The InterNet -- Your First Exposure

[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...!