When did you first discover the Internet?

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Originally Posted By: AuthorEditor
Hey, do you fellow oldsters remember when you saw your first digital calculator? A friend of mine had one back in my junior year in high school in the early '70s. It had a red LED display and I think it could only +,-,x, and divide. It cost him more than $100, which was big bucks for a high school kid at the time.


I had one of these with the red light up display, I took it apart and the "graphics" part of the circuit board had the most interesting stuff on it, ie was probably the biggest hurdle. Like the dorky hipster we all want to be I'd show it to people and say "Hey I can do math in the dark now!"
lol.gif


In unrelated hi-jinks I discovered a phone jack on the floor of my HS freshman English classroom. I brought in a Time-Life promo phone and plugged it in and got a dial tone. Cute girl next to me asked if she could use it to order a pizza and of course I was like, sure!
blush.gif


She started dialing and the teacher caught on and yelled at her. Forget the outcome, though I probably didn't pursue my ownership rights of the phone...
 
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
You still have any of this stuff? My dad recently dropped off my first PC (the 8088) here at the house.... I'm thinking of firing it back up for nostalgic purposes.... I could take pictures? LOL!


I believe I do. I should have Radio Shack modems at 300 baud and at 1200 baud, along with a Hayes compatible 2400 laying around somewhere. I still have the Radio Shack Model IV and an Amiga 500.

Believe it or not, I still (at least recently) use a Panasonic KX-P1124 dot matrix printer. It works fine with its native fonts in FreeDOS, making some rather high quality printouts, and it's way, way cheaper to run than a laser printer.
 
Originally Posted By: Garak
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
You still have any of this stuff? My dad recently dropped off my first PC (the 8088) here at the house.... I'm thinking of firing it back up for nostalgic purposes.... I could take pictures? LOL!


I believe I do. I should have Radio Shack modems at 300 baud and at 1200 baud, along with a Hayes compatible 2400 laying around somewhere. I still have the Radio Shack Model IV and an Amiga 500.

Believe it or not, I still (at least recently) use a Panasonic KX-P1124 dot matrix printer. It works fine with its native fonts in FreeDOS, making some rather high quality printouts, and it's way, way cheaper to run than a laser printer.


I have a KX-P1180!!!!!

BAH HAHAHHHHAHAHA!!!

Take some pics, I'll grab some of my old junk, this will be fun
grin.gif
 
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
I have a KX-P1180!!!!!

BAH HAHAHHHHAHAHA!!!

Take some pics, I'll grab some of my old junk, this will be fun
grin.gif



I'll have to do that. I remember laughing at the people with the 1180, since I had the 24-pin 1124, which was far superior, of course.
wink.gif
 
Originally Posted By: Garak
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
I have a KX-P1180!!!!!

BAH HAHAHHHHAHAHA!!!

Take some pics, I'll grab some of my old junk, this will be fun
grin.gif



I'll have to do that. I remember laughing at the people with the 1180, since I had the 24-pin 1124, which was far superior, of course.
wink.gif



Yes, yes it was!

Dad used this one to print from WordPerfect for DOS, LOL! So 8 pins of glory was all it really needed
grin.gif
 
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Yes, yes it was!

Dad used this one to print from WordPerfect for DOS, LOL! So 8 pins of glory was all it really needed
grin.gif



Well, on FreeDOS, I've used WordPerfect 5, and it works quite well. With the 24 pin on high quality paper, one has to look very, very close to be sure that it wasn't done by a typewriter or laser printer.

I bought that printer because of the experiences in my high school computer lab. They had one, and it went one year of high load printing on one OEM ribbon, with zero paper jams. At the time, the ribbon was $10 (closer to $15 or $20 now for OEM, which lasts way longer than the cheap ones), and $10 for a year of printing isn't bad at all, considering the use in a computer lab.

When I do some reorganization at home, I think I'll set up the old FreeDOS box and the 1124. For simple text, it's hard to beat.

As an aside, dot matrix printers sure are expensive these days. While everything else went down, they sure went up, which is understandable since they tend to only be used under demanding conditions these days. I can't think of anyone who'd just buy one these days for casual use at home.
 
Yeah, the dot-matrix printers and the line printers of the 70s were solid. We used DECwriters on the factory floor and IBMs in the office.

My first real computer was a HeathKit H11, a takeoff of the DEC PDP11. A 16-bit machine that rivaled more expensive industrial units.

First calculator was a TI SR-10, a $100 4-function calculator. Carried that and a slipstick around to class ca. 1970. Couldn't afford the HP 35 that cost about $300.
 
