The old internet

Atoms for Peace

Their was a time before Google and Facebook. I have a faint recollection of it, irc, msn messenger and rotten.com were some of the highlights if memory serves me right.
It was the dominan of nerds and weirdos.

Infini

Internet was fine, great craic and all..... then cancer media came along and turned a ton of people into idiots and braindead fools!

Thanks Facebook and Twitter you failed us yet again!

ednwireland

https://web.archive.org

Signore Fancy Pants

R.I.P Pedobear

wirelessdude01

Geocities

Your Face

Atoms for Peace wrote: »

It was the dominan of nerds and weirdos.

So what was it like?

ToddyDoody

You could build your own geocities website.

Yahoo was all the rage everywhere, not just in Japan as it is now.

Chatrooms but no photographs.

Use a credit card online and sure you were just asking to be robbed.

You got a shock on seeing pictures of your local radio presenters on the station's website.

ozmo

I remember Ireland on line - using mozilla browser (before firefox) off a floppy disk.
Only sites of any interest were Nasa and star trek and news groups.
Altavista was the search engine...

Atoms for Peace

Your Face wrote: »

So what was it like?

A brave New world of unlimited possiblities, ruined by narcissistic arseholes and corporate creed.

jimbobaloobob

And the ear crunching dial up. Then the relations rang and knocked you offline.

Your Face

Atoms for Peace wrote: »

A brave New world of unlimited possiblities, ruined by narcissistic arseholes and corporate creed.

As long as it's not corporate greed, I don't mind.

FrancieBrady

Atoms for Peace wrote: »

A brave New world of unlimited possiblities, ruined by narcissistic arseholes and corporate creed.

What the hell were you planning to do on it?

ToddyDoody

Your Face wrote: »

As long as it's not corporate greed, I don't mind.

Good contribution

Mrcaramelchoc

Buffering mid **** it was a ****ing nightmare.

Atoms for Peace

FrancieBrady wrote: »

What the hell were you planning to do on it?

Obtain nudey pics.

BrokenArrows

jimbobaloobob wrote: »

And the ear crunching dial up. Then the relations rang and knocked you offline.

I found out later in the dial up period that you can actually turn off this noise and it still connects fine.

Only found out about a year before getting broadband.

All those years of waking up the house to connect.

sonofenoch

Dogpile search engine, Limewire felt illegal turned out it was, dodgy porn you had to pay an arm and a leg for now ten a penny (mostly free) :cool:

FrancieBrady

Atoms for Peace wrote: »

Obtain nudey pics.

I'll PM you. Don't be laughing at my mole.

pure.conya

ToddyDoody wrote: »

You could build your own geocities website.

Yahoo was all the rage everywhere, not just in Japan as it is now.

Chatrooms but no photographs.

Use a credit card online and sure you were just asking to be robbed.

You got a shock on seeing pictures of your local radio presenters on the station's website.

just having a credit card back then was asking for trouble, remember the old way of taking your card details with the yolk that would slide over the card

Boom_Bap

a/s/l?

Wanderer2010

Was there a thing on your phone called WAP, or am I dreaming? Think it was a very low level internet connection which showed Lotto and Horoscopes but took ages to load and used a lot of credit!

jimbobaloobob

I remember a late late show programme that featured people sellling .ie websites for for small fortunes

Boom_Bap

Wanderer2010 wrote: »

Was there a thing on your phone called WAP, or am I dreaming? Think it was a very low level internet connection which showed Lotto and Horoscopes but took ages to load and used a lot of credit!

Yep, that existed.....it's still used in some parts of Africa

Mena Mitty

Boom_Bap wrote: »

a/s/l?

Patron of the 'VIP' at the turn of the century ?

Ishmael

Wanderer2010 wrote: »

Was there a thing on your phone called WAP, or am I dreaming? Think it was a very low level internet connection which showed Lotto and Horoscopes but took ages to load and used a lot of credit!

There was indeed and yes it was awful and just ate credit.

Capt'n Midnight

ozmo wrote: »

Altavista was the search engine...

still miss Altavista



And way before that was gopher

StreetLight

Oceanfree.net chat.....

Aceandstuff

Wanderer2010 wrote: »

Was there a thing on your phone called WAP, or am I dreaming? Think it was a very low level internet connection which showed Lotto and Horoscopes but took ages to load and used a lot of credit!

I really miss the WAP internet. Sure, it was full of trash, and cost me 99 cent a day back in 2006, but it was my real (and overdue) introduction to the internet. I remember reading random conspiracy theories and downloading free games on a little flip phone back then, and it kept me entertained for days on end. I suppose what I really miss is the fun of it when it was all I had.

Teepinaw

Remembering search engines such as

Dogpile, Alta Vista and so on.

Remembering viral emails about ducks' quacks not having an echo and the average person swallowing 8 spiders while asleep during their lifetime...

And yet wan from erricssson offering a free phone if you sent this email to all your friends.

