The old internet

Capt'n Midnight

Gwynplaine wrote: »

Who remembers the unison box?

Remember the ads.

When it first came it is was insanely overpriced compared to games consoles that offered similar functionality. And could play games. And movies.

Four Phucs Ache

Gwynplaine wrote: »

Who remembers the unison box?

Yeah, my dad said what?? no way are we getting that, while I had the modem overheating on an AOL CD browser going bananas trying to download a pic of sporty spice , 1 line a minute. At 19 it was worth it though, circa 2000

Lewis_Benson

ednwireland wrote: »

https://web.archive.org

Look up Mplayer.com on there....that's where my internet adventures started.

branie2

remember when it cut off when someone tried to call on the phone?

ILoveYourVibes

Atoms for Peace wrote: »

It was the dominan of nerds and weirdos.

And they were awesome ..and really nice. It was when non nerds came on the internet it became a cesspool.

CathalDublin

My search engine of choice, still exists:O

spurious

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

And they were awesome ..and really nice. It was when non nerds came on the internet it became a cesspool.

This is true.

CathalDublin

Gwynplaine wrote: »

Who remembers the unison box?

My friend won one in the Sunday world, used for about 5minutes, they couldn't even give them away, what a pile of ****:D

high_king

Bring back Netscape Navigator combined with Alta Vista . . . Mad fun times.

Flaccus

Download vga quality gifs off usenet and uudecode em. IRC was great craic. Alta Vista was the browser. Napster was great. Had a mate who used to generate fake credit card numbers to access likes of hustler and playboy at work and then use a program called webwhacker to download the whole site in one go. Security was non existent.

ILoveYourVibes

Flaccus wrote: »

Download vga quality gifs off usenet and uudecode em. IRC was great craic. Alta Vista was the browser. Had a mate who used to generate fake credit card numbers to access likes of hustler and use a program called webwhacker to download the whole site in one go.

Hustler was all about big asses right?

NSAman

It was more fun back in the day. ICQ and chat rooms had intelligent people who were fun. Topics were anything you wanted and no one complained or was offended.

Most people couldn’t get on or didn’t know how to use that phone thing...

Phone bills that were NOT cheap!!!!

Nigel Fairservice

Gwynplaine wrote: »

Who remembers the unison box?

They popped into my head the other day when I was looking at something on my TV browser. They were awful things, barely worked!

There was almost an innocence to the Internet. The real weirdo's were on Mirc/IRC rather than mainstream internet sites.

Everquest was all the rage, along with Ascherons call. Games that were actually difficult to play.

My students were shocked when I told them I got my first phone when I was 20. There was simply little need to have a phone at that time. No smartphones. Just simple phone/text. They all started around 14 with their smartphones and apps... I could see their eyes glaze over trying (and failing) to understand what it was like.

wassie

Getting my first free email account with hotmail - way before it was bought by Microsoft!

wassie

wassie wrote: »

Getting my first free email account with hotmail - way before it was bought by Microsoft!

Remember rocketmail? :pac:

Graces7

My first internet access was up in Orkney, dial up. If you think phone access costs a lot here, try the UK

One lad accidentally left his connected for 24 hours. :eek:I used to drape the flex across the corridor so I would not do that.

Irish Guitarist

Here's a site that hasn't been updated in a few years. http://heavensgate.com

ohnonotgmail

wassie wrote: »

Getting my first free email account with hotmail - way before it was bought by Microsoft!

I still use my original hotmail account as my main email account.

suicide_circus

Sky King

[When giving your 90's email address to someone]



"That's all lower case letters now alright? And no spaces"

The J Stands for Jay

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

I still use my original hotmail account as my main email account.

n00bs. I still use my rocketmail address from before yahoo bought them

CalamariFritti

The internet raised so many hopes in its infancy. It was all about having access to all the knowledge of mankind at your fingertips. Needed access to some distant university's files? Needed help with your project? Wanted to share a problem in some like minded chat board? Needed a new piece of ingenious software cobbled together by like minded nerds? Not a problem.
Then came commerce, social media and now fake news. And it has turned into a vulgar narcissist cesspit for the most part. The good stuff is still there but it has to be discovered under tons of cr@p.

In a strange way I think that was almost wanted by many of the power wielders. Could't have an uncontrollable network where people freely share good information now could we? Couldn't contain it either so it had to be tainted -> Fake news. So it went from this glorious hive mind thing to that thing you couldn't believe a word on. Problem solved. We just can't have nice things.

Edit: Someone coined an internet law early on and predicted that with growing bandwidth useful information will actually decrease and cr@p will grow exponentially. How right they were. Can't remember the name of it.

ohnonotgmail

McGaggs wrote: »

n00bs. I still use my rocketmail address from before yahoo bought them

rocketmail and hotmail started in the same year.

TychoCaine

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

Here's a site that hasn't been updated in a few years. http://heavensgate.com

They were a cult that committed mass suicide in 1997, so it figures that nobody has updated the site since....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven's_Gate_(religious_group)

ohnonotgmail

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

Hustler was all about big asses right?

Big titties mostly if i remember correctly.

ohnonotgmail

TychoCaine wrote: »

They were a cult that committed mass suicide in 1997, so it figures that nobody has updated the site since....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven's_Gate_(religious_group)

somebody is still paying the hosting fees.

TychoCaine

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

somebody is still paying the hosting fees.

They left a few members behind to keep the website running. Take a read of the interview below. They're still believers.

https://redditblog.com/2015/10/03/an-interview-with-the-heavens-gate-webmaster-meet-telah-61/

ohnonotgmail

TychoCaine wrote: »

They left a few members behind to keep the website running. Take a read of the interview below. They're still believers.

https://redditblog.com/2015/10/03/an-interview-with-the-heavens-gate-webmaster-meet-telah-61/

I did not know that. I thought they had all topped themselves.

B.A._Baracus

Was reading up again about heavens gate after the link was posted.
horrible fate. Groups would ingest a drug, down it with Vodka then put a bag over their head to suffocate.
Other members would then come along and position them on their bed with a square towel over their head. Then their turn the next day.

The final two were left with bags.