Do you remember the first time you used the Internet?

[The Professional Fan]

I was thinking about this tonight. At this point it feels like the internet has been around my whole life. I'm 35, so in no way is that even close to reality. Most of my life has been spent without it. So I started thinking about the first time I ever used the internet. It was 1994 or 1995. I was working for a software company, in the shipping dept. It was a very small company that developed CD ROM's of mostly educational-type material. When the secretary-type woman would go to lunch I would answer phones for her. She had a computer with internet access. All I did was try to figure out this weird internet thing. There was no google. Hell, I don't even know if there were search engines back then! Just type away and hope for the best, right? So weird.

Do you remember the first time you logged on?

 

[EL PRESIDENTE]

yes. probably around 1992 or so. BBS in Portland called Quarterflash. Played Baron Realms Elite. fun times.

then got on other site. remember the first porn pic I downloaded took like 4 hours.
haha

 

[Nate4Prez]

Yes. 1998. Porn.

 

[Minstrel]

yes. probably around 1992 or so. BBS in Portland called Quarterflash. Played Baron Realms Elite. fun times.

If it was an actual BBS, that's not the Internet. Those were hosted by a single person and people dialed directly into that person with their modems...they weren't part of a wider network. At least, that's my understanding.

I started using the Internet around 1994 or so. A shell account that was dial-up. You used connection software to connect to the ISP and everything took place in text in that piece of software. Everything was basically e-mail, telnet or ftp. At least, at my level of use. Oh, and USENET...the early form of discussion forums.

I didn't get a PPP connection, the kind that basically just put your entire computer "online" and multiple applications could make use of, like web browsers and e-mail programs, til around 1996.

My first time using the net was to establish a home account in order to play the type of text-based, multi-player fantasy game known as a MUD (multi-user dungeon). I had seen a friend playing it and I thought it looked like fun.

 

[TradeNurkicNow]

yes. probably around 1992 or so. BBS in Portland called Quarterflash. Played Baron Realms Elite. fun times.

Same. Though I was playing LORD, but I remember Quarterflash and other local BBSs. Door games FTW. I was... uh, seven years old.

Then my dad showed me "Netscape" and it all went downhill from there. I remember using infoseek.com as my primary search engine.

 

[TradeNurkicNow]

regarding the actual internet, we connected to the internet through a 28.8 dialup modem, i believe the ISP was "heavenet."

I think at that time my primary uses for the internet were looking up song lyrics/fanfics and making terrible e/n pages on angelfire. Oh, and spamming the Chrisitan chatrooms on Yahoo.

I remembering being in highschool when someone introduced me to a "cool new search engine called google."

 

[The Professional Fan]

Netscape. lol. Blast from the past for sure!

 

[Minstrel]

I used Mosaic Spyglass first...I think that was the only web browser easily available at the time.

Netscape brings back memories of my high school library...6-7 computers on the net, all using Netscape.

 

[BrianFromWA]

Pine for "email" in 1994, some research stuff from college libraries. Surfing? 1997. You'd set up an .mp3 or two to download, and then have it when you got back from class. And ESPN.com.

 

[EL PRESIDENTE]

If it was an actual BBS, that's not the Internet. Those were hosted by a single person and people dialed directly into that person with their modems...they weren't part of a wider network. At least, that's my understanding.

I also had Prodigy.

Also got on usenet. that's how i found porn and the anarchist cookbook and commander keen!

 

[Minstrel]

I also had Prodigy.

Also got on usenet. that's how i found porn and the anarchist cookbook and commander keen!

omg. if you downloaded the anarchist cookbook, you probably ended up on FBI watch-lists. Your life since then has been monitored!

 

[44Thrilla]

I connected to a few BBS', but my first internet experience was with Prodigy. I remember it was pay by the hour, because I remember getting yelled at for my 3 hour Mad Libs sessions.

 

[jlprk]

I took a college course devoted to CompuServe in about 1988 or 89. Does that count? It was like internet. Another course then was about a local experiment called "Windows." (Windows Version 1) I didn't expect to ever see it again.

