The old internet

Anteayer

That was a common issue all over the world but cropped up quite a bit in rural areas and sometimes in older parts of cities where there was a shortage of copper pairs.

Modems were designed to work on very standardised analogue lines but in some places phone companies digitally multiplexed multiple lines onto a single pair of wires using sampling and time slots. There were also rural systems using radio links that may have had odd compression technology that the modem wasn't expecting.

It worked flawlessly for voice but 'high speed' modems couldn't operate over it and would reduce speed do very low levels.

Telecom Éireann used plenty of devices from PairGain Inc. to do that in the UK BT called it DACS, both were a curse for modems.

You'll find similar issues if you try to run a modem over VoIP voice connections. The 56k modems are expecting a digital switch using TDM technology or a purely analogue connection on older tech like crossbar exchanges, but instead they're getting VoIP with audio characteristic which sounds great to your ear but don't work for a modem. So the connection either goes very slowly or becomes unstable and drops.

Basically the voice networks were never designed to carry fast data.

I remember when images used to load like you were watching a fax coming in though. Either line by line or gradually getting clearer as the data came in

Feisar

kowloon wrote: »

Played Quake online with the people who started Boards. Remember the Low Ping Bastards having the advantage while the rest of us suffered the lag supreme.

Low Ping Bastards!!!! Takes me back.

Grayson

kowloon wrote: »

Played Quake online with the people who started Boards. Remember the Low Ping Bastards having the advantage while the rest of us suffered the lag supreme.

Same. That's the only reason I'm a member here.

I worked in an internet cafe that was a hangout for quake players. Some even came from abroad and played there.

Fionn

back in the mid 80's, having been an early adapter, I persuaded the boss where I worked to get a PC, because it would increase productivity, we eventually got a 8086 made by Epson it had a Black & Amber screen, and ran Lotus 123 and Ami Pro in DOS lightening fast!! It had the four and a quarter inch floppies too.
I'm not sure if it ever increased productivity, but I remember getting stuff done a lot faster and then longer coffee breaks to play solitaire/chess on the PC.
Following that i recall a IBM 286 that had the operating system burned onto the CMOS chip, It also came with 'Microsoft Windows 2' on three and a half inch floppies should you wish to install and upgrade as required.
Fun times......

o1s1n

Kids these days, they'll never know of lag in FPS games.

I used to play a lot of Half Life DM on the Valve servers around 2000 on 56k dialup.

You'd have to allow for the lag by trailing your shots slightly ahead of the person you were shooting.

So by the time you pinged the server the person you were shooting at had caught up to where you shot.

Streetlamp

remember when you googled something you got information on the topic whereas now all you get is business websites.

branie2

Yahoo was the leading search engine until Google came along

FanadMan

Fionn wrote: »

back in the mid 80's, having been an early adapter, I persuaded the boss where I worked to get a PC, because it would increase productivity, we eventually got a 8086 made by Epson it had a Black & Amber screen, and ran Lotus 123 and Ami Pro in DOS lightening fast!! It had the four and a quarter inch floppies too.
I'm not sure if it ever increased productivity, but I remember getting stuff done a lot faster and then longer coffee breaks to play solitaire/chess on the PC.
Following that i recall a IBM 286 that had the operating system burned onto the CMOS chip, It also came with 'Microsoft Windows 2' on three and a half inch floppies should you wish to install and upgrade as required.
Fun times......

Five and a quarter inch!

My first machine was a Philips P3105 - 4Mhz....turbo boost to 5Mhz, 720k RAM and 10Mb hdd running DOS 3.2. Was also black/amber display until I was given a proper colour CGA monitor......such a change in gaming lol

Still have the original disks - DOS 3.2, 3.3 and 4.0

ohnonotgmail

FanadMan wrote: »

Five and a quarter inch!

My first machine was a Philips P3105 - 4Mhz....turbo boost to 5Mhz, 720k RAM and 10Mb hdd running DOS 3.2. Was also black/amber display until I was given a proper colour CGA monitor......such a change in gaming lol

Still have the original disks - DOS 3.2, 3.3 and 4.0

A hdd?? Posh.

Mister Vain

I remember a time when uploading a photo of yourself online was an incredibly vain thing to do.

Charles Babbage

DublinWriter

Internet Eireann...they were the ones with the 64kps outward Internet connection.

Imagine 100's of users sharing that? It was unusable towards the bitter end.

Hotblack Desiato

I wonder how that "lifetime" deal worked out...

Certain computer science degree students at the time did boast that they had the privilege of being granted personal webspace on the student course Web by the university or Regional Technical College (what they were called before 'Institute of Technology '.
Oh, and this was accessible across the Internet.

Hotblack Desiato

I didn't go to DCU but a few mates of mine had web space on redbrick.dcu.ie

Whehey!

