Pre internet

pillsaregooood

Is there anybody on here that worked in an office before the internet arrived ,what did ye do to pass the time ? I must spend 70% of my day surfing ,I'd be fecked without the web.

petes

When I started were I am now I didn't have access to the internet. ISDN connection being shared. Had to do work. Crazy.

Giruilla

i didn't have the internet last summer, man it was painfull!! I was in an open plan office too! I used to spend my day memorising rows of random numbers from my calculator, sneakily playing sudoko or crosswords (I'd hide it under my keyboard the slide it out when the time was right), writing emails to other just as bored colleagues, taking one hour toilet breaks (I'd just listen to my mp3), thinking and planning about what to have for lunch, making action figures out of any office supplies I could get my hands on (rubber bands and paper clips mostly) and playing with them after:) , and generally retreating to my imagnation quite a lot!! Theres a few other stuff which I'd have to go unreged for if I wanted to say. But basically yeah, without the internet it sucks! Man only 70%, I'm on like 98% at least this summer, cubicles rule!!

biko

I started travelling very young, before e-mail.
Had to send postcards home to friends and family !

stovelid

jaysus, thank god for the net

Giruilla wrote:

memorising rows of random numbers from my calculator

Agamemnon

When I worked in jobs with no internet access, I went for smoke breaks on the hour, every hour. Now that I'm in front of a computer all day at work, I go for smoke breaks every 90 minutes instead.

seamus

Well the internet brought with it things like email, which was/is a major spur to give everyone their own terminal. I didn't work before the internet came around, but from first-hand accounts, the general set up was that there were only a handful of machines in most places. If you wanted to do up a document and print it out, you gave it to a typist, or you found a free machine and did it. Memos were either sent via internal mail, voicemail or by calling down to someone's desk. You had a desk with no computer or monitor on it, but you still had no space because you had a mountain of paper on it.

This of course varied from place-to-place. Accountancy firms would naturally have more computers than say a solicitors.

The Hill Billy

Ahh... This brings me back to the days when we had only 2 PCs (an IBM AT & an IBM XT) & a scattering of 3270 terminals. (That probably means fcuk all to most of ye.)

The 3270 terminals had email of sorts which I used to chat to mates in our offices in London.

Time-wasting in those days more revolved around chatting to work-mates over coffee & having a smoke at your desk.

Eventually we got in some IBM Model 55SX's (12.5 MHz, 4MB RAM, 60MB hard-disk) running Windows 3.1. Then got down to some serious time-wasting playing Solitaire!

The rest - as they say - is history...


/goes misty-eyed

gimmick

I used be great at crosswords and other word games. Unfortunately my mind is now a mere slush with cheap kicks on the net.

Must go, must watch monkeys.

Archeron

I found a book at home of photcopyable (??) jokes. It was printed in the late 70's i think, and its all stuff that you're supposed to copy and give to your friends to make them laugh and then discuss over the watercooler. Funny thing is that a lot of stuff in it is stuff you still see in emails today.

scojones

Life did not exist before the Internet!

Day-wanna-wonga

Giruilla wrote:

Man only 70%, I'm on like 98% at least this summer, cubicles rule!!

That doesn't make sense. You are 28% better than man in summertime?

pillsaregooood

That doesn't make sense. You are 28% better than man in summertime?

Ruu_Old

gimmick wrote:

I used be great at crosswords and other word games. Unfortunately my mind is now a mere slush with cheap kicks on the net.

Must go, must watch monkeys.

Yep crosswords, now crosswords on the internet. *throws away pen and paper*

robinph

We'd run a serial cable between the laptops that we were supposed to be fixing and play Doom. Purely for testing that they were working OK though of course.

