When did you first discover the Internet?

[Popinski]

Back in 1994(1995?), I had no idea that school got canceled due to bad weather. There were only 3 of us there and we all decided to chill out and talk. The Librarian told me to help move a computer and an external modem(14.4 baud speed). I asked him what it was and he showed me the WORLD WIDE WEB!!!! The very first website I clicked to was Yahoo.com. In the search box, I typed in "ID Software", which is a game company. The modem was extremely cheap and we lost connection about 5 times. At first, I was afraid that if I clicked on the word "Doom", the actual game might have popped up. Edit: First internet computer: Macintosh Performa. First Web browser: Netscape 2.0(?)

In 1996(1997?), I joined a summer program for High Schoolers which took place at a local college. They had very high-speed Gateway computers that blew me away. It was my first time experiencing high-speed internet called "ISDN". When I was young, I was a big fan of Consumer reports auto issue. My very first website on the high-speed internet was EDMUNDS.COM. I spent 3 hours straight going through that website and looked at every single car. The first car I looked at was the Ford Ranger because I was into 2wd compact pickups at the time.

Question:

-First online computer?
-First internet website?
-First modem speed?

 

[meangreen01]

I had Web TV in 1997(<56k). Bought my first 'net ready computer in '98(56k dial-up through Prodigy)

 

[addyguy]

I started actually using the internet at the college I went to in 1995-1997.

Was too cheap to buy a PC, so I kept using internet at school only through university until about 2003!

 

[Loobed]

I think it was around 1986 that I found out about the internet. Back then it was not graphical like it was today. It was only text based and used for sharing files, emails, and lowering your phone bill by dialing locally to reach somewhere far away.

 

[EricF]

Back in the day I had an email acct with seer.com.
It took 3 days to send an email to a friend in Seattle from San Francisco.
I got on with Hooked.net They were actually pretty good, a bit costlier than most but had lotsa extras.. especially a shell account.
Only thing you could really see was gov't records & basic stuff.

 

[CivicFan]

I remember the Lynx browser.

 

[AuthorEditor]

Back around 1990 or so I was working for a publisher that came out with one of the first books describing what this World Wide Web was all about and how it was going to be constructed. I remember thinking that it sounded cool but rather far-fetched. Before that I had been using the Internet for data stuff starting in the late 1980s.

 

[eljefino]

My dad had compuserve on his apple II in 1989 or so, it was more BBS but had some internet content then. He was thrilled to get travel weather forecasts before going on trips!

Then in 1992 he was working at Digital Equipment Corp and my Mom got a job at Harvard Business School and his first comment was "oh, I bet you'll have email."

Then we'd be silently eating dinner and he'd say "did you get my email" with a smirk about the inside joke that us kids weren't cool enough to be in on.

Dad "let" us kids email my cousin at college in late 1993 with some unix dial in service. He admonished us to hit enter after 60 or so characters because there was no automatic line wrap and if we went longer it might look funny.

Then I went to college in fall 94 and we had full text unix. Netscape www came Jan 95.

I was a car nerd on rec.autos.tech USENET in the later 90s. Found a motor oil comparison text file with flash point, percent ash, etc. Superflo was cheap junk.

Shortly later the minimopar oil filter cutaway study made its way to the web.

 

[Spazdog]

I had a Windows 3.1 Packard Bell that my old boss sold me for $20 when she upgraded to a HP with Windows 95 (sometime late in '95).

I don't remember what processor it had, RAM, or drive space. (I think it had a 66mhz Pentium)

My neighbor gave me an AOL 3.5 floppy diskette for like 50 hrs free. (which coincides with how long your average download would take with a 26K dialup modem)

 

[Steve S]

I thought Al Gore discovered it!

 

[Jakegday]

i dont remember exactly when, but i remember AOL was offering 10 free hours!!! im guessing 1995ish.
i remember the upgrade from 14.4k to 56k, that was nearly a life changer... a song went from 2 hours to download, to 30-45 minutes.

