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The early days of the internet

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13

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    #62
    Lex_Diamonds
    Registered Users Posts: 2,468 ✭✭✭Lex_Diamonds


    Thinking I was a friggin' genius/criminal mastermind for owning a copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook, always planning to make a massive load of Thermite, but never actually doing it.

    Using Alta Vista instead of Yahoo because someone told you if you put search terms in quotes you'd get better results.


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    #63
    Captain Commie
    Closed Accounts Posts: 688 ✭✭✭Captain Commie


    was back in '95 as a youngun. internet cafe opened in my town with 4 pc's that all had their own modem. Used to spent my saturday down there. First site i was on was either hotmaill or yahoo. Can remember spending hours on yahoo chat talking to ppl all over the world.

    Took me till about 2004 to get broadband in, at a whopping 512K which then went straight to 8MB in 2006.

    now in 2001 have a sweet 30mb connection and loving it, tho the internet has lost most of its coolness factor for me as its now a work tool, as an IT tech and consultant i dont really enjoy "Playing" on the internet anymore. really miss the sound of a dial up modem


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    #64
    blaze1
    Registered Users Posts: 1,559 ✭✭✭blaze1


    Using aol/compuserve/msn chatrooms with a mate,

    He always used the same nick... . Shyguy101

    But like the op, used to go to my mates sixth form and play carmegeddon on the lan. That was savage :D
    Axis Cometo wrote: »
    . really miss the sound of a dial up modem

    You serious??? My inlaws still use dial up and he reguarly gets me to go round and sort flights etc out for him... It kills me waiting for the internet....

    Although the sound of it years ago used to let you know you were about to have fun


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    #65
    InTheTrees
    Registered Users Posts: 9,900 ✭✭✭InTheTrees


    I started on the internet by using a dialup connection to a college library near by. Then you could use telnet.

    Unix was king.

    I remember describing email to friends back in ireland and they thought I was insane.

    Then before netscape there was Mosiac. there were so few websites that the most popular page was the "whats new" page.

    I remember when the first advertising started to appear. There were rumours at first and it seemed like a bad joke and then they started showing up.


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    #66
    InTheTrees
    Registered Users Posts: 9,900 ✭✭✭InTheTrees


    Pdfile wrote: »
    belongs to me really because as soon as i got onto a crappy atari in like 90/91 from their on in i was hooked !

    I used to work at Atari.


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    #67
    Duggy747
    Registered Users Posts: 13,295 ✭✭✭✭Duggy747


    Lex_Diamonds wrote:
    Thinking I was a friggin' genius/criminal mastermind for owning a copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook, always planning to make a massive load of Thermite, but never actually doing it.

    Heheh, me too. The Thermite one was always the one I wanted to try out...........on the hood of a wanker's car :pac:

    Ah, brings me back to AltaVista, the YouTube of it's day when you needed to find songs / videos / pictures. Pity that site never got to be more popular.

    Damn, I remember downloading was such a jittery bastard. Getting a 10MB file only for it to timeout at 98%, the sheer rage. Eurgh, download horrific quality clips of movies / music videos and running them through Quicktime32 was another thing I never thought much of. Life was made so much easier when FlashGet 1st appeared.

    Got onto Napster pretty much at it's beginning, stayed there until it got shutdown and moved to AudioGalaxy and then WinMX.

    I used to hang about on Microsoft Comic Chat. I was always the old cartoon character but then one day it just ceased to exist when Microsoft pulled the plug on it :(

    Wasn't until around Rainbow Six / Unreal Tournament that I got into the online mullarkey. Was actually really good at R6 and me & the brother were fairly well known on the Microsoft Zone thingy were you'd join / create a "table". One particular yank was such a rage quitting, foul-mouthed bastard I loved playing against him :P

    Ah, was a much simplier and slower time then. Punks nowadys will never know of the pain and anguish of when you accidently cleared the phone number that your modem dials up.

    The "seedy" part of the internet was a lot harder to find than it is today. Rotten and Ogrish were the greatest things to horrify people with :pac: (That infamous "fish" picture :P) or when you were told to click on a link and you were redirected to Goatse.....the rick-roll of it's day.