Lorax

I do about 15 minutes of actual work a week..

has anyone found even now when they do have work , the internet is such a distraction
this morning a woman called me up regarding her remote ID and was having problems with it but i was distracted by an email i got with the link to colin farrell's sex tape!

connundrum

What the hell did you guys do for porn in pre internet times*?? Jesus, brown duffel coat sales must've dropped something shocking in the last 10 years :eek:





*I ask on a friends behalf. Obviously

The Hill Billy

connundrum wrote:

What the hell did you guys do for porn in pre internet times

Pic of nekkid woman with blank piece of paper covering it.
Slowly moved blank piece of paper down to gradually reveal full pic.

In some ways the old days were better coz you didn't need a PC to have a wnak. You could do it in the bathroom, at the cinema, even at bus stops.

Mind you - this new wireless malarky was obviously designed to bring back the good ol' days of wnaking anywhere.

Interceptor

connundrum wrote:

What the hell did you guys do for porn in pre internet times?

Have ye no heard of the legend of the spank mag? Arrr, it be on the top shelf in Eurospar and it holds the key to internet-free wnakking. Arrr, me wrist it throbs...

'cptr

goods

anyone have any interesting sites to visit , seem as no one is doing any actual work ?

abetarrush

Ah twas the days of letter, swirly-dial phones and typewriters

fjon

I started university in 1996, right when internet was starting to really take off. Exciting times - people used to queue for hours at the start of each year to join Netsoc (the only way to properly get internet access). The lucky few had a Netsoc account, which their friends would regularly "borrow".
The W95 PCs were ancient, really slow, but we loved them.
We also had some godawful Telnet email. No pictures or attachments!
I went into the computer rooms recently, and how things have changed! Bebo, flash drives, cd burning, DVDs, flatscreen monitors...

muckwarrior

fjon wrote:

I started university in 2000, right when internet was starting to really take off. Exciting times - people used to queue for hours at the start of each year to join Netsoc (the only way to properly get internet access). The lucky few had a Netsoc account, which their friends would regularly "borrow".
The W95 PCs were ancient, really slow, but we loved them.
We also had some godawful Telnet email. No pictures or attachments!
I went into the computer rooms recently, and how things have changed! Bebo, flash drives, cd burning, DVDs, flatscreen monitors...

Jesus, what college did you go to? That sounds more like 1997!

fjon

D'oh! I *graduated* in 2000! You're right, it was actually 1996/ 1997 - good guess!

Merrick

Blah, you lucky people, I can't use the net at work, so I have had to resort to making things out of blu-tack, stringing all my paperclips together, doodling, eating without anyone noticing... I once spent an hour and a half cleaning my whole desk, and the area around it, just for something to do.
*sigh*

po0k

Ask for a raise.

LundiMardi

I did have the net in work, but apparently 80 hours a month surf time if a tad too much according to my employers. ::sigh:: :rolleyes:

Merrick

SyxPak wrote:

Ask for a raise.

Now there's a clever thought...
Getting more money for the same messing, I like it.

Terry

connundrum wrote:

What the hell did you guys do for porn in pre internet times*?? Jesus, brown duffel coat sales must've dropped something shocking in the last 10 years :eek:





*I ask on a friends behalf. Obviously

VHS tapes and 2 VCR's.
ron jeremy seemed to be in every one of those films back then.

BrokenArrows

LundiMardi wrote:

I did have the net in work, but apparently 80 hours a month surf time if a tad too much according to my employers. ::sigh:: :rolleyes:

sure if you work 40 hours a week its like spending half your month at work on the net.

Verita

Hill Billy wrote:

Pic of nekkid woman with blank piece of paper covering it.
Slowly moved blank piece of paper down to gradually reveal full pic.

In some ways the old days were better coz you didn't need a PC to have a wnak. You could do it in the bathroom, at the cinema, even at bus stops.

Mind you - this new wireless malarky was obviously designed to bring back the good ol' days of wnaking anywhere.

First there was telfax? I think that is what it was called. It came before the Fax.

For the fax (entertainment wise) there was that pic of a woman holding a hair brush and when you made a fold in a certain position, turned it upside down..... it became a picture of a woman pleasuring herself. A nice example of how even then bollix was sent.

Before PC's and the internet people worked because there was so much bloody paper work and phone calls, your day was taken up by them.

