -- all over the world -- to talk with each other. This was cutting edge stuff!

Being an early riser, I was usually one of the first one or two people in the office. The top engineer was the other person who would also get to the office early.

So what did he, and all the other highly paid computer engineers, do with the network of super computers? They played a Star Trek game they'd created(!).

I'd walk back to Engineering to find him POUNDING coordinates into the keyboard to *jump* his ship from one sector of space to another and attack the Romulans or Klingons. These guys would trash talk each other using the Chat feature they'd incorporated into the program. My friend, Richard the Engineer, would be EXHAUSTED by the time work was supposed to start. Somehow he found a way to slog through his day.

Over ten years later I had MY first experience with the (infant) World Wide Web. I joined a Bulletin Board...

I've gotta go get some work done. More later.

What was it like when you first found this bizarre ... World Wide Web?

[Little Dutch]

I think it was high school in the 90's when they showed us how to research online and properly cite internet addresses as sources. We were warned that whitehouse.com was not a government site and to not go there.

I had little interest in the www outside of email. I didn't do much with it until I started a few online games.

[Bailey Guns]

In the Air Force stationed at Offutt AFB working at Global Weather Central. When I ETS'd in 1989 a new system, the Satellite Data Handling System, was just coming online. we'd been working on it for several years. Pretty cutting edge stuff and there were a lot of messages sent electronically on that system to other locations. I think that was my first exposure to it.

I think my first home computer was a Packard Bell in around 94. Got hooked on playing US Navy Fighters on it. I loved that game. I started shopping online and doing a lot of other online stuff shortly after getting that computer. I think I started ordering from Amazon when they were only selling books in 95. I remember when I could finally get a 56kbps(?) connection on my dial up modem...EXCITING! And super fast! :)

[eddiememphis]

Around 1984 or so. Commodore 64 and a Volksmodem, talking to a college kid on a BBS up at CSU. He seemed impressed a high school kid could figure out how to get in and chat.

[KevDen2005]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46qKHq7REI4

[FoxtArt]

Not sure that I remember the year. I do remember being excited when we finally got 56k and we had one of the spooled telecoil winders to hook it up. The interconnect on the pole was so crappy though it was lucky to be 28kbps on the best day.

It was glorious waiting 10 minutes for a titty pic to load line by line.

Now.. kids are going to run into the weirdest internet shit in 4k VR glory by the time they are eight and a half. No wonder the youngest adults today are so f'ed in the head.

[kidicarus13]

1995 88152

[ChickNorris]

With 'exposure & internet' in the title I expected at least one smart-ass dirty comment by post #8. Nerds.

[bradbn4]

I remember when the office picked up a micro vax to hook up to another micro vax to share files....I remember the training indicating that about once a month we needed to download what was effectively a IP Host table (/etc/hosts).
All it was to be used for was file transfers from a remote detachment to the headquarters location.

At another work location I saw what unlimited exposure pictures looked like without having to use a modem. ;) - there you go - your reference.

[colorider]

dial up connection. Downloading pics at the rate of half a boob every hour. LOL LOL LOL

[MrPrena]

Exposure to internet was during late 80s. They use to call it information-superhighway?

Actual frequent internet usage to visit other .com/.net was around 1994-95.

[JohnnyEgo]

I have vague recollections of the early usenet/BBS, but the thing I remember most as 'the internet' was looking at the demonstration kiosk for Prodgedy at the electronics section of the big Sears.

[ruthabagah]

1984: We got our first Minitel for free. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel in 1986 i was doing my online banking, buying train/plane tickets, checking the weather, and talking to friends in the US through playnet. You could also spend a fortune in virtual sex using the 3615 .... Pretty advanced stuff, but they didn't see the internet coming, and it died a pretty sad death in the early 2000.

[TFOGGER]

I remember logging into the Jeffcat (Jeffco public schools) mainframe using a dumb terminal (Teletype) using a 300 baud acoustic modem circa 1980. Writing programs in BASIC and saving them on paper tape. I probably still have some of those paper tapes somewhere. Actual internet would have to wait until I bought a Packard Bell machine at Service Merchandise in about 1994. 14.4 modem using AOHell super unreliable dialup connection. Porn at the speed of...molasses in January.

[arbol]

For the internet as we know it today, I think Usenet was my start. Started in 1985 with an AT&T Unix PC 7300. Had the tcr.com domain, back then, and a Usenet feed from CU Boulder. Fun and interesting fact. I still use Usenet today. :) That's got to be one of longest streches of active uses out there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_UNIX_PC

For telecommunications, I remember 300 baud acoustic modems, etc., up to CompuServe, local Bulletin Board Systems, etc.