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    #68
    Aoifey!
    Registered Users Posts: 4,571 ✭✭✭Aoifey!


    In my house we didn't get our first computer til 2002. We were allowed on the internet for half an hour each every second day and my mother would sit with us while we were on it because she didn't trust the internet.


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    #69
    Earthhorse
    Registered Users Posts: 14,715 ✭✭✭✭Earthhorse


    Misty Chaos wrote: »
    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.

    In a way, that what was part of what was cool about the net back then. It was all strangers talking to strangers. Only a few of my friends were online in any capacity so you ended up talking to people from all corners of the world. Now, people tend to see the net as an extension of their existing real life networks. It's a pity because it's a far less adventurous place now than it was then.


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    #70
    dr gonzo
    Registered Users Posts: 1,676 ✭✭✭dr gonzo


    Does anyway remember the net cafe above the bleeding horse, no noobz allowed kind of place.

    Anyways i still remember going over to a wealthy friends house and there were a couple of computers online even though no one else had anything like that let alone more then one. He opened up the browser Netscape as i recall and went to google which i thought was weird, where were all the links along the side?!

    Finally, not quite a net thing but still recall the sheer frustration of taking a chance with a newish pc game, taking it back home and my computer which i had probably gotten the previous year absolutely struggling to run it. The speed that processor, and ram demands were going back in the day was unbelievable.


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    #71
    BrianD3
    Registered Users Posts: 8,286 ✭✭✭BrianD3


    I am a bit jealous of those who were early adopters/pioneers of the internet - even though it had been around in some form for decades, I'd consider anyone who used it before 1995 as an early adopter. I was old enough to be one of these but didn't have the knowledge or interest, my parents were luddites and my school was very bad when it came to computers

    I never even heard the term "the internet" till 95 although I now realise that a mate was talking about it in 92 or 93, I didn't really understand what he was talking about and thought it sounded like a load of crap.

    At the same time, I'm glad that I'm old enough to have very clear memories of what life was like before the internet became mainstream and exploded in popularity.


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    #72
    PrincessLola
    Registered Users Posts: 852 ✭✭✭PrincessLola


    Rose tinted glasses guys:rolleyes:

    Teh internets used to be far spupider worse for text speak/grammar/spelling then it is now.
    To prove my point I have bravely delved back into to early pages of boards.ie, here is a random sample of the kind of thing people typed in 1999:
    well aprils fool is gone for another yr
    thank gofd
    luckily i didnt get caught hehe unlike tc http://leo.ucg.ie/boards/wink.gif
    anyone else get caught..??
    lemmie no!

    sep wanted me to post some stuff here about sex but im outta ideas atm but i will let yee no of somehting if i think of it or read or hear of it http://leo.ucg.ie/boards/smile.gif)))
    hee
    Does anybody understand that? (People who say boards has gone down hill are talking out their arse)
    If somebody posted that in the year 2011, god help them.


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    #73
    Pompey Magnus
    Registered Users Posts: 5,406 ✭✭✭Pompey Magnus


    Axis Cometo wrote: »
    really miss the sound of a dial up modem

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsNaR6FRuO0


    Ah the memories, taking ages to connect to the internet and 2 minutes after finally connecting getting a shout from the kitchen:

    "I'M TRYING TO MAKE A PHONECALL!!!"


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    #74
    Sea Sharp
    Registered Users Posts: 2,593 ✭✭✭Sea Sharp


    The first time I used the internet would have been early 99 when we got computers into my primary school.
    Back then I just used it for setting up a hotmail account and checking the WWF site.

    Then we got the internet at home around 2000.
    My fondest memories are of being 13/14 on the yahoo chat rooms (where you could speak on the mic) trolling as Francis from Nigeria.