These days there is little or few emails like there were about 4 years ago due to fire walls and most people having seen most of it before.

toomevara

UCG, 1991, the nightly queue to use the phone box to ring home from the estate where i lived. Often took an hour just to get into the phone box, you'd get about 5 minutes on the phone before folks started shaking the box to get you out. Honestly you whipper snappers don't know you're born...

Verita

toomevara wrote:

UCG, 1991, the nightly queue to use the phone box to ring home from the estate where i lived. Often took an hour just to get into the phone box, you'd get about 5 minutes on the phone before folks started shaking the box to get you out. Honestly you whipper snappers don't know you're born...

They have Bebo now etc. It is a saviour in some ways

daiixi

Eh, we're not allowed to use the net during work hours (unless for work purposes) now anyway. However business was a lot slower before the internet stuck it's big nose in.. now we have to do more work and work later and be much more stressed out.

muckwarrior

Well the internet is my work, so I guess i'm at least partially responsible for all you slackers out there

daiixi

muckwarrior wrote:

Well the internet is my work, so I guess i'm at least partially responsible for all you slackers out there

and therefore at least partially responsible for the extra work I have to do everyday?? :mad:

muckwarrior

daiixi wrote:

and therefore at least partially responsible for the extra work I have to do everyday?? :mad:

Ha ha

embee

I work in a call centre, and there is no internet access on our PC's, which is absolutely CRAPPY. On a quiet day, there is literally NOTHING to do between calls, so mails are generally flying around between people... its crap though. We only have access to certain websites that are to do with the nature of the business, so I spend my entire day reading sites like ComReg's... boring as hell.

Oh yes, and then there's MS Paint. The only light in a dark, dark tunnel. Many an hour has been wiled away drawing pics....

up for anything

Pre-internet... pre-computers.. those were the days.

Typewriter, electric typewriter, electronic typewriter (had a 40 character LCD screen on it), standalone word processors such as Wang (Which had the Castle of Adventure game on it... I spent about 1.5 years temping in Reader's Digest playing that game). Then we moved on to DOS PCs with WordPerfect and our friendly tech guy installed the original Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards game, Brickbat and host of other games mostly of the N, S, E, W, SE, NW, take sword, inventory type games, then we got Lemmings. Then came Electronic Mail within the office on a 486, along with Word, Apple Macs and then I got pregnant and 10 years later bought a home computer to discover the joys of the internet. I assure you that we found enough to do on them.. anything to avoid work. Some things haven't changed.

In 1986 I worked for a Marine Services company and our department dealt with the moving of oil rigs. The MD for whom I worked spent most of his time on the golf course but had to be in constant contact so used to take the mobile phone which weighed in heavier than I did at the time and was the size of a medium suitcase. It ran on wheels like a suitcase.

There was also telex, then Telexfax which became fax... Jesus, I remember spending hours hunched over the damn things trying to send 50 page documents and having to resend each page about 5 times with a queue of 20 behind you waiting to avail of the lightening speed new technology.:mad: And the bollixology of changing the thermal paper roll.:(

We still managed to avoid working for at least 7 of the 8 hour working day though.

zuutroy

fjon wrote:

We also had some godawful Telnet email. No pictures or attachments!

Ah yes, reminds of my first email address...how could you forget 97482692@tolka.dcu.ie

ergo

fjon wrote:

I started university in 1996, right when internet was starting to really take off. Exciting times - people used to queue for hours at the start of each year to join Netsoc (the only way to properly get internet access). The lucky few had a Netsoc account, which their friends would regularly "borrow".
The W95 PCs were ancient, really slow, but we loved them.
We also had some godawful Telnet email. No pictures or attachments!
I went into the computer rooms recently, and how things have changed! Bebo, flash drives, cd burning, DVDs, flatscreen monitors...

ah yes, must be a fellow UCD person

the thoughts of that queue for Netsoc! I mean getting up early (at a ridiculous hour for a student!) to secure net access for the year!

and the initial encounter with email [ xyz@orca.ucd.ie], on those old 486's (or were they 386's) up on the top floor of the library, I did like that telnet programme though (aside from no attachments possible)

and then that first summer (1997) getting letters (yes letters) from classmates in Europe or USA, same in 1998, by 1999 no more letters (well, just to or from the then girlfriend), just e-mails

was walking through college last year and saw debate topic re "should bebo be banned" : i had to google it to find out what the hell bebo was!

