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The early days of the internet
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28-03-2011 11:12pm#1Around 1992 I used to go into TCD to play online games ("MUDS") in the computer lab under the train line. I would go there with my older brother, knock on the window, pretend we forgot our swipe card, and go online and play a very primitive text based game called "Endless Nameless". Sometimes a lecturer would come in and ask for my student card, but I would pretend I forgot it. I would say I am a "BESS" student. (Business Economic and Social Studies). I was 14 years old and wearing a tracksuit. They would believe me.
It was incredibly exciting playing this game as I could chat to people in America and England and interact with them.
Fast forward three years later and I have begun a computer science diploma in DIT Kevin Street. On the back of a computer magazine I saw an IBM advert saying they "powered the hyperweb". Curious I went into the computer lab with a college friend, found an application called Netscape and opened the IBM website. It was a thrilling experience. Although the PC was a 386 and slow as hell, I didn't care. Seeing that website load was amazing.
I then discovered webcrawler.com and pornsites. There were only about 150 of them at the time. "Amateurporn.com" was the biggest one at the time. Free porn pictures! Myself and my friend would stay in the computer lab after college spending one or two hours downloading a single image of a naked woman. Ridiculous? Yes, but we were 17 and didn't see anything wrong with it. It was worth it.
We then discovered telnet and shell accounts and how we could join BBS systems around the world. Our favorite was a BBS in Ann Arbor in Michigan. It tooks hours to create your account, but we could go online and talk to Americans. This may sound like nothing now, but you have to remember at the time this type of thing was unheard of, and probably 99% of Irish people had never heard of the Internet.
I remember looking at all the unregistered domain names (hardly any domain names were registered) thinking they were cool domains. It never occurred to me to register one of them.
Back then the Internet was not a commercial place. It was full of people happy to be communicating with other people. But there was money to be made. I remember I used to laugh at all the stupid ideas (e.g. onlyballs.com - we only sell balls! $5 million funding) getting loads of funding. At the time I was a web developer/programmer who had no sense of the real world, so I never once thought I should use my web skills to make some money.
...
Fast forward 16 years later and the Internet is like a strip mall full of tacky ****e. I still love it, but it doesn't thrill me like it used to. I wish it could.
Know what I mean?
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Mr. Loverman wrote: »
Fast forward 16 years later and the Internet is like a strip mall full of tacky ****e. I still love it, but it doesn't thrill me like it used to. I wish it could.
Know what I mean?
well at least the porn has gotten better
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A lot of what you wrote hit home to me. My first browser was Netscape 1.0 which came bundled with Indigo Ireland's (Ireland's second ISP?) welcome pack. I think this was around '94.
The whole chat thing is what really amazed me the most. There was some graphical chat site called The Palace in which you controlled an avatar moving around different rooms and nattering away to people. Amused me no end at the time!
Screaming at my Mum for picking up the phone and disconnecting me from the net was also a common thing, which is hilarious looking back on it now.
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Yeah TCD under the tracks, I wasn't a student but my girlfriend was. Good times, crazy assed 'Homepages' and long waits for a photo to slowlllly reveal itself.
The net was much more amateurish and not so homogenised as it is now. While infinitely more informative user friendly and vast, todays web is so corporate and much more conformist than the early pioneers could have imagined. Its interesting to see it evolve so much but its lost something of its individuality (and garishness)
Anyhoo thanks for the memories OP. I'm off to unravel the phone extension line across the floor, and load Windows 3.1 on my Wang. 0 -
Humans eh! wrote: »Anyhoo thanks for the memories OP. I'm off to unravel the phone extension line across the floor, and load Windows 3.1 on my Wang.
That will make your palms go hairy.0 -
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Ah yes, Indigo. Back in my day, my first experience with communicae on the internet was in the form of a Radiohead chatroom. All sorts of nerds on there who couldn't take a joke. I believe at the time I may have been engaged in the act of what you kids nowadays call mild trolling.
Mostly Americans but a couple of Irish in there which I thought was mad!!!!0 -
I was late to the internet party, so to speak as I only first got online in any shape or form in April 2000, using the Unison Internet on your TV device. I found it too limiting and a few months later, brought a modem for the PC to get the full potential of the Internet for myself.