Encarta 98

Ulysses Gaze

Microsoft Cinemania...

Hotblack Desiato

Microsoft BOB.

It was crap, but yer wan that wrote it was morketing manager got the ride off Bill Gates... Cha-Ching!

ohnonotgmail

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Microsoft BOB.

It was crap, but yer wan that wrote it was morketing manager got the ride off Bill Gates... Cha-Ching!

I never realised his wife was involved in this. It all makes sense now.

Charles Babbage

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

I wonder how that "lifetime" deal worked out...

They went bust. They hadn't a good financial model and weren't collecting their fees, which meant they couldn't upgrade their kit, and hence the slow service so people wouldn't pay their fees....

Hotblack Desiato

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

I didn't go to DCU but a few mates of mine had web space on redbrick.dcu.ie

In the same era in other colleges and rtc's, some of the brightest computer science graduates were even given their own branch of a college website, where their friends could set up webspace: In place of http://www you would have http://coolspace.college.ie (madeup name)

EDIT: You can go look for those old webs on waybackmachine.org if you have time to waste

sheesh

Grayson wrote: »

I'll see your angelfire and raise you playing a MUD over telnet.

Jesus I'm old.

oooh!

stefanovich

Redirecting people to NIMP for giggles.

Using a public computer when suddenly you have a million popups announce that you were looking at gay porn.

Bogwoppit

Ratemyface.com some middle aged woman in the US started emailing me nudes after I put up my pic, early 00’s, emails took a long time to load but they were worth it (she was pretty rough).

My first email account was @postmaster.co.uk Stopped using it after they tried to charge me £10/month for the privilege of having an email address.

Rotten.com

_Brian

_Brian wrote: »

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

Me too. It was great, very original. And all the Yank women thinking Irishmen were the bee's knees. Paddynet at the same time was great craic, with happy memories of the fish slapping.

Mirc Chat was very popular and again it was full of American women thinking any eejit with an Irish accent was attractive. They used to have regular meetups too; I went to one in the Mercantile in 1998 but Mac Turcaill's was a more regular venue. Irish Abroad, which is still going, was also busy at the time. ICQ was a more personal and functionally attractive version of Mirc Chat (which was more group orientated). The first website I ever visited was Excite!, which had a very active discussion forum at the time. Possibly the biggest on the internet in those days.

Never, ever, ever forget internet contention between 6pm and 8pm as workers came home and tried to connect. The bastards. In the process undermining every weirdo geeky teenage nerd in Ireland who was in control of the imternet all day until these interlopers started to challenge them. Poor parents having to put up with that shíte from their teenagers who had melt downs when they realised they didn't own the internet. But not as poor as they were when they got that £200 bill from Telecom Éireann/Eircom, the bastards, at the end of the month for such superb service. And at the same time we all had to endure the Eircom shares promotion blitz on tv encouraging people to buy into this "advanced technology" company.
Buy shares in Eircom? I will like fúck, Mary O Rourke!

Edgware

Sure the internet is great. They have it on computers now and everything

Woke Hogan

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Me too. It was great, very original. And all the Yank women thinking Irishmen were the bee's knees. Paddynet at the same time was great craic, with happy memories of the fish slapping.

Mirc Chat was very popular and again it was full of American women thinking any eejit with an Irish accent was attractive. They used to have regular meetups too; I went to one in the Mercantile in 1998 but Mac Turcaill's was a more regular venue. Irish Abroad, which is still going, was also busy at the time. ICQ was a more personal and functionally attractive version of Mirc Chat (which was more group orientated). The first website I ever visited was Excite!, which had a very active discussion forum at the time. Possibly the biggest on the internet in those days.

Never, ever, ever forget internet contention between 6pm and 8pm as workers came home and tried to connect. The bastards. In the process undermining every weirdo geeky teenage nerd in Ireland who was in control of the imternet all day until these interlopers started to challenge them. Poor parents having to put up with that shíte from their teenagers who had melt downs when they realised they didn't own the internet. But not as poor as they were when they got that £200 bill from Telecom Éireann/Eircom, the bastards, at the end of the month for such superb service. And at the same time we all had to endure the Eircom shares promotion blitz on tv encouraging people to buy into this "advanced technology" company.
Buy shares in Eircom? I will like fúck, Mary O Rourke!

This is very difficult to follow.

764dak

branie2 wrote: »

Yahoo was the leading search engine until Google came along

I started using the internet regularly in 2000 and didn't even use Google until 2004.

Ger Roe

eircom.net email addresses ....

One of the originals, if someone is still using it, they most likely were one of the early dial up web explorers. 'Eircom' was the national (only) Irish telecom provider in the early internet days, following a re-brand in the 80's from the original 'Telecom Eireann' designation (under direction of The Department of Posts and Telegraphs, or P&T)

Standard Toaster

Still buffering.....