/goes misty-eyed at thought of getting a hand-written letter (copyright of poster on page 1 of this thread)

nlgbbbblth

pillsaregooood wrote:

Is there anybody on here that worked in an office before the internet arrived ,what did ye do to pass the time ? I must spend 70% of my day surfing ,I'd be fecked without the web.

Have you ever heard of the concept of using the internet at home?

I spend around 10 or 15 minutes a day at work online. The rest of the time is doing my job.

Work surfing is overrated. Far more relaxing at home. No pricks looking over your shoulder.

looksee

When I went to secretarial college (about the same time as we lived in a hole in the road, with no tarpaulin) there was one electric typewriter - for demonstration purposes, I don't remember ever using it. When I started work if you wanted more than one copy of anything you typed a top copy and up to six flimsies using carbon paper between the pages. If you wanted more than six you cut a stencil and ran it off on a duplicating machine. In around 1980 or so the office I worked in got a photocopier - you used special paper and the copies were murky and plastic looking. In about 1985 I thought I might go solo as a graphic designer, up to then I'd been using an IBM Compositor for type setting, but these were becoming obsolete so I thought I'd buy a computer.. I phoned a company - I can't remember who, it might have been IBM - to make enquiries, and a week or so later a huge van - like a removals van - turned up outside the house. The salesman proudly showed me the computer, which took up a good bit of the van, I've forgotten most of the details but I think it didn't do much more than the Compositor, and the price as far as I recall was in the region of IR£10,000. I find it hard to believe that was only 20 years ago. Does anyone remember selling those early computers? Am I mis-remembering?:( Thankfully I couldn't afford it; it was very quickly even more obsolete than the Compositor. (I did eventually get a computer - a Mac G3 about 8 or 9 years ago. And I'm typing this on a laptop.) And then there was that tennis game that you plugged into the telly and a blip bounced to and fro across a line, rumour had it that it would make lines on the screen if you played it too much...

kaizersoze

julep wrote:

VHS tapes and 2 VCR's.
ron jeremy seemed to be in every one of those films back then.

Yeah, the hairy ba$tard. Or Peter North.:D
Gettin worried now. Can't remember any of the womens names.:o :eek:

pillsaregooood

Have you ever heard of the concept of using the internet at home?

Now why would I waste my time surfin at home when I have 39 hours a week to waste online and I get paid to do it ,as for pricks looking over my shoulder ,I work at the end of an office upstairs so when I hear those footsteps comming upstairs it gives me the 25seconds I need to shut down all sites and pick up any piece of work related material and stare at it intensely until whoever it is sticks their head around the corner .

Archeron

kaizersoze wrote:

Yeah, the hairy ba$tard. Or Peter North.:D
Gettin worried now. Can't remember any of the womens names.:o :eek:

Aah, thats not too hard. Just pick a name from colum A and a name from colum B, and you're bound to name a real star from the past.


Colum A

---

Colum B
Miranda

---

Banks
Salma

---

Saint
Betina

---

Angel
Viola

---

Scott
Bettany

---

Taylor
Busty

---

Eden
Brittany

---

Dusty
Tera

---

Bratt
Jenna

---

Sinclair
Aimee

---

Charms
Ashley

---

Fox
Amber

---

Moore
Giselle

---

Hunter
Jessica

---

Steele

If you want to be really exotic, stick a "St" in the middle, or pick TWO second names.

Sarn

Ah yes I remember orca accounts in UCD, at least Netsoc provided a form of e-mail when they started up.

The thing is I spent more time physically meeting and talking to people over coffee without net access than I do now (at least I get paid while using it now).