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What was your first experience with the Internet?

Discussion in 'General Discussions' started by silverwolf107, 2015/04/05.

  1. 2015/04/05
    silverwolf107

    silverwolf107 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Kids born much after 2000 have grown up with the Internet and digital technology all around them, as evidenced by the name given to them: digital natives. The Net is no more amazing to them than TV, radio and telephone were to me growing up in the 80s and early 90s. I took them for granted because they were simply there.

    On the other hand, I never even heard of the Internet till I was in high school, so was wowed and amazed by it when I finally got the chance to use it in depth in 1996.

    So how about everyone here (at least those who were born before the 90s)? When was the first time you heard of the Net and when did you first use it? What were your first impressions, given that the Internet of yesterday was largely text based and very slow to use?

    My story is that I was taking a community college course in the 1996-97 school year. I was doing reasonably well in the class, but then somehow found out about the computer lab upstairs with computers connected to the Internet, which I'd heard of a few years earlier and was rather curious about. Class forgotten, I spent my evenings at the community college looking up random things on gopher (I don't remember if any of the computers used the World Wide Web, or just older search utilities like Gopher, Archie, etc.), and ended up with a D in the class. It was worth it though.:D
     
  2. 2015/04/05
    James Martin

    James Martin Geek Member

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    I had no need or desire to install a personal computer when they first became available, but I was eventually introduced to computing via CNC equipment at work. I learned how to write simple programs in incremental dimensioning before taking advanced courses at a local college.

    My first PC was a Windows 98se unit made from salvaged roadside parts back in 2003. I've come a long way since then (mainly with the help of this forum). Still learning though. ;)

    My biggest gaffe was sending email messages in all caps due to my lack of keyboarding skills. :eek:
     
    Last edited: 2015/04/05
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  4. 2015/04/05
    retiredlearner

    retiredlearner SuperGeek WindowsBBS Team Member

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    My son was given an Apple Commodore by my wife and I thought it was just to play games on - pacman etc.
    When I joined General Motors (NZ) Ltd. in 1981, computers were used by selected staff on a need to know basis. Never really got into them until I was made redundant from the General in 1993.
    I went back to the bench and as an AVI (Authorized Vehicle Inspector) I had to use a computer to access vehicle registration details from our Transport Authority.
    That was W95 which we had to update to W98 and so on because the Authority kept updating their OS's as Bill Gates kept doing.
    Since retirement in 2002 I have been getting more interested and have built and repaired numerous Desktop units and a couple of laptops and explored the www. a fair bit.
    I joined this BB and have endeavoured to stay SAFE while searching the www.
    My biggest gaffe would be trying to remember the BBS protocols. Neil.
     
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  5. 2015/04/05
    silverwolf107

    silverwolf107 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Thanks for your stories.

    I guess my biggest gaffe was sending someone a PM in a newsgroup when it was supposed to go to the whole group.
     
  6. 2015/04/09
    ThomasJK

    ThomasJK Well-Known Member

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    Nice stories. Unfortunately I can't remember the first time I used the Internet.
    It propably was sometime in -95, at home, with my fathers 486 / Windows 3.1 comp. I think so, because at my parents home, I've later found manuals and software disks for some version of Netscape for Win 3.1, so we obviously had an Internet connection (Dial-up) then. I guess, I wasn't so impressed, since I cant even remember it...

    I've later realized that I should have been, but back then I wasn't so interested about computers/computing anyway. I had used computers a couple or three years before that, for schoolwork, text editing, etc. and some gaming.

    On the other hand, I can remember the first time I really was impressed about Internet. That was in spring of -98, (with that same 486 comp. upgraded to Win95) when I listened some short clips of music from a website.
     
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  7. 2015/04/09
    ThomasJK

    ThomasJK Well-Known Member

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    silverwolf107 wrote:
    "...I spent my evenings at the community college looking up random things on gopher (I don't remember if any of the computers used the World Wide Web, or just older search utilities, like Gopher, Archie, etc.)... "

    There is still at least one Gopher server up and running. I just checked it is, I have HGopher 2.3c on this computer.

    silverwolf107 wrote:
    "...I guess my biggest gaffe was sending someone a PM in a newsgroup when it was supposed to go to the whole group. "

    Well, thats not so bad. Accidentally sending a post to a whole newsgroup, when its supposed to be a private message to someone, could be much more embarressing ;-)
     
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  8. 2015/04/09
    silverwolf107

    silverwolf107 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    I installed OverBiteFF, a proxy that allows Firefox to access gopher sites and found a few active gopher sites still out there. Very few, sadly.

    Yes, that would be even worse.
     
  9. 2015/04/10
    James Martin

    James Martin Geek Member

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    What’s funny is that I seemingly had more computer knowledge than my instructor and he had a master’s degree in mechanical engineering. Duke Energy donated funds to the school for new equipment - including money for a coordinate measuring machine (CMM) with PC-DMIS software.

    This software is very expensive, and no PC could run it without a special USB key. Our class was the first to use the CMM, so there were *many* bugs to be worked out. We were in disarray often, especially the instructor, but I eventually settled down and put my windowsbbs forum-learned skills to work and solved some nagging problems for the class. It was bitter-sweet in the end though, because the time we spent on trouble-shooting interfered with our class curriculum. At least we paved the road for future CMM classes.
     
  10. 2015/04/10
    ThomasJK

    ThomasJK Well-Known Member

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    silverwolf107 wrote:
    "...I installed OverBiteFF, a proxy that allows Firefox to access gopher sites and found a few active gopher sites still out there. Very few, sadly. "

    Oh, I thought that quux.org is the only active gopher site. Nice to know, there are more. Could you post here the names of those other active gophers? Would be nice to see those too.
     
