15 replies to this topic

[kdma]

I'm posting this in the "nubie" section because my post count would indicate that I am in fact, a nubie. Either way, I really just have a few simple questions that I've been wondering since I found these forums. Seeing as this is where all the cool people "hang" I figure it might be a good place to get a decent enough answer.

So.

What would you say your first "online" experience was?
Do the numbers in the subject mean anything specific to you?
Were you on those "whacky" BBS's? mmmMmm Wildcat perhaps?
...maybe IRC was your introduction...?
...or, by some crazy chance, did you just figure this whole WWW thing out recently?

So yea, anyways.. I'm just trying to find some others that might actually know what "oldschool" really is. "Word."

[isolationx]

I'm posting this in the "nubie" section because my post count would indicate that I am in fact, a nubie. Either way, I really just have a few simple questions that I've been wondering since I found these forums. Seeing as this is where all the cool people "hang" I figure it might be a good place to get a decent enough answer.

So.

What would you say your first "online" experience was?
Do the numbers in the subject mean anything specific to you?
Were you on those "whacky" BBS's? mmmMmm Wildcat perhaps?
...maybe IRC was your introduction...?
...or, by some crazy chance, did you just figure this whole WWW thing out recently?

So yea, anyways.. I'm just trying to find some others that might actually know what "oldschool" really is. "Word."

28.8 means something to me, the speed of the pcmcia modem i had in my toshiba 100mhz old school lappy. but seeing how i'm only 12 yrs old, my first online experience was when i was in the 7th grade. 'WORD'

[LDSK]

Well I'd have to say 9600 as that was the speed of my first modem connected to my c64. I must say the look on my parents face after that first $400 long distance bill for the bbs's meant a very short life of that modem. In other words they threw it against the wall.

[kdma]

Well I'd have to say 9600 as that was the speed of my first modem connected to my c64. I must say the look on my parents face after that first $400 long distance bill for the bbs's meant a very short life of that modem. In other words they threw it against the wall.

hehe I had the "SX64" which was the "portable" (luggable) version of the c64. I got that thing for my birthday in 1985. Some of my earliest conscious memories are of that computer.

I know all about the long distance bills though, my first one was a tad over $1200. My mom tossed ME against the wall..

[LUCKY_FUCKIN_CHARMS]

i remeber when we got a 9600 bps modem and that was fast man! remember prodigy. my mom got real pissed to when the bill came.

[Venom]

300 Baud modem on an Apple IIE
=D

[systems_glitch]

While I recognize 300 and 9600 as modem speeds in baud, I never owned one of that speed. I do, however, have several old 2400 modems!

28.8 was the speed of the internal modem/soundcard integration in the 133 MHz Packard Bell we had. That would be my first at-home online experience, dialed up to McLeod Internet services, with Netscape 2.0.2 in Windows 95! I guess the first net experience before that was some version of AOL from floppy in Windows 3.1.

[CodeAc]

300 Baud modem on an Apple IIE
=D

Wow I remember when I had My Commodore. Q-Link (Now known as AOL), also affectionatly known as "ScrewLink" had the offer where they gave you the 300 baud when you signed up for service. I would say that was my first Online experience seeing the the C-64 was my first puter. Then I went into the BBS thing ran a C64 BBS for a couple of years.

Probablly my first Hardware hack was taken the old CMD drive and finding out that they all were 100 meg hard drives they just had a chip that set up how to format the drive 20, 40, 60 or 100 so we went to the local electronics store (Not Radio Shack) and cross referenced the chip and got the one that would allow the drive to format at 100 megs. so I had a 100 meg drive for the cost of a 20 meg drive. (about a $150 differance).

[Venom]

Heh, I used GNN (which is also now aol) when the 14.4 came out for those who remember that service... I think it stood for "Global News Network" or something but I could be mistaken. =\
And the only stuff I really got to do with the 300 baud was toy with it - and of course, dial into a few places -- my dad used it for work when I was younger.

[Rightcoast]

Ahh, I used a 9600 modem a friend gave me and was on prodigy playing RPG's when I first got online. I remember getting a 14.4 US Robotics Sportser and being happy as hell. Then trying to figure out how to make it work because I bought it used at the flea market and the dip switches were all down or up or something. I eventually got it figured out and set to 38,600. Man, I thought I was king shit.

[Seal]

My first experience was dialing up to the Carleton University library through HyperTerminal.
That was about 12 years ago (I was 8.) I have no idea of the connection speed.
I was awe-struck that my second-cousin could make our 386 even do such a thing.

Grade 5 was when I first experienced the Internet, at school. They had bought three super-speedy Pentium 1 computers running Windows95. I think they may have been 166MHz. One was at the library, and the other two were carted around from class to class.

As for experiences at home, the first time I went online was when we got the Internet, around 1997/1998.

[CodeAc]

My first experience was dialing up to the Carleton University library through HyperTerminal.
That was about 12 years ago (I was 8.) I have no idea of the connection speed.
I was awe-struck that my second-cousin could make our 386 even do such a thing.

Grade 5 was when I first experienced the Internet, at school. They had bought three super-speedy Pentium 1 computers running Windows95. I think they may have been 166MHz. One was at the library, and the other two were carted around from class to class.

