Are there many people still using dial up?

Ranicand

I have never had a PC connected to Dial up.

Was it really that bad?
And how many people still use it?

bealtine

Ranicand wrote: »

I have never had a PC connected to Dial up.

Was it really that bad?
And how many people still use it?

Yes quite a few still have to use it.

carbsy

When I signed up with Indigo in um 1996/7, I think.I had a Pace 28.8 Modem and was downloading compressed files about 3KB/sec.I was delighted!

*EDIT* After jogging my memory now.It was no easy task to get the internet working in those days.I remember having to mess with TCP/IP stacks and change numerous things before I had it working properly.

Also, first time I used the interweb was internet relay chat in Cork RTC (CIT now) in 1993.I was hooked from the minute I first connected to wildcat internet services! Oh and that text based Lynx browser which I found quite funky.

clearz

Ranicand wrote: »

I have never had a PC connected to Dial up.

To bad you never got to experience the liberation of switching from Dial-Up to 512Kb Broadband for the first time.

Ranicand

clearz wrote: »

To bad you never got to experience the liberation of switching from Dial-Up to 512Kb Broadband for the first time.

I started on 150k from NTL.:D

carbsy

clearz wrote: »

To bad you never got to experience the liberation of switching from Dial-Up to 512Kb Broadband for the first time.

And what a feeling that was!

Feidhlim

I had oceanfree or something like that - was a free CD that came with the newspaper.

Started on a modem which was approx 18k if I recall. Upgraded to a 56k thinking that would make a difference.

It didn't.


Was averaging 1.5kb/s

Happy with that if it remained stable which it never did... And assuming I could connect at all.


Download a song in an hour or so. It was also very expensive. I was only allowed on after 6pm.

watty

I had 300 bps X.25 via dialup pad in 1986. But only fax & telex sending via London Gateway and email. No WWW :-) All plain text.

carbsy

watty wrote: »

I had 300 bps X.25 via dialup pad in 1986. But only fax & telex sending via London Gateway and email. No WWW :-) All plain text.

Ah if we're going back before the interweb, I used to access Amiga BBS's alright with a 9.6k iirc.Bloody cost a fortune though! That was prob circa 1989/90.Only got my first computer in 1985, Commodore 16. I have it up in the attic still along with Kevin Toms Football Manager!

I remember roaring crying when I came home with Footall Manager as there were no stick man graphics like on the screen shots on the back of the cassette box.I rang up the computer store, still in tears to find out the screenshots were from the spectrum version! Still haven't gotten over it.

clearz

I remember you could get a 30 day trial of IOL in xtra-vision around 1996. It came with its own dialler instead of the Windows default one. This was the only dialler that worked on my computer and the 30 days lasted 6 months. That was the only 6 months of Internet I had in the 90's.

carbsy

clearz wrote: »

I remember you could get a 30 day trial of IOL in xtra-vision around 1996. It came with its own dialler instead of the Windows default one. This was the only dialler that worked on my computer and the 30 days lasted 6 months. That was the only 6 months of Internet I had in the 90's.

Ah yeah, I remember that.It wasn't the full internet though iirc? It was a cut down AOL version? Seems to ring a bell with me anyhow.

*EDIT* Eeeks! That was AOL!

crashoveroid

Well i had Esat no limits which was free between 6 to 6 so i became a serial dowloader the then managed to get an album a week.LOL

carbsy

crashoveroid wrote: »

Well i had Esat no limits which was free between 6 to 6 so i became a serial dowloader the then managed to get an album a week.LOL

Ah how could I forget that! I eventually graduated to it and was one of the lucky one's who wasn't cut off during the infamous cull.

Cabaal

carbsy wrote: »

Ah yeah, I remember that.It wasn't the full internet though iirc? It was a cut down AOL version? Seems to ring a bell with me anyhow.

*EDIT* Eeeks! That was AOL!

No the IOL 30 day CD's in the likes of compustore were full internet, you got full net access an a e-mail from iol.ie in the form of [email]6387fsafs@iol..ie[/email] which was deleted after 30 days.