I think my first internet use was at work about 1998, purely to check out NBA.com, which I was always hearing about.

 

[Haakzilla]

AOL in 1993 for Mac.

Chat rooms, porn pics, and I can't even remember if the internet back then was used for much of anything else...

 

[EL PRESIDENTE]

omg. if you downloaded the anarchist cookbook, you probably ended up on FBI watch-lists. Your life since then has been monitored!

I am the FBI.

 

[EL PRESIDENTE]

one of my friends actually did get a visit from the local FBI field agent back in the days for something in an AOL or Prodigy chat room.

 

[EL PRESIDENTE]

pHrEakIng!

 

[jlprk]

one of my friends actually did get a visit from the local FBI field agent back in the days for something in an AOL or Prodigy chat room.

Are you at liberty to say what it was? Or give a hint?

 

[EL PRESIDENTE]

Are you at liberty to say what it was? Or give a hint?

It was so long ago. I think it was some veiled presidential threat or something. some investigation happened, few interviews, nothing happened though.

 

[THE HCP]

remember the first porn pic I downloaded took like 4 hours.
haha

That bitch must have been HUGE!

 

[THE HCP]

That bitch must have been HUGE!

OK, now that shit was funny!

 

[THE HCP]

If it was an actual BBS, that's not the Internet. Those were hosted by a single person and people dialed directly into that person with their modems...they weren't part of a wider network. At least, that's my understanding.

I started using the Internet around 1994 or so. A shell account that was dial-up. You used connection software to connect to the ISP and everything took place in text in that piece of software. Everything was basically e-mail, telnet or ftp. At least, at my level of use. Oh, and USENET...the early form of discussion forums.

I didn't get a PPP connection, the kind that basically just put your entire computer "online" and multiple applications could make use of, like web browsers and e-mail programs, til around 1996.

My first time using the net was to establish a home account in order to play the type of text-based, multi-player fantasy game known as a MUD (multi-user dungeon). I had seen a friend playing it and I thought it looked like fun.

See!!!! This is the proof I needed that you my nerdy friend are an UBER-DORK!!!!

 

[EL PRESIDENTE]

That bitch must have been HUGE!

Ginger Lynn. woot.

 

[Denny Crane]

In 1985 I worked for 3Com and we had a VAX that was on the Usenet network. Usenet was Internet email and news; you'd upload your mail to your local system, it would batch your mail with anyone else's outgoing, wait for some specific time of day, then dial another computer via modem and forward the mail and receive any incoming. It would take 2-3 days for an email to get from west coast to east coast, the mail hopping its way from computer to computer.

Then we had an intern working for us (3Com) who had an account at Stanford that was on the actual Internet. Email went from west coast to east coast in under a second over that.

Then guys who had internet access would hook up a Usenet machine to it so maybe you had 3 hops to the internet connected machine and then < 1 second for the mail to get to the east coast and then a few more hops from there via Usenet to the destination.

My first actual connection to the internet was in the late 1980s through a dialup provider. I accessed email and news running on their computer in a command line window over a modem connection.

 

[Colonel Ronan]

July 2007.

 

[Colonel Ronan]

regarding the actual internet, we connected to the internet through a 28.8 dialup modem, i believe the ISP was "heavenet."

I think at that time my primary uses for the internet were looking up song lyrics/fanfics and making terrible e/n pages on angelfire. Oh, and spamming the Chrisitan chatrooms on Yahoo.

I remembering being in highschool when someone introduced me to a "cool new search engine called google."

Holy shit, Angelfire and Yahoo Chatrooms!

 

[crandc]

Would have been 06. I do remember the very first Web site I visited was nba.com!

 

[andalusian]

'88 I used Usenet on Vax computers. Had done work on large networks 2 years earlier - but these were private networks, not connected to the Internet.

 

[Rodolfo]

I believe it was at a friends house back in 95' or 96'?
We had AT&T dial-up if i remember correctly. I remember using IRC a lot back in the day.
Found out about the Columbine shootings in Grant HS's library(NEP). Netscape/Cnn.com

 

[crandc]

Crap. I said 06, meant 96. The heat melted my brain.