1995 for me. 160MZ Micron computer. 1 gig HD... speeds I think were around 16k, local provider but I remember it took HOURS to log on they were so over-booked with new customers. You could log on like 2am but that was it... also I just got high speed internet last month after being on dial-up for 15 yrs. My new speeds are not great at 470 kps but I am almost 4 miles out of town on extended range DSL.. but better than the 36 kps I had before.
 
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Originally Posted By: williar
Yeah, the dot-matrix printers and the line printers of the 70s were solid. We used DECwriters on the factory floor and IBMs in the office.

My first real computer was a HeathKit H11, a takeoff of the DEC PDP11. A 16-bit machine that rivaled more expensive industrial units.

First calculator was a TI SR-10, a $100 4-function calculator. Carried that and a slipstick around to class ca. 1970. Couldn't afford the HP 35 that cost about $300.


I had a Korean-made Tandy computer and a Japanese-made Tandy printer. Both were rock solid and never failed.

Originally Posted By: Blaze
1995 for me. 160MZ Micron computer. 1 gig HD... speeds I think were around 16k, local provider but I remember it took HOURS to log on they were so over-booked with new customers. You could log on like 2am but that was it... also I just got high speed internet last month after being on dial-up for 15 yrs. My new speeds are not great at 470 kps but I am almost 4 miles out of town on extended range DSL.. but better than the 36 kps I had before.


I remember when I first got the internet at my house. It was 1997 and it took so many attempts to log on.. the busy tone still haunts me today.
 
I got AOL back in August 96 when they were charging $2.95/hr. Let's say, I got addicted pretty quick, and my internet bill was staggering for the first three months with a lame 28k modem. but when AOL went to the unlimited plan, it was all good then and people were signing up for internet left and right. however, I was getting busy tones trying to get online when this happened. so I just stayed online 24/7 as much as possible until AOL booted me offline with the aol voice saying "goodbye". Those were the days, I remember some thought how come I was on the computer on so much. they thought I was a computer geek, now it's pretty standard that people use their computer several hours a day on the net. I don't know how I can live without the internet or what I did before I used it.
lol.gif
 
Originally Posted By: Al
Originally Posted By: QuadDriver
1979

The world Wide Web began in 1991


The Internet and the WWW are two different things. Strange concept I know.

Before browsers like Mosaic existed, we used Gopher. Before that... It was pretty much a text-based WAN that connected Universities, government institutions and organizations like NASA. Access was obtained remotely via dialing into one of these organizations. We used the University my dad taught at.

This was the "Internet", still in its infancy.... even in the 80's, though the idea began in the 1960's.
 
I remember it was late 70's early 80's and in my dads office he would put some kind of device up to the phone that made strange sounds and then would send his office data to the main hub. Not sure what this was??
 
Originally Posted By: Blaze
I remember it was late 70's early 80's and in my dads office he would put some kind of device up to the phone that made strange sounds and then would send his office data to the main hub. Not sure what this was??
That thing that the phone receiver went into was the modem. It is called an acoustic coupler when you have to set the phone down into a cradle like that instead of having wired to the wall. This was thanks to Ma Bell having control over every part of the system except your mouth and ear.
 
Originally Posted By: Al
Originally Posted By: QuadDriver
1979

The world Wide Web began in 1991


the 'internet' as it were, existed into the 60's. I was just in no position to use it then - what being an infant with no computer.
 
After Memorial day, 1987. I was laid up from an accident and decided to see how the computer worked. I ordered one after looking at several magazines and catalogues... Had used them in HighSchool some, and also at the apple store after school, wanted an apple but didn't want to buy a house :)

I was several sysops, had my own boards and managed or helped to manage others, had chat discussions and other forums, dialed into
university mainframes and dialed out all around the world exchanging files... it was great except I spent all day and almost all night on the thing... never turned back.

I remember people telling me What's email? I tried for years to get many businesses to convert from fax to email. I had Voice Mail, FaxCrads, modems, scanners, paging hook-up, a dial in bbs that was connected to dozens of sites, etc... all on an 286 with 40MB 1Meg ram - using compression software, and GEM GUI and mainly DOS system which I programmed my own utilities -bat, com, exe... it wasn't until the 90's that other people I knew got on.
 
I remember downloading a web browser from a dial-up BBS in 1994 and not being all that impressed with it. I hadn't yet learned that you had to have an actual internet connection to make it work. DOH!
 
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