The old internet

limnam · 01-11-2019 2:08pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Vicious and prolonged flame wars, trolling, group invasions, cyberstalking, doxxing, trying to get people fired, etc. are nothing new.

I think the difference today is the majority of the people on the "old" one were _slightly_ more intelligent so the wars were more interesting.

:pac:

Hotblack Desiato · 01-11-2019 5:13pm

Well yeah. I remember reading groups where a single spelling mistake could result in a page long rant in reply

On the "Dumb Facebook updates" thread it's almost impossible to make out what they're trying to say half the time. It's like idiots evolved their own language.

Brian Lighthouse · 01-11-2019 6:07pm

The Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll

Amazing story of the Internet's infancy. A page turner, although I presume you know how books work ;-). (PM with email for *.pdf copy)

My own memory of the old internet. In 1994 we rolled out our own opticfibre network across our facility and campus (State owned) because we were sick of the speed of copper wire. In 1992 we had applied for funding for it, didn't get it, then we applied for funding for a decades supply of stationary - got it and bought opticfibre with the money and then we were flying it.

Then in 1999 I worked in a firm who celebrated their 10th anniversary of selling product online only. In that field it is the global leader still to this day.

Brian Lighthouse · 01-11-2019 6:24pm

PS: I think the Boards layout is probably the last site I know to still keep the chatroom style of the late 1990s. Anyone else?

Four Phucs Ache · 01-11-2019 9:09pm

Brian Lighthouse wrote: »

PS: I think the Boards layout is probably the last site I know to still keep the chatroom style of the late 1990s. Anyone else?

Hopefully it stays like this.

01-11-2019 9:19pm

Search Engine of the old internet.... YAHOO In my first year in third level in 1996: This was praised to high heaven by one lecturer. Other search engines you could try were Ask Jeeves and Lycos. Ofcourse there was also DORAS for searching homepages on eircom.net

Hotblack Desiato · 03-11-2019 8:32pm

Brian Lighthouse wrote: »

The Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll

Cliff Stoll is a top bloke. These days he sells hand-blown glass Klein bottles, I bought one

Brian Lighthouse wrote: »

PS: I think the Boards layout is probably the last site I know to still keep the chatroom style of the late 1990s. Anyone else?

Nah. Lots of motorbike forums still running classic vBulletin, I'm sure there's many other special interest ones too.

Deleted User wrote: »

Search Engine of the old internet.... YAHOO In my first year in third level in 1996: This was praised to high heaven by one lecturer. Other search engines you could try were Ask Jeeves and Lycos. Ofcourse there was also DORAS for searching homepages on eircom.net

Back in the day, Yahoo! (you forgot the exclamation mark :pac: ) was a directory of websites, not a search engine.

First search engine I ever used was AltaVista, DEC owned it. They paid for a lot of the infrastructure of the early internet. AltaVista also developed Babel Fish, the first online translator (which of course got its name from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.)

Redneck Reject · 03-11-2019 8:57pm

First speed was 2400 bps,then 9600.Once we got to 14.400 bps we thought that was blazing fast,heh.

Capt'n Midnight · 07-11-2019 11:15pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Cliff Stoll is a top bloke. These days he sells hand-blown glass Klein bottles, I bought one

Pfff ! Fool.

Infinite surface area. You'll never keep it clean. :pac:

Back in the day, Yahoo! (you forgot the exclamation mark :pac: ) was a directory of websites, not a search engine.

Yahoo invested $1 billion for 30 percent of Alibaba back in 2005

If Yahoo had done nothing else it would be worth $143Bn today. It's not :rolleyes:

First search engine I ever used was AltaVista, DEC owned it. They paid for a lot of the infrastructure of the early internet. AltaVista also developed Babel Fish, the first online translator (which of course got its name from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.)

I miss DEC and the Vaxen and Altavista's "near" in searches

Gwynplaine · 07-11-2019 11:44pm

Who remembers the unison box?

Capt'n Midnight · 07-11-2019 11:55pm

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 · 07-11-2019 11:58pm

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 · 08-11-2019 12:03am

ednwireland wrote: »

https://web.archive.org

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

branie2 · 08-11-2019 12:33am

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

ILoveYourVibes · 08-11-2019 1:17am

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 · 08-11-2019 1:24am

My search engine of choice, still exists:O

spurious · 08-11-2019 1:25am

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 · 08-11-2019 1:27am

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 · 08-11-2019 1:29am

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

Flaccus · 08-11-2019 1:32am

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 · 08-11-2019 1:34am

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 · 08-11-2019 1:34am

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 · 08-11-2019 1:35am

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!

08-11-2019 2:32am

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 · 08-11-2019 2:38am

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

08-11-2019 2:45am

wassie wrote: »

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

Remember rocketmail? :pac:

Graces7 · 08-11-2019 6:02am

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 · 08-11-2019 8:56am

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

ohnonotgmail · 08-11-2019 9:46am

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 · 08-11-2019 9:51am

Sky King · 08-11-2019 9:56am

[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 · 08-11-2019 10:01am

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 · 08-11-2019 10:02am

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 · 08-11-2019 10:07am

McGaggs wrote: »

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

rocketmail and hotmail started in the same year.

TychoCaine · 08-11-2019 10:32am

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 · 08-11-2019 10:34am

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

Hustler was all about big asses right?

Big titties mostly if i remember correctly.

ohnonotgmail · 08-11-2019 10:35am

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 · 08-11-2019 10:42am

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 · 08-11-2019 10:45am

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 · 08-11-2019 10:57am

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.

08-11-2019 12:18pm

McGaggs wrote: »

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

ditto, although i use the live.com domain for it. It was nice of them to seamlessly transfer everything when they bought out rocketmail. Far more stable than gmail and not blocked in China.

Irish Guitarist · 08-11-2019 12:25pm

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)

They didn't all kill themselves. Two of them stayed behind to run the website. They just haven't changed anything about the site since 1997. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/aeky35/a-suicide-cults-surviving-members-still-maintain-its-90s-website

B.A._Baracus · 08-11-2019 12:53pm

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

They didn't all kill themselves. Two of them stayed behind to run the website. They just haven't changed anything about the site since 1997. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/aeky35/a-suicide-cults-surviving-members-still-maintain-its-90s-website

The more I read on them... the more they seem .. how do I put this? out of all the cults that are whacky they seem not evil.

They simply thought, well we all know what they thought :pac: , but the end was coming (their belief of getting to a higher level) and they did themselves in.

- Didn't seem like the founder was some science fiction writing who was arrested for conning people *cough*
- The founder wasn't asking every woman to join him in "the house of david"
- etc.

Wonder if I am missing something...

08-11-2019 1:08pm

On to a less macabre topic, this article from 2007 definitely smells more than a bit stale by now

https://seekingalpha.com/article/57712-ibm-demos-experimental-intranet-dubbed-on-demand-workplace

Flaccus · 08-11-2019 1:44pm

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

Hustler was all about big asses right?

A raunchier version of Playboy. Watch “The people versus Larry Flint”. Point is back then security was very limited though the porn sites led the way. Speeds were crap.