Pre internet

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!!

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.

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.

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.

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

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...

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

Ask for a raise.

SyxPak wrote:

Ask for a raise.

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

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.