    For me it's interesting to see casual gamers addicted to games like COD online as much as I was to CounterStrike 1.6 10 years ago.
    Who's the computer nerd now!! :pac:


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    #75
    Dr Bob
    Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 3,180 Mod ✭✭✭✭Dr Bob


    Mr. 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 ..
    I used to play MUDS a fair bit in Kevin st , would have been 93/94 ;)
    mainly DIKU's like JediMud and Holomud ..good times!
    Learnt how to type fast, make lean boot disks , macro commands and avoid lecturers!(all skills that I got to use later in life:).
    I remember pre browser stuff like Archie and Gopher ;)
    and yeah I had an indigo account for a few years as well (actually called in to them to sign up) netscape 1.1 on two floppies ftw :)
    oh one more thing ...TFC> Counterstrike ;)


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    #76
    Mr. Loverman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,001 ✭✭✭Mr. Loverman


    luas_dublin wrote: »
    I used to play MUDS a fair bit in Kevin st , would have been 93/94 ;)

    Funny/weird story.

    Remember the absolute tar in the Kevin Street snackery which was supposedly coffee?

    I used to drink that stuff all the time in the labs. I then noticed I'd start feeling really sick in front of the computers. I couldn't figure out what was causing the sickness (doh!), so I went to the doctor who told me I had a phobia of computers!

    About 10 years later I realised, eh no, it was just the insanely strong disgusting coffee.

    That doctor messed me up for years. :):o


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    #77
    InTheTrees
    Registered Users Posts: 9,900 ✭✭✭InTheTrees


    Mr. Loverman wrote: »
    so I went to the doctor who told me I had a phobia of computers!

    LOL! The miracle of modern medicine.


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    #78
    Mr. Loverman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,001 ✭✭✭Mr. Loverman


    InTheTrees wrote: »
    LOL! The miracle of modern medicine.

    I remember leaving his surgery thinking I was insane.

    Bastard!!! :pac:


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    #79
    take everything
    Registered Users Posts: 9,800 ✭✭✭take everything


    Mr. Loverman wrote: »
    Funny/weird story.

    Remember the absolute tar in the Kevin Street snackery which was supposedly coffee?

    I used to drink that stuff all the time in the labs. I then noticed I'd start feeling really sick in front of the computers. I couldn't figure out what was causing the sickness (doh!), so I went to the doctor who told me I had a phobia of computers!

    About 10 years later I realised, eh no, it was just the insanely strong disgusting coffee.

    That doctor messed me up for years. :):o

    Is that more an early days of coffee anecdote?


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    #80
    iamstop
    Moderators, Music Moderators Posts: 11,829 Mod ✭✭✭✭iamstop


    Lol, I remember seeing a youtube clip about the early internet and about people using smileys and lol and rofl etc

    Looked for it but only found this:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxfhInhkvtM

    My bro used to work for AOL so we hd the net at home from quite early on, like '92 or so. Still have my orig hotmail account! :pac:
    Yeah, networked games of Warcraft 2 and GTA 2 were the best. Oh and Doom of course.

    https://open.spotify.com/album/69JKwCcZGdLqX4Upj3DwP7



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    #81
    NeedaNewName
    Closed Accounts Posts: 409 ✭✭NeedaNewName


    Axis Cometo wrote: »
    was back in '95 as a youngun. internet cafe opened in my town with 4 pc's that all had their own modem. Used to spent my saturday down there. First site i was on was either hotmaill or yahoo. Can remember spending hours on yahoo chat talking to ppl all over the world.

    Took me till about 2004 to get broadband in, at a whopping 512K which then went straight to 8MB in 2006.

    now in 2001 have a sweet 30mb connection and loving it, tho the internet has lost most of its coolness factor for me as its now a work tool, as an IT tech and consultant i dont really enjoy "Playing" on the internet anymore. really miss the sound of a dial up modem

    Can I have a spin in your DeLorean when your done?

    :pac:


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    #82
    InTheTrees
    Registered Users Posts: 9,900 ✭✭✭InTheTrees


    AOL was a menace at the beginning. They attempted to have their own version of the internet and restrict all their subscribers to it.


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    #83
    FGR
    Registered Users Posts: 2,448 ✭✭✭FGR


    Ahh the internet. I remember Yahoo chat when I was 15 in 1999. Brilliant times I had there. It's now completely full of spam bots. I can't believe I forgot about Microsoft Comic Chat. That was class too..!

    It was a whole new adventure for me. Of course no one in school knew what it was about except that the internet was for geeks. Now it seems to be the 'in' thing.

