Do you remember the days of http://www.

Emp_Fab

My first foray into the online world came way before the internet existed.  A 300 baud modem bought at an auction (yes, 300 bits per second!) and the only things you could connect to were amateur Bulletin Board sites.

If you could, you worked out how to get yourself set up with a Fidonet electronic mail address.   You would compose your e-mail (offline if you had decent terminal software) then connect to your favourite Bulletin Board and it would be transferred to that computer.  Overnight the various BB systems would dial each other up and exchange messages and eventually, your email might make it to it's destination!

I remember my mate in awe at my new 9600 baud modem - he called it "the speed demon"!

A regular 70Mbps broadband connection today is 7,645 times faster.

Mark1960

I remember e-mail end the internet becoming important at work, and our IT manager proudly installing a PC in each department for internet "searches" and receiving and sending e-mails. Part of my new responsibilities was to "fire up" the PC every hour and check for any incoming e-mails, and print them off and pass them to the relevant adressee. I also had to do internet searches for people wanting information. All interesting stuff. Its' now just full of cock jokes and wankers!

gusman2x

I remember you used to genuinely be able to "browse" the internet. There was so much interesting information (there still is), and you could lose hours looking stuff up. Now it's just a forum or consumption machine. Genuinely pretty misery inducing, but utterly un put downable. 

Also, I think it was much better when you had to sit a PC to do your browsing. Felt more like an activity.

Also, also, porn used to be much more fun. 

Grumpyrocker

I was one of the first to get ADSL in my hometown. I was such a heavy net user - I worked online - that BT thought I was an ideal person to try it out rather than my unlimited dial-up connection.

It was 0.5Mb at the time. Which seems very slow now. But when the internet was still designed for dial-up it absolute flew. Felt faster than today's horrible multi-script tracking websites. Also the connection was super stable. And I think a year later they upped me to a full 1Mb for no extra.

I remember my colleague across town being really fed up because ADSL wasn't available there yet.

57Deluxe

because it was slow at home on my pocket PC connected via 9600 modem, I would always be scribbling down what were then long and complex URLs that I would come across reading articles whilst standing in Tescos mag isle for half an hour so I could look them up in the Library! I still find old lists from time to time and wonder what on earth would have been so important!

PolarityMan

A stack of 200 1.4mb floppies with a disk spanned zip across them for moving *ahem* large files. Then finding out that disk 123 had a bad sector.....

guitartango

I miss the days of Amiga Bulletin boards , swap parties (floppies) and downloading the latest games. In 95 i managed to get a free internet account as our IT Director could not get it working. Two years later he asked for his account back . I used to visit a website called astavista (not altavista) , plenty of software cracks  

darthed1981

Snags said:

darthed1981 said:

I can remember when the Internet was a lot friendlier!

Now it seems like most forums, Facebook etc. are a chance for people to indulge their worst instincts.

Guess you never hung out on too many alt.blah Usenet groups, then

I remember when there were trolls, flame wars, flame baiting and all the rest, and trolling actually meant something proper, not just being mean to someone. t'Internet has always a been a weird mix of friendly people (still in touch with folk I met via IRC) and total psycho's.  And sometimes friendly psychos.

I don't mean there were no c**ts, of course there were.

But actually, no I'm not thinking Usenet etc, I'm thinking more the early days of Yahoo profiles, MSN Messenger etc - where you just ended up chatting to people randomly who were still impressed by the concept of a random chat with a stranger on the other side of the planet.

Now everyone is used to getting American teenagers screaming abuse at them on Xbox live...

darthed1981

PolarityMan said:

A stack of 200 1.4mb floppies with a disk spanned zip across them for moving *ahem* large files. Then finding out that disk 123 had a bad sector.....

Which is why the rest of us just bought the DVD

terada

When I first went online, I remember being told that I could ask some bloke called Jeeves any question and he’ll find the answer for me. 

Exciting times

guitartango

Warez 

Flanging_Fred

There are 2 people in this world, whose very existence is due to my discovery of ICQ in 1999.

Grumpyrocker

Flanging_Fred said:

There are 2 people in this world, whose very existence is due to my discovery of ICQ in 1999.

There are three more in this world thanks to my use of the internet.

Snags

darthed1981 said:

Snags said:

darthed1981 said:

I can remember when the Internet was a lot friendlier!

Now it seems like most forums, Facebook etc. are a chance for people to indulge their worst instincts.

Guess you never hung out on too many alt.blah Usenet groups, then

I remember when there were trolls, flame wars, flame baiting and all the rest, and trolling actually meant something proper, not just being mean to someone. t'Internet has always a been a weird mix of friendly people (still in touch with folk I met via IRC) and total psycho's.  And sometimes friendly psychos.

I don't mean there were no c**ts, of course there were.

But actually, no I'm not thinking Usenet etc, I'm thinking more the early days of Yahoo profiles, MSN Messenger etc - where you just ended up chatting to people randomly who were still impressed by the concept of a random chat with a stranger on the other side of the planet.

Now everyone is used to getting American teenagers screaming abuse at them on Xbox live...

MSN Messenger? You arriviste!  IRC, ICQ, Trillian ...

Bloody loved ICQ and refused to talk to anyone that used Messenger or gods forbid AIM.

Ah, happy days ...

Once got involved in a protracted theological exchange with some nutter from the USA too, who in later years it turned out was a world renowned nutter. Started off on usenet somewhere and ended up with epic emails (from him) and short ones (from me). He must have been very bored/under-employed.

PolarityMan

darthed1981 said:

PolarityMan said:

A stack of 200 1.4mb floppies with a disk spanned zip across them for moving *ahem* large files. Then finding out that disk 123 had a bad sector.....

Which is why the rest of us just bought the DVD

This would be well before DVDs.

Grumpyrocker

Snags said:

MSN Messenger? You arriviste!  IRC, ICQ, Trillian ...

For me it was IRC for work, MSN Messenger for girls. 

Met quite a few via MSN profiles, chatrooms and Messenger. 

Keiko

You were considered a nerd just for having a PC before the year 2000. Similarly you were considered a poser for having a mobile phone before the year 2000. It's only socially acceptable once "everyone's got them". I'm sure theres a lesson in there somewhere.

scrumhalf

I'm just about to leave Demon as ISP as Vodafone are shutting it down.

When I frist signed up in 1994 i had to download a browser and you could get internet directories. I was working with a software company at the time and progressed from dial-up bulletin boards.

Amazing to think that something so astonishingly cutting age would now be considered prehistoric.

guitartango

And those who remembered hyperterminal "AT &F" must be a nerd

Veganic

Reverend said:

Music Radar use to run the Metal Hammer forum where an argument led to someone being stabbed. 

*stabs viciously* doesn't really count.