I remember using iolfree as my service and the dail up sound when connecting. I also remember that downloading a 10mb file was an epic hour long download or not being able to go online if someone was on the phone or not being able to stay on too long owing to the cost of the call.
I also remember designing a website in Microsoft Publisher and uploading it online, its still up there as far as I know but it did set me on the path to taking up Web Design years later and being pretty decent at it.
I was ahead of the curve at the time, talking to Americans regularly and using AIM at a time when pretty much no one else I knew did ( that was the sucky part as it made feel alone
) and this before the advent of social networking.
Fast forward to 2004 and a broadband modem is installed and while I enjoyed the greatly improved speeds, a bit of the magic died as well as it was on and the phone didn't interfere with it anymore. It made downloading MP3s at the time a doodle though.
What do I think of the Internet today? A lot of changed, we a lot more people on it and social networking and streaming video is the norm. Its also normal now to hear about breaking news on the internet first before any other form of media ( examples being for me the death of MJ and the Earthquake in Japan to name a few ) A bit of the innocence is gone but the more things change, the more some things stay the same, if you get my drift.0 -
yep i do hehe:DMr. Loverman wrote: »Around 1992 I used to go into TCD to play online games ("MUDS") in the computer lab under the train line. I would go there with my older brother, knock on the window, pretend we forgot our swipe card, and go online and play a very primitive text based game called "Endless Nameless". Sometimes a lecturer would come in and ask for my student card, but I would pretend I forgot it. I would say I am a "BESS" student. (Business Economic and Social Studies). I was 14 years old and wearing a tracksuit. They would believe me.
It was incredibly exciting playing this game as I could chat to people in America and England and interact with them.
Fast forward three years later and I have begun a computer science diploma in DIT Kevin Street. On the back of a computer magazine I saw an IBM advert saying they "powered the hyperweb". Curious I went into the computer lab with a college friend, found an application called Netscape and opened the IBM website. It was a thrilling experience. Although the PC was a 386 and slow as hell, I didn't care. Seeing that website load was amazing.
I then discovered webcrawler.com and pornsites. There were only about 150 of them at the time. "Amateurporn.com" was the biggest one at the time. Free porn pictures! Myself and my friend would stay in the computer lab after college spending one or two hours downloading a single image of a naked woman. Ridiculous? Yes, but we were 17 and didn't see anything wrong with it. It was worth it.
We then discovered telnet and shell accounts and how we could join BBS systems around the world. Our favorite was a BBS in Ann Arbor in Michigan. It tooks hours to create your account, but we could go online and talk to Americans. This may sound like nothing now, but you have to remember at the time this type of thing was unheard of, and probably 99% of Irish people had never heard of the Internet.
I remember looking at all the unregistered domain names (hardly any domain names were registered) thinking they were cool domains. It never occurred to me to register one of them.
Back then the Internet was not a commercial place. It was full of people happy to be communicating with other people. But there was money to be made. I remember I used to laugh at all the stupid ideas (e.g. onlyballs.com - we only sell balls! $5 million funding) getting loads of funding. At the time I was a web developer/programmer who had no sense of the real world, so I never once thought I should use my web skills to make some money.
...
Fast forward 16 years later and the Internet is like a strip mall full of tacky ****e. I still love it, but it doesn't thrill me like it used to. I wish it could.
Know what I mean?0 -
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Humans eh! wrote: »Yeah TCD under the tracks, I wasn't a student but my girlfriend was. Good times, crazy assed 'Homepages' and long waits for a photo to slowlllly reveal itself.
The net was much more amateurish and not so homogenised as it is now. While infinitely more informative user friendly and vast, todays web is so corporate and much more conformist than the early pioneers could have imagined. Its interesting to see it evolve so much but its lost something of its individuality (and garishness)
Anyhoo thanks for the memories OP. I'm off to unravel the phone extension line across the floor, and load Windows 3.1 on my Wang.
3.1? Wasnt it 3.11 that was a network platform? Could you connect with 3.1?0
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