 

[oilboy123]

My first computer to get online was an IBM clone 486 DX66. 3.1 Windows.

Don't remember the first website? I was digging the variety of sites you could go to. Don't remember the modem it was just a regular type. I started out using AOL back in 1999. I took an online class that year and decided I needed to get up to speed on the keyboard and that is what pushed me to get online. After a few days of hand writing my hands were tuckered out. The computer saved my bacon. I'm taking more online classes for Fall and this Winter qtr.

I remember trying to cancel AOL and they offered me free time to get me to stay on with them. They were kind of a cult....

 

[wavinwayne]

I was waaaaay behind. I first used the internet in 1999. Been aimlessly wasting time online ever since.

 

[Al]

Originally Posted By: Steve S
I thought Al Gore discovered it!

I was on shortly after he invented it. I think around 1985. One of the earliest sites I can remember was go.com

My first Computer was a 16K (upgraded to 64K) color computer. It had a tape drive.

I think my first hard drive was a 20 meg one partitioned into 2 10 meg sectors.

 

[uc50ic4more]

Originally Posted By: CivicFan

I remember the Lynx browser.


I still use the (derivative) Links2 on my Debian system! It is by no means my primary browser, but it works to get to a single web page quickly.

I first got online in '95 with my brand spankin' new $4000 cobbled-together-from-parts computer running Windows 95. It had a 14.4 modem, a whopping 800MB hard drive, 16MB RAM (33MHz?) if I recall correctly (that was the major factor in the high cost, as I wanted to do some two track audio editing and needing the whole 16MB!) I had a 800 x 600 15" monitor.

Back then, Netscape cost about $100Cdn; although it may have been less: I don't know, as I was using Internet Explorer 2 or 3. I did not really know that there was an "address bar" (I think the guy who cobbled the computer together left IE's address bar hidden!) so every time I wanted to go somewhere I would go to Webcrawler (my IE home page) and search for the web address.

In addition to the web, I was using email and even USENET a lot. There were some really productive pro audio-related groups on USENET at the time and I found a wealth of information and even some far-away friends. USENET and BBS aren't quite what they used to be; but I still spend some time on IRC (from a Linux terminal, which ironically seems more primitive than USENET circa 1995!) on audio and computer channels.

 

[GrtArtiste]

My first computer was an IBM PS/1 486DX266 Win 3.1 purchased in 1993. As I recall it was well over $2K. I started out with AOL & Prodigy, tried Compuserve but settled on AOL and stayed there until 2007. Why? Because I didn't know any better...didn't need broadband...AOL suited my very limited needs. In 1998 I had a P III /Win 98. That was followed in 2007 by a Dell XPS400 /XP (still in use) and in 2008 by a Dell Inspiron 530 /Vista (still in use). Both Dells have been excellent. I dual-boot Ubuntu 10.04 on both Dells.

 

[PandaBear]

1st online computer: 486 DX4 100MHz
1st website: AOL
1st modem speed: 2400 bps

 

[crinkles]

2000...

 

[OVERKILL]

1988

Hewitt-Rand 8088 @8Mhz
640K of RAM
Hercules Monochrome graphics
20MB hard drive
5.25" floppy drive (not HD, that came later, as did the 3.5")
2400Baud modem

Dialed into the local University's VAX system through Procomm Plus. Had the ability to use Gopher and do E-mail. First site I visited was NASA.

Was also into BBS'ing at the time. Hung out on YakYak's, which, IIRC, eventually got an "Internet portal".

 

[Mystic]

At work we started using computers a long time ago with Unix servers and Windows 3.1 desktops. I can't remember if we had the internet back in those days.

The first computer I bought was a Windows computer with Windows 95. I started using the internet with a dial-up connection in 1995.

Later I used Apple Computers a lot but I continued using dial-up for a long time.

What I remember was that at first the internet seemed like a much more friendly place than it is today. I guess the internet is a reflection of our world.