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?