For PCs, my first was a Radio Shack TRS80 Model 1. That's probably 1979ish.

[Mtneer]

1983 with my Radio Shack Color Computer and tv monitor, a cassette tape for storage, and 300 baud dial-up to local BBS. Before the web, I was into Usenet groups and the early days of verbal battle what would now be considered dumbshit.

[hollohas]

When the first AOL disk showed up in my mail...

[arbol]

1989'ish...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL

[Vic Tory]

Still at CDC: After three years at Control Data I also worked for ADP ... and later the IBM Product Center (which was purchased by NYNEX, one of the "Baby Bells" in '86). By '88 I FINALLY realized I was not like all the computer geeks around me and I got out of that business. All those guys LOVED finding new software programs and trying them out. When I left work I didn't want anything to do with computing ... in any form. (And this was right when the "Trash 80," Prodigy, Personal Computers were starting to proliferate ... and UseNet and its similar services were getting a lot of attention.)

The best thing (for me) about the IBM Product Center / NYNEX job was ... Apple Computers(!). The IBM-ers wouldn't go NEAR those Apples ... so I did. What an eye-opening experience! "You mean I don't have to tell the machine HOW to do what I want? I just CLICK the icon and ... it DOES IT??!!! I'd tell my buddies how much easier it was and they'd act like I had leprosy....

By 1990 I was operating my own consulting business I ran "dual platform" until OSX came out. As soon as I saw OSX could run the Microsoft Office Suite of programs ... I was DONE with the IBM clones!
__________

In the late '80s I'd heard enough about the www that I thought I'd see what the fuss was about. I joined the "Dinosaur Board" BBS. Not knowing anything my initial post was, "New here. How do you learn how to do things here?"

I got a one-word response, "Moron!"

For about the next two months all I did was lurk to learn....

[Vic Tory]

When the first AOL disk showed up in my mail...


I'd forgotten about those...! Every other week another disk would arrive. Crazy times...!

[arbol]

In 1981 I am operating a computer store, with Atari Computers. I used to love when the "big iron" people came in to the store and they would tell me how they operated these main frames, and were only in here to look at these "personal computers."

I guess now I realize that they were unlike you, and these were the people that inherently loved computers. Big Iron (brag) but here they are in my shop asking about my Atari 400/800.

[FoxtArt]

When the first AOL disk showed up in my mail...

I thought those were free coasters this whole time. You just blew my mind.

[Great-Kazoo]

Since al gore started it.



As for computers them self. The spouse was doing main frame for Grumman aerospace & data systems, back in the late 70's . When mainframes were, well a full room, to do what ones cell phone can do, today.

[.455_Hunter]

My Dad got our first PC in 1990- a 386 clone with 56k modem. We accessed a few local BBS, like Pinecliffe. In high school, my friend got a BVSD email, and would "chat" with others on the library VT100 terminals.

[arbol]

No wonder she decided to have a personal computer. :)

[Vic Tory]

Since al gore started it.

I wondered who would make that reference!
88160

[KevDen2005]

I know a few people that still have AOL email addresses.

I remember thinking those people over at Netscape are really pretentious

[OtterbatHellcat]

1995.

There were a lot of good deals to be had too if purchasing products. A printer for $5.00 for instance...shipped to your door.

I spent time in MSN chatrooms and started meeting folks online, ICQ and did have AOL, Mindspring back then. Then my life deteriorated to the decrepit state that it is now.

Thanks, .............internet.


lol.

[FoxtArt]

I do slightly miss the MIRC days. Geographically we couldn't get "high speed internet" (> 28kbps actual throughput) until WISPS became a thing.

I was commenting to my wife a few days ago that we're all lucky that "Rick Roll" became the "Rick Roll" and not goatse, which predated it by a bit.

There's a memory ya'll wish you could delete.

[Delfuego]

https://pluspng.com/img-png/napster-logo-png-click-to-vote-for-napster-300.png

[.455_Hunter]

The high school version of myself thought it was amusing that part the "chat" concept of using the internet on the VT100 was to use the "finger" command to initiate a discussion.

[JohnnyDrama]

Must have been 1983-1984ish. I took an independent study "to learn about computers" my senior year in high school before the school offered a regular class. I also took the class. And a class offered by Colorado Mountain College. We accessed bulletin boards then. I remember the Army recruiter being amazed at how much computer experience I had. He wanted to sign me up to "fix computers." I declined....