If you used AOL in Ireland you paid through the nose as its a UK ISP so you may have either dialed their UK numbers or their roaming Limerick or Dublin numbers which came with surcharges of something like £2 per min. :eek:

I myself started off on Tinet (Telecom Eireann Internet - http://www.tinet.ie/), used that for many years and then switched to Esat Surf No-Limits....I was one of the 2k users kicked off and I remember posting about on ie.comp about starting a user group that later became known as Ireland Off-Line.

I happened to get access to a Ireland On-Line paid account then and I still have a nice short @iol.ie e-mail address still active with them to this day

bealtine

Cabaal wrote: »

I remember posting about on ie.comp about starting a user group that later became known as Ireland Off-Line.

It's all your fault so:)

Rockn

Yeah dial-up was great. Half an hour to download an mp3. No chance of watching streaming video. Nevermind the actual dialing up part.
Let me just quickly google* that... beep-boop-boop-beep-boooooop-burrrrr...




*yahoo

bealtine

Rockn wrote: »

Yeah dial-up was great. Half an hour to download an mp3.

http://www.sonnyradio.com/dialupkid.htm

For a blast from the past

Harps

Had a 56k line back in the day, was delighted to get anything above 3kbps, could only use it after 6 in the evening and only had 30 hours a month. It could take literally hours to download a song and watching videos was unheard of

Those were the days

jimmycrackcorm

Ah. Brings me back to the days of eirpac and 300 baud modems.

Earthday

I am one of them

Shamo

Ah the good old days of Ocreanfree then onto IOL no limits. Thank god for that or i'd have been kicked out the house if anymore huge phone bills came through.

Constantly left on overnight downloading, got the phone call but managed to stay on it. Online gaming was fun, want to make sure an application wasn't checking for updates during it or lag city.

moonboy52

I cringe when i think back to dial-up. No happy memories here.

Getting charged per minute, watching a web page slooooowly load etc.

Progress is wonderful as i am now paying roughly the same money for 400 times the speed .

Thank you UPC!

watty

I'm getting zero packet loss, x420 speed and spending about €800 a year less (including line rental and voice calls as well as Broadband) compared to 2002.

Digiweb Metro.

Podgoricka

GET THE HELL OF THE INTERNET IM TRYING TO USE THE PHONE! wow i havent heard that in about 5 or 6 yrs.. not to mention this famous sound

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

dub45

You had to buy your own modem too:)

And remember the scams where they hijacked your dialler and you were connected to some "foreign country"and you were getting bills for hundreds even thousands of euros?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/117890/ireland_cracks_down_on_internet_scams.html

Owen

Oh the memories of my C64 and its 300 baud modem. I also have an Apple IIe modem still in its box from 1978.

carbsy

dub45 wrote: »

You had to buy your own modem too:)

And remember the scams where they hijacked your dialler and you were connected to some "foreign country"and you were getting bills for hundreds even thousands of euros?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/117890/ireland_cracks_down_on_internet_scams.html

Oh aye dub45.I can remember Eirc0n making a packet (pardon the pun heh) from these scams!

watty

Still happens.

Also variations are now done to Mobile users with MMS and SMS scams.

Cantona's Collars

The sister in law is still on dial-up.Just a few short miles from town and her internet connection is back in the stone age.Soon to be changed as a new isp has coverage in her area now so bye bye eircom and their shoddy service. While my broadband isn't the fastest,it's light years ahead of hers,she's amazed that I can download and stream at the same time. Did anyone else have the Unison internet kits that connected to your tv? I won one in the local paper when they had a competition to promote them.For some reason I could connect and use internet free of charge with it,those were the days.

Yawns

My god this reminds me of when we had NTL dialup. It was free but the only thing you had to do was reconnect every 2 hours.

Used to play Delta Force on it man. Just had to aim about 20 ft in front of the enemy. I got so used to it as a sniper with the 50 cal

Even when cable bb came out my parents wouldn't change over. No No you have the internet for free why should I pay for the other one. Ahhh bless now I have my own place and bb in even if I am stuck with dsl

tazzzZ

i remember playing enemy territory on my dial up. think i was with utv. ending up being one of their first customers to have bb 512k. member downloading at "crazy speeds" and all the advertisements of up to 10x the speed of current dial up. etc etc. good times