  11. 2015/04/10
    retiredlearner

    retiredlearner SuperGeek WindowsBBS Team Member

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  12. 2015/04/11
    ThomasJK

    ThomasJK Well-Known Member

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    Hi Neil,
    Yes, I was also thinking Google would be helpful, but sometimes making a Google search crashes Win32's and Mosaic on this computer, but I checked that Wikipedia link you provided with my modern comp, and there was a list of public Gopher servers, over twenty! Gophers listed as "most recently visited/confirmed ".
    I'm going to check them. Thanks.
     
  13. 2015/04/14
    silverwolf107

    silverwolf107 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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  14. 2015/04/14
    felicityblue

    felicityblue Well-Known Member

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    I quite remember it clearly. I was asked by my 4th grade teacher to create my very own email account. For sometime, my friends and I were so into it that we send each others emails every other day. :)
     
  15. 2015/04/14
    fdamp

    fdamp Well-Known Member

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    My first exposure to computers was while I was an engineering apprentice at what became British Aerospace in the late 1950's. They had a computer called DEUCE. It was programmed in binary code and had a large team of programmers who were regarded almost as gods by we lesser mortals. I never got near that cadre.

    I started out using computers (there was no Internet then) in 1966. I worked for a machine tools company in Coventry, UK, and we used a local technical college's Elliott 801 vacuum tube computer for engineering calculations. We used the ALGOL language. We took our punched paper tape ALGOL programs to the college in late afternoon. They ran them overnight and we picked up the results the next morning.

    I joined Boeing in 1968, but didn't get much computer exposure in my job then. I got laid off in the big downturn in 1970/71. Boeing went from a workforce of 103,000 to 36,000 in two years.

    With a NASA contractor at the Langley facility, I worked in flight simulation from 1971 to 1974, doing real-time FORTRAN programming on a pair of CDC-6600 mainframes. Among other projects, we trained the Skylab astronauts.

    Back at Boeing, I worked in flight simulation, doing assembly language programming on Honeywell DDP-124 and Singer-Link GP4 computers. I finally got exposed to Microsoft, using Windows 3.0 at Boeing, writing technical documents about 1978 or so.

    My first exposure to the Internet was probably about 1996, when I got my first home computer. After I retired from Boeing in 1998, my Internet exposure became a daily habit which remains to this day. I can't imagine having to manage without it.

    I'm about to retire my old eMachines desktop (Win XP) for a new lap-top. Onwards and upwards!
     
    Last edited: 2015/04/14
  16. 2015/04/17
    silverwolf107

    silverwolf107 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    @fdamp Thanks for sharing!
     
  17. 2015/05/01
    JSS3rd Lifetime Subscription

    JSS3rd Geek Member

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    retiredlearner ...

    AppleCommodore? Two different companies, my friend. Your son probably received a Commodore 64.

    My first experience with computers (actually dumb terminals), as opposed to the internet, was at TWA, where we used the company's three closed systems for crew scheduling, weather retrieval, personal record keeping, flight information, and countless other things.

    In 1987 TWA made the systems available to crewmembers for access from home; about the same time it was suggested by my younger son's teachers that he have access to a home computer.

    Because he was interested in art, and at that time the Amiga was about the only reasonably priced home computer designed to work with a graphical interface, I bought an Amiga 500 for him, but I think I used it more than he did. He played games, but I discovered the internet with a 2400 baud modem and Mosaic

    When he took it with him to college the following year, I kept the modem and bought an Amiga 2000 for myself, which I used happily until 1997.

    By that time Microsoft had come out with Windows 95, which handled graphics much better than the Amiga platform. For an Amiga user Apple and the Mac were the "evil empire ", so I bit the bullet and bought my first PC (with a 4GB HD, which my elder son, a computer salesman, assured me would be the largest HD I would ever need ... HA!)

    Four desktops and four laptops later, I still think the Win9x UI is the best one ever produced by the Gnomes of Redmond. I skipped ME and Vista, and have been happy with 64-bit Win7 Pro, using the Classic Shell.

    The software that came with that first PC included Netscape Navigator, which I used for both browsing and email until Mozilla came along, and I've been using Firefox (originally named Phoenix, then Firebird, both names discontinued because of conflicts with other products) and Thunderbird ever since.
     
    Last edited: 2015/05/02
  18. 2015/05/02
    retiredlearner

    retiredlearner SuperGeek WindowsBBS Team Member

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    You will be correct in your assumption JSS3rd. I really had no interest back in the 'old days' when computers were in their infancy.
    I now get quite a "buzz" building comps and at my age I know mates of mine who shudder at the thought of how the comp works. My elder brother is continually clicking on something which puts his comp in a spin and then we connect by Teamviewer to sort it out for him.
    He's probably like a lot of 80 year olds who run on a short fuse with these 'new-fangled gadgets'.
    I've built 8 Desktops, repaired 3 and ditto for 2 laptops. I have only ever bought 1 HP Notebook from a Retailer brand new!
    My current comp and my wife's were the latest builds from all new parts including the newest style of cases. Keeps the mind and body active. Neil.
     
  19. 2015/05/02
    JSS3rd Lifetime Subscription

    JSS3rd Geek Member

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    Neil ...

    What I've always referred to as "stretching the mental muscles ". :)
     
  20. 2015/05/02
    silverwolf107

    silverwolf107 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    JSS3rd Thanks for the memories.
     
  21. 2015/05/02
    retiredlearner

    retiredlearner SuperGeek WindowsBBS Team Member

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    I had a TKJR (total knee joint replacement) on Janury 20th. so I'm concentrating on Quads and thigh and leg muscles these days. I'm having trouble remembering to do the exercises regularly. Neil.
     

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