A few years ago the book "This Machine Kills Secrets" was recommended to me.

https://www.amazon.com/This-Machine-Kills-Secrets-WikiLeakers/dp/0525953205

I could not make out the author's point of the book. This book was mostly something to do while cabbed up, waiting for construction to start...

The book follows several better known internet leakers through their careers from the beginning to the time it was published. What I did find interesting was how many of them got started the same way I did. It made me realize what a frontier existed out in cyberland and wonder how different things could be if I had made only slightly different choices. Anybody else?

[Aloha_Shooter]

It depends on what level of service you're talking about. I started using Use(less)net circa 1983-1984. Got to using dial-up bulletin boards in 1987 and think I started with AOL around 1988.

[Vic Tory]

"Use(less)net."

Good one!

[Sawin]

Mid 1990’s on AOL, connecting with a Boca 14.4k modem. I eventually upgraded it to a 56k modem, but the main point for me at the time was to use AIM (aol instant messenger) to talk with friends and send email, so throughput wasn’t a huge issue.

[Grant H.]

snip...

Nerds.

You rang?!? [ROFL1]


'91-92? Somewhere in there? When my dad brought home his first PC. He and mom were both programmers in the days when programs were stacks of punch cards...

I still chuckle about that first PC. Cost dad ~$3k for a 486dx, I think 8mb memory, and a 40mb hard drive... 14.4k modem...

[Osmosis]

Nerd here as well: I still have my first K&R 'C' book and the badge from my first PC purchased in 1984, an "Eagle PC+". I can still hear that crazy growl of a modem connecting to a BBS at 1200 bps.

I went to a college in '81 that was an early adopter and already had a campus wide token-ring with lots of terminals that slowly morphed into IBM PC's. So development of the actual internet kind of crept up on me, I can't remember the exact moment I realized it was here.

[BPTactical]

What gets me is 98% of the internet is dedicated to porn.




That means there is 2% of it I have never seen…….

[def90]

Heather Harmon.

[Circuits]

1982. 110/300 modem with acoustic coupler connected my trash 80 model 1 to the local uni, giving me uucp/uunet newsgroup access. A couple years later and I was connecting to fidonet bbs nodes at a blistering 1200 on an honest-to-god Hayes SmartMODEM 1200. Good times.

[arbol]

Nice... I didn't know there was a 110 baud modem. :)

[arbol]

https://www.usenix.org/system/files/login/articles/login_aug15_09_salus.pdf

[Vic Tory]

https://www.usenix.org/system/files/login/articles/login_aug15_09_salus.pdf

Wait! What!!!

No mention of Al Gore at all??!!!

[ray1970]

Al Gore is a liar.



I invented the internet.


You?re welcome.

[FoxtArt]

Ray tied a knot on the string between two cups and also became the first hacker.

[ray1970]

Ray tied a knot on the string between two cups and also became the first hacker.

That was hardcore espionage that we all engaged in when we were kids.

Pretty sure the cups and strings were integral in exposing Watergate.

[hurley842002]

When the first AOL disk showed up in my mail...

Haha, same!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[arbol]

So I have a 10x30 storage shed of my computer store from back in 2003. A lot of it is probably not worth much, but some of it is pretty important pieces of computer history.

The storage company is up to charging me $500 plus, for my storage shed, which is pretty ridiculous.

Do any of you have a business plan on making a lot of old computers work?

Anybody with museum connections?

[Vic Tory]

So I have a 10x30 storage shed of my computer store from back in 2003. A lot of it is probably not worth much, but some of it is pretty important pieces of computer history.

The storage company is up to charging me $500 plus, for my storage shed, which is pretty ridiculous.

Do any of you have a business plan on making a lot of old computers work?

Anybody with museum connections?I tried to contact an old friend who I was sure would be interested. I tried multiple kinds of searches on various sites and people searching tools.

Sorry. I don't have his current contact info.

[arbol]

Thanks, Vic Tory. If you come up with anything, I will appreciate it.

[BushMasterBoy]

AOL. Commodore 64. Browsed mainly POW reports. Circa 1985

[sroz]

Hell, I still have a Commodore 64 in the box.

[arbol]

POW as in Prisoner of War?

Pretty cool that you were using this new technology to better understand your world.

[arbol]

Hell, I still have a Commodore 64 in the box.

Unbox the C64!

Choplifter for ever!

;)

[kidicarus13]

.88335