Your first internet experience, and other nostalgia-induced conversations.

[EUBlink]

Blast from the past, yeah? It’s been a little over twenty-five years since I first stared impatiently at a 56K dial-up internet status window. It’s wild to recollect on how far we’ve come, how connected we all are now but how much the surplus of interconnectivity has ultimately led to us being less socially welcoming and more socially anxious with each other. Life has jokes.

How old were you when you first accessed Al Gore’s World Wide Web?

[BurghFan]

Re: Your first internet experience, and other nostalgia-induced conversations.

My family's first internet was something called WOW! which according to Wikipedia was a rather shortlived ISP provided by CompuServe from 3/96 to 1/97. CompuServe was then bought by AOL and AOL was our 2nd ISP. Apparently there is currently a farily large cable/internet provider called WOW based out of Denver that has no relation to CompuServe WOW!



In school I remember doing learning how to use the internet to search for information using a search endgine called Nando Net or Nando.net probably around the same time or slightly earlier.

[EUBlink]

Your first internet experience, and other nostalgia-induced conversations.

We had dbTech at first, which split. One half was bought by Comcast at the time and the other was bought by Cox.

I don’t miss the days of screaming across the house whenever someone would pick up the phone and need to use it, messing up my internet chats, freezing slow-loading JPG images or, worst of all, a couple years later messing up my connection with the already-chopped multiplayer games of Delta Force. Oh the travesties of growing up in a barely middle class family.

[dickey1331]

Re: Your first internet experience, and other nostalgia-induced conversations.

I don’t know what my first internet memory was. But I do know my parents still had dial up when I left for the military in 2007. It was rough. I didn’t even have internet when I finally got my own place.


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[Majingir]

Re: Your first internet experience, and other nostalgia-induced conversations.

For me, it was dial up internet.

I don't even remember speeds back then because obviously I had nothing to compare it to.

But the main thing about dial up internet I remember is that when I tried connecting to the internet and someone was on the phone, I could hear their conversation on the computer.

[bcruise]

Re: Your first internet experience, and other nostalgia-induced conversations.

A - O - Hell. Do I need to say more? Ah, that glorious connection noise and 28k baud rate....not to mention the fact that you couldn't browse and use the landline phone at the same time.

I guess it was probably late '90's that I started using the internet, on the connection I mentioned above. The first home computer I used outside of Apple //e's at school was a MacIntosh Performa 430, IIRC. I played a few web-based games on it, but the first actual PC games I remember playing are a Sierra golf game, and Starcraft.

Edit: Correction - The first game I remember playing on that Performa was a golf game, but it wasn't Sierra (that came later). It was EA's "PGA Tour Golf II".

[caseyj622]

Re: Your first internet experience, and other nostalgia-induced conversations.

When I was about 11 or 12 in '97-98, my friends parents got AOL and I would stay the night at his house and we would stay up all night on yahoo chat rooms chatting with girls and watching HBO movies. We obviously weren't monitored and found some "interesting" things online.

[Gotmadskillzson]

Re: Your first internet experience, and other nostalgia-induced conversations.

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Had that 50 ft phone cord. I remember those AOL free trial discs came in the mail every 3 days. Had so many of them I don't think we ever actually paid for AOL because we always had a drawer full of discs.

[Master Live 013]

Re: Your first internet experience, and other nostalgia-induced conversations.

Ha, hunting for AOL disks, I remember those days.

My first internet experience was around 95'-97'.

I think my mother just randomly picked up the phone at 3:00am just to see if I was online

[Caulfield]

Re: Your first internet experience, and other nostalgia-induced conversations.

summer 2000, trying to complete the last 7 cards from Wizards of the Coast MLB Showdown set through Ebay. Kerry Wood and one other player were the last 2 cards I needed before I stopped
and later that fall, researching ncaa football rosters for EA's NCAA 2001
this started a fifteen year love affair with tinkering with rosters and researching through the interwebz for incoming freshmen as well as sophomore and upperclassmen

[EUBlink]

Re: Your first internet experience, and other nostalgia-induced conversations.

I don’t know what my first internet memory was. But I do know my parents still had dial up when I left for the military in 2007. It was rough. I didn’t even have internet when I finally got my own place.

I was overcome with an unnecessary amount of anxiety the day that my friend and I had the audacity to go to Playboy’s official website. Because why not. We legit thought the FBI and CIA were coming to take us away because the phone rang randomly and disconnected us. I can probably tribute a couple of my gray hairs now to that day, but most of them still belong in the divorce section. Eh.

[VDusen04]

Re: Your first internet experience, and other nostalgia-induced conversations.

My first internet experience was at my cousin's house in 1994. I was in fourth grade had no concept of the internet until I showed up that day, at which point they explained to me that they had something called Prodigy, which allowed them to search for information on any term they felt like typing in. They also said they could use it to shop for groceries from home.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodigy_(online_service)

As someone obsessed with basketball at the time (little has changed), this was a game-changer. When everyone went out on the boat, I stayed behind and used the computer so I could think of relevant key words to type in. I'm pretty sure I spent the bulk of that time searching "San Antonio Spurs" and "David Robinson" then waiting for what felt like five minutes for results to load.

Even with the crawling load speeds, it was like Christmas morning for me. At the time, especially for someone living in Michigan, finding information or literature on the San Antonio Spurs felt like finding a needle in a haystack. There was the David Robinson biography by SI for Kids and my library's 1989 NBA Encyclopedia and that was about it. So I felt the full force of the internet revolution.

[Keirik]

Re: Your first internet experience, and other nostalgia-induced conversations.

28.8 modem, 5 minute to load every page, and ICQ lol

[EUBlink]

Your first internet experience, and other nostalgia-induced conversations.

28.8 modem, 5 minute to load every page, and ICQ lol

I forgot all about ICQ. Lort. Memories I cherished but laugh at now.

[LambertandHam]

Re: Your first internet experience, and other nostalgia-induced conversations.

Windows 95 or 98, dial up on the family PC. Was big into Star Wars PC games like Rebel Assault 2 and Star Wars Rebellion. Spent years on the MSN Gaming Zone. mIRC, ICQ as well.