    I was lucky too in that, back in 1999 my first internet connection was 1mb cable so I never had to endure the painful telephone modems. Thank God..


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    #84
    mojesius
    Registered Users Posts: 4,322 ✭✭✭mojesius


    haha, that sh1tty dial up connection, sometimes I could hear the next door neighours' phone conversations :D

    I remember hours on Yahoo chat - and Simpsons quizzes - far more difficult in the early days of the net, created by the creme de la creme of the interweb geek, nowhere to search for an answer either...


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    #85
    Agricola
    Registered Users Posts: 6,547 ✭✭✭Agricola


    Just had a flashback to 1995. Sitting in my friends bedroom, fondling.........uh, oh no that was another time..........

    Sitting in my friends bedroom, marveling at his internet connected pc. :eek:
    Going onto a chatroom and talking to this english girl. Telling her we were a Brazilian futsal team who spent all their days topping up our tans on copacabana beach, spreading sun lotion on our bronzed muscular bodies. She got quite excited by it all as I recall. Little did she know we were in a freezing old kip in Wexford and we looked more like national eating competition champions than footballers. :D

    That kind of shít was such a big thrill back in the day.


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    #86
    fifth
    Registered Users Posts: 3,135 ✭✭✭fifth


    I remember moving the desktop pc out to the hall in my mams after six o clock every evening as the phone cable wasn't long enough to reach the kitchen. Also, when I wanted to use the internet late at night, I had to cover the back of the pc/modem area with rags and cough profusely to try and muffle the sound of the dial tone.

    I always got caught when my mam picked up the phone upstairs and heard all the noise on the line.

    I had a few homepages in my time with geocities and fortune city. Does anyone remember that chat site 'widemouth'? Used to go down to the library to use their internet and troll the chatroom. Great craic. Constantly spamming "yer maaaaa".


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    #87
    Big Nasty
    Registered Users Posts: 22,080 ✭✭✭✭Big Nasty


    First useage of the interwebs was around '94 / '95 but didn't really get into it much until about '99. First thing that really blew me away on the net was years later - the launch of Google Earth!


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    #88
    InTheTrees
    Registered Users Posts: 9,900 ✭✭✭InTheTrees


    Agricola wrote: »
    She got quite excited by it all as I recall. Little did she know we were in a freezing old kip in Wexford and we looked more like national eating competition champions than footballers.

    And "she" was probably a fat sweaty middle aged computer programmer in a bedsit in glasgow...

    :eek:


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    #89
    Naikon
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,564 ✭✭✭Naikon


    It would have been awesome to have used the net in the early days. I am talking about the time when the net was known as the DARPANET, spaned the geographical confines of a fews Universities, and required knowledge of obscure protocols like UUCP to actually use.


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    #90
    Cazale
    Registered Users Posts: 2,906 ✭✭✭Cazale


    funkyflea wrote: »
    I remember moving the desktop pc out to the hall in my mams after six o clock every evening as the phone cable wasn't long enough to reach the kitchen.

    I used to have to do this too. It used to be a bit akward if anyone knocked at the door! I first got on the net in 1996 using a 28.8kbps modem on IOL if my memory serves me correctly. I then went to oceanfree and to broadband on NTL in 2000. Some of the sites I used included Napster, Excite, Audiogalaxy, Winmx. I used to trade VHS videos of rare horror and Samurai films using google groups in the late nineties. Those were the days.

    Remember downloading a game called Legend of Mir which was a game advertised on the Game Network on Sky. Think it was around 200mb and it took days to download!


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    #91
    FatherTed
    Registered Users Posts: 2,684 ✭✭✭FatherTed


    For any Galway people who were in secondary school in the mid-80's, we had a few of the big old Digital terminals like this:
    Digital%20Equipment%20Corporation%20VT%20-%20100%20CRT%20display.jpg

    Since Digital had a plant in Galway, they networked up some of the schools and we had a 1/2 hour each week to learn Basic but spent most of the time "chatting" up the girls from the other schools "online". It was quite the novelty at the time.

    Also I remember in the late 80's at my first job as an operator, playing a game online with other users from around europe. Some kind of wizard/adventure game. All text based of course. Anyone remember that?


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