As for experiences at home, the first time I went online was when we got the Internet, around 1997/1998.

Oh Oh I think were all showing our age through technology..

anyways Yeah I remember GNN and Prodigy. I was never a member. But Q-Link was the start of AOL then they went ahead and swollowed up a bunch of other ISP's over the years.

Does anyone remember the whole Prodigy Scam (I don't know if it was ever proven or not) that the software that connected to the service also scanned the hard drive for various installed software for supposed marketing purposes (the fist evolution of spyware).

wasn't Prodigy a joint ::puff puff:: venture of Sears? correct me if I'm wrong..

But anyways I miss the good ole days

[Beave]

I'm posting this in the "nubie" section because my post count would indicate that I am in fact, a nubie. Either way, I really just have a few simple questions that I've been wondering since I found these forums. Seeing as this is where all the cool people "hang" I figure it might be a good place to get a decent enough answer.

So.

What would you say your first "online" experience was?
Do the numbers in the subject mean anything specific to you?
Were you on those "whacky" BBS's? mmmMmm Wildcat perhaps?
...maybe IRC was your introduction...?
...or, by some crazy chance, did you just figure this whole WWW thing out recently?

So yea, anyways.. I'm just trying to find some others that might actually know what "oldschool" really is. "Word."

Wow. Hard to say.. Around 12 or so I got my first 300 baud manual dial/manual answer modem
(Vicmodem) . Started hitting c64 related (*cough* pirate) BBS's. Later moved to a 1660 (woo! autodial!) 300 baud, then a 1670 modem. I used (abused) "The Motorcity Madman's Phone man 6.6" quite a bit. I then moved to IBM compatible hardware.

I recall wildcat BBS, never really like it very much.

IRC I didn't really get into until later. I remember getting on efnet way, way back when.. but never really got into.. Plus my access to the net was sparse at best. That was probably early 90's. Did get into MUD's for a bit. Wow, what a waste of time (and addictive!) that can was.

"Internet" wise (not "da web / WWW"), wasn't probably until 1989 or so. Of course, this was when gopher was king. Didn't play with Mosaic until I was working at a small company in around 94'ish or so.

[Beave]

Well I'd have to say 9600 as that was the speed of my first modem connected to my c64. I must say the look on my parents face after that first $400 long distance bill for the bbs's meant a very short life of that modem. In other words they threw it against the wall.

Doh! Unfortunately, you probably never came close to seeing the full speed of the 9600 baud modem. Reason being, the c64 was way underpowered to drive things over 2400 baud. Keep in mind the _disk drive_ (speaking of the 1541) operated well below 2400 baud. Not only that, the c64 didn't even have a standard RS232 output. Not that it was a big deal, building your own or buying one was easy enough. Now, it's _not_ to say that people weren't doing this. I recall a local c64 hobbyist in my area that had a mod'ed c64 with 1 meg of RAM ! (woo). That was one fun thing about the c64 days. They where fairly cheap, and there where no end to hardware hacks to expand that little machines abilities.....

Here's a bit of trivia.. How many of you remember having a IBM compatable and running out and getting a 14.4kbps modem just to found out you have 8250 (?) UARTS? Then you had to buy a serial board with 16550 UARTS? Oh - what about "fossil" drivers for your modem (if you ran a BBS back then, you'll know what i'm talking about).

Heheh. Jesus, I feel old...

[GUIDEGUIDO]

I remember 9600 and 14.4. Before that, I had low baud, but I don't remember what it was. My 1st "new" hard drive was 8MB which I used on one of those dual floppy IBM machines, and later an ATT "deathstar 8088." Before you logged off your computer, it was advised you manually park the read/write heads on the hard drive.

Never had Prodigy, but I remember GENie. Went through a bunch of providers, including AOL before they allowed WWW access. The internet access program we used "back in the day" was called PINE. This was when Win 3.1 was still pretty impressive.

Also, way back, if you wanted to be cool, you direct dialed into the WELL and exchanged thoughts with Mitch, and that Grateful Dead guy who later became EFF founders.

[notyourtim]

I was introduced to modems, BBS's and the Internet at roughly the same time when I reluctantly replaced my old Apple ][ with a PC that had a 2400 baud modem card. This was some years before they opened the Internet to commercial traffic. Still, I'm certainly not the oldest Internet user in this thread.

I remember being so excited the first time I FTP'd some silly files of ASCII-art cows from Finland --- around the world *For Free* through my university. I called my mom to rave about it. Of course, nobody had heard of the Internet back then, so she was worried and advised me to phear the day when the monthly Internet bill would arrive and p0wn my wallet.

I still remember the wonder I felt at connecting to a machine on the other side of the planet that day. It was a big deal for me back then. Nowadays I click web links like changing TV channels and don't even think about it.

I also leeched off of the local BBS's. Got lots of GIFs and a really bad virus that intermittently made my PC play music on the speaker. I remember it could take 15 or 20 minutes to download a GIF. It could take an hour of auto-dialing to get on a 1-phone-line board. Or I could use the Internet to browse USENET's alt.binaries groups and fill up my whopping 1 Megabyte disk quota on the school's minicomputer in no time flat.

I stayed away from IRC and muds because everyone who touched them seemed to turn into sleepless zombies and flunk out.

(But hey, maybe they had the right idea? )