Newbie, geezer, or codger? How long have you been using the Internet?

phaxx

Wish I'd been into all this back then... started out on a 14.4 modem in an IBM thinkpad lappy given to me. I can remember sort of using it a few years before that, some friends in Dublin... windows 3.11, using Opera and some dialing software I can't remember the name of right now... I think I was shown how to use Altavista then.

*sigh*

I can remember using MS Comic Chat about four years ago... I liked being the cat in the dressing gown. Hehe.

DiscoStu

my first experience of a bbs was about 1988/89 a friend of mine had a crusty old amstrad cpc464 and one of those real old modems where you had to put the phone handset onto it. i really didnt care at the time. then in 95 a guy in my class in school got you of those new fangled pentium-66 and windows 95 and a modem. on that machine i saw my first web page, the cover of www.rockdog.com a porn site . When i started college in 99 i began to heavily abuse the internet. when i got my pc in jan 99 i got snl and became a recluse for 4 months because of the internet. ive now managed to control my addiction and now am aware of the concept of daylight again.

edit: wow rockdog is still there

EvilGeorge

Started College in 96 where I met my first PC - win 3.11 using netscape to access the internet.....and then all the corruption to my mind began...........

ManWithName

Using gopher on vax1 in DCU, 1994. Ah, God bless the ould vax.
I remember someone in the CA labs showing me "Mosaic" which was like gopher, but with built in pictures....wow!

amen

Def an old hand.

Being using it since 94 on an Amiga 1200

had to configure all the tcp/ip stack, port settings, dns etc by hand.

took about 3 hours to get connected to IOL the first time and it was just text
no browser as such

quozl

yeh i remember Topsi and Nemesis Dungeon. ND was excellant, but I used to be a fidonet point off a bbs in the north to get fidomail. Which I think was good deal bigger than email back then. No-one really used email. This must have been 1992 at the latest. Used to be on fidonet mailing lists and the BBS's as Fragle.
Then 'aquired' a logon to iol, back when you had to dial in with terminal software using some protocol like kermit. Found a brilliant mud on it, MUD2, played that for yonks and then played other net muds on my 14k4 (which was **** hot for the time).
I remember some BBS in kerry had a gateway from fidonet to internet email and let you perform gopher searchs and would email you files encoded for acsii mail.
quozl

adnans

nemesis dungeon is class. its still around on 6211360. hack n slash is still there, and also that game that is similar to Risk, where you take over the world and fight for countries like an evil dictator. :P
there was also a Gateway 2000 which was crap but the hat goes off to ghosts in the machein for being the slickest of the lot. cool ansi animation intros and madness, and not to mention the file library

adnans

MindPhuck

nemesis dungeon is still around ??!

memories

elexes

been using it since a family vacation to the states where i got onto a pc with some telnet game where i walked around with this guy i thought was a computer assistant untill he started asking what the fu<k i was doing attacking him and that if i dident stop he would come over to the hotel and kick my ass

then got a p75 the day it was released to emcee in ireland with a 14.4 modem and playing quake all day and night then . now that i think about it i might go do that now .

Blade

Yeh I started in the late 80's when I was on Toppsi and nemesis dungeon and a few others using a 2400 baud modem tho it did have 9600 fax! Someone gave me a 300 baud modem before that but I could never get it going. Toppsi were great, friendly bunch who'd let you walk into their office for coffee and give you the grand tour showing you how everything worked and it was all very different back then. Your messages to and from the outside world were only sent and collected AFAIR once a day around midnight and that took a few hours during which time the BBS was offline to users. If I remember right the guy I knew in there was called Martin McGuire and I'm sure I've seen his name pop up somewhere lately? Toppsi is also where I first met JMCC and a few other guys who I'm still close friends with.

po0k

Got a PC for £500 5 years ago about.
P100, 16Megs ram, 850MB hdd, 1Mb Cirrus.
Class. And cheap too.
Was informed that i could 'easily' get a modem later.
Convincing the mother however was a different story.
First memorable experience was getting that IOL CD trial thingy with my frind, who had a PC witha modem. AST 7102 i think. P120, 16megs, 1Gb, MWave 33.6 modem.
First thing we did was load up Yahoo! (only web engine we knew) and type in 'Pamel Anderson'.
Oh yes.
Only to be confronted with loads of shiot 'pay for it now' sites. Bummer.
Another friend called round and he found google.
Oh yessssss.

Was about 12 at teh time too I think. Can't really remember. oulda been 14 in fact.
When did IOL tiral thingies come on CD again?
Anyho, first reall venture onto teh net came Aug 1999 when I chipped in £550 to help pay for a decent PC. Got a Lucent 56K DSp. Forgot to be more specific. Also didn't know aout superiority of serial over internal for hardware guarenteeity ( ?:/ ).
installed Eircom net. Spent 2 hours trying to dial into the setup server. Constan engaged tones finally connected at 28.8.
Stayed at that since. Errorcom engineer went up my pole a month before the PC arrived. DACS box => being shafted
Excuse the innuendo.
So about a year and a bit. Had an Amiga600 before ewither PC too though. was to young and broke/techniclly uninformed to get my arse on the net. Woulda loved Multiplayer Warbirds on Wireplay though.