When the internet was new...

Sargeras · Post by **Sargeras** » December 8, 2005, 7:50 am

Old news report on the "new phenomenon that is 'Internet'"

http://www.filecabi.net/video/interweb.html

XunilTlatoani · Post by **XunilTlatoani** » December 8, 2005, 9:55 am

I can indulge my deep and abiding passion for all things Thai

hehe

Dregor Thule · Post by **Dregor Thule** » December 8, 2005, 10:21 am

Peter Mansbridge of the CBC! Good guy, kinda creepy upper lip tho!

Siji · Post by **Siji** » December 8, 2005, 4:47 pm

My first connection to the Internet was via a Delphi account. Followed shortly by a Netcom shell account. That was leet after they stopped offering them. If I remember the name of the interface program correctly we used TIA and CSlip.. Aslanna, is that what it was? My memory is foggy back then with a mixture of EMU2, PCBoard and ACiD bbs sytems..

miir · Post by **miir** » December 8, 2005, 4:53 pm

I used to like try to get accounts with 'new' ISPs starting up in Toronto. When asked what user name I would like, I requested 'root'.

It actually worked once.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » December 8, 2005, 5:19 pm

I still remember the first pr0n image I downloaded off a newsgroup. It was of a brunette giving some guy a hummer. I was using a Netcom account in the very early 90's.

That was one of the greatest days of my life.

As for the beginnings of the internet, It's a shame most people missed out on the old bulletin board systems (BBS) before the internet using 300 bps modems during the 80's. Those were the days of high adventure.

Fash · Post by **Fash** » December 8, 2005, 5:23 pm

the first true internet connection I was able to get was through a local company that offered unix net access through a dialup bbs...

they offered a free trial account... and then when it said 'your account has expired', hitting whatever key to exit logged ya right in anyways

Ennia · Post by **Ennia** » December 8, 2005, 5:26 pm

my first time on the internet was with Compuserve around '93 or so I think, the bad thing about it was they assigned you a 6 or 7 digit number as an ID, then I stumbled upon AOL and thought wow I can pick my own name

fun times

masteen · Post by **masteen** » December 8, 2005, 6:20 pm

Winnow wrote:As for the beginnings of the internet, It's a shame most people missed out on the old bulletin board systems (BBS) before the internet using 300 bps modems during the 80's. Those were the days of high adventure.

LoRD, FUCK YEAH!

My first experience on the interweb was the IRC back in college. At first it was all fun and chit chat, then I was introduced to the wonderful world of hacking. Taking over shitty channels like #romance was more fun than anything else, mostly because of how pissed the people we fucked with got. I remember entire servers would blanket ban *.ufl, and we'd have to spoof our domains

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » December 8, 2005, 8:58 pm

I think my first experience with the internet was through a Fidonet/Usenet gateway and the use of a mail reader with the nickname 'Slimer': SLMR (Silly Little Mail Reader). It was cool all the various newsgroups I could get. No idea when that was. Had to have been around 1990 or so. I'm old

SLMR is an offline mail reader for QWK packets created by the Qmail, Markmail, Rosemail and other QWK doors for PCBoard, the Tomcat mail door for Wildcat BBS, Mjrmail for MajorBBS, and many other QWK mail systems for GAP, RemoteAccess, RBBS, and other BBS systems.

SLMR allows you to read and reply to messages offline, using your favorite word processor or text editor. You save time and connection charges by downloading a mail packet and logging off in a fraction of the time it would take to read and reply messages online.

The use of an offline mail reader like SLMR has become necessary to manage the large number of messages available through today's BBS message networks. SLMR provides fast and powerful features for sorting, searching, saving, and managing mail and replies.

SLMR will run on all types of PC-compatible computers and supports Microsoft-compatible rodents (mice).

I think I used QEdit as my editor!

Asheran Mojomaster · Post by **Asheran Mojomaster** » December 8, 2005, 9:16 pm

God, the internet has evolved so much from the BBS's back in the day. I remember when I was like 3 or 4, playing Legend of the Red Dragon and Sidewalk Surfer on my dad's BBS haha. All on DOS too. I hated Windows when we got it, DOS was so much better.

Dregor Thule · Post by **Dregor Thule** » December 8, 2005, 10:39 pm

I did the BBS thing back in the day, started with my rippin' 1200 baud. Talk about breakneck speeds. Did that for a few years (eