The InterNet -- Your First Exposure

[.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-.../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?!?


'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.