Aahh.

DVD-Lots

I remember recommending Muse - Muscle Museum to some Yanks on Napster, and they loving it.
I remember talking to a cousin in Canada that I hadn't talked to or seen in 10 years on ICQ.
I remember downloading the first X-Men movie overnight on a 56k connection, 756mb of a bad cam quality video, my first ever proper pirate download of a movie on the net, on LIMEWIRE!!!!!! And I didn't die of internet aids.
I remember blue waffle and leekspin (and Meatspin, Jeeeesus!), WHAT THE ACTUAL F00000K!
I remember playing Counter Strike for the first time and being seriously pwnd.
I remember being on a forum that was moderated but didn't really give a **** about what you said, great community tbh and n00bs were pwnt for being n00bs, wild wild west of forums at the time.
I remember Altavista.
I remember Geocities.
I remember Myspace.
I remember the pure joy of being told by Eircon that I could upgrade to 512k superfast broadband.
I remember the first time I Skyped with a mate I hadn't seen or heard from in years who now lives in Manchester and we started playing poker online, then brought his cousin on board and we stayed up for hours every Saturday night (and some Friday nights and Sunday afternoons!) sending fail videos and calling it Skype Club, and first rule of Skype Club is you don't invite outsiders because we are now comfortable with this little group on a Saturday night. Still going strong today, many many years later it has brought us together every Saturday (Friday nights and Sunday afternoons too!) and we watch all the sporting events in the safety of our homes. Best virtual pub ever!

So many many good times.

Four Phucs Ache

On a train at heuston using a company phone circa 2005, using WAP I just managed to download an rte news headline by the time I hit portlaoise.

The woman sitting opposite me gave out to me because it was making her phone radio go di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di

_Brian

I remember spending lots of time chatting in the “Virtual Irish Pub” when working nights mid 90’s

Atoms for Peace

Atoms for Peace wrote: »

Their was a time before Google and Facebook. I have a faint recollection of it, irc, msn messenger and rotten.com were some of the highlights if memory serves me right.
It was the dominan of nerds and weirdos.

You forgot Usenet. Alt.barney.die.die.die and alt.tasteless!

Actually a really good trip down memory lane of how the internet used to be is a book by JC Herz. A woman who used to write for playboy if I recall correctly.

The book I think is just called Surfing the Internet. But I think when I read it it had a different name and was just changed in later publications. I am sure when I read it it had "information superhighway" in the title.

Anyway it is about her internet addiction which she eventually overcame. Back in the days of early IRC - usenet - and even bulletin boards.

Anyone who wants to know what the net was really like in the early days - I think that's the book to get.

Mena Mitty

_Brian wrote: »

I remember spending lots of time chatting in the “Virtual Irish Pub” when working nights mid 90’s

A/s/l

Your Face

ToddyDoody wrote: »

Good contribution

Says the fella who loves ladyboys.

Beanntraigheach

This sound was so exciting. The anticipation!

ToddyDoody

Your Face wrote: »

Says the fella who loves ladyboys.

That's news to me.

Discodog

Interesting read:

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190401-why-theres-so-little-left-of-the-early-internet

stefanovich

KDX and hotline

BeerWolf

Geocities websites by amateurs, full of ghastly backgrounds and .gifs !

Ush1

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

Geocities

I'll see your Geocities and raise you a Xoom.

klaaaz

Using Netscape Navigator in a constantly crashing windows 3.1 on a Pentium 75 machine!

AndyBoBandy

Wanderer2010 wrote: »

Was there a thing on your phone called WAP, or am I dreaming? Think it was a very low level internet connection which showed Lotto and Horoscopes but took ages to load and used a lot of credit!

WAP - Wireless Access Protocol

Many’s a morning I spent in the toilets in work watching the champions league draw taking place over WAP on my Nokia!!

Phoebas

Boom_Bap wrote: »

a/s/l?

18/f/Cali

biko

Capt'n Midnight

oh the pain of using old browsers.

No tabs. And no going back to the previous page.

Either lots of bookmarks or you had to cut and paste into notepad a lot.


But on the plus side ads were just text or pictures on the page. No sound , no video, no popups, it was just like newspaper ads. But that changed too.


I've had this nagging feeling that the computers I use today feel slower than the computers I used as a kid
And yes it's true. With so much going on in the background today's computers and operating systems are SLOWER to respond than in the past.

And that's before you factor in how many ads there are now. Thanks to the GDPR some people are forced to use the text only version of some US sites. And are gobsmacked by how fast they respond without all the tracking crud.

Timberrrrrrrr

Ahhhh the old internet

When water was free and you had to pay for porn.

enfant terrible

Lycos

branie2

Yahoo started off as a directory as well as a search engine

branie2

Chat rooms

Phileas Frog

jimbobaloobob wrote: »

And the ear crunching dial up. Then the relations rang and knocked you offline.

Your relations couldn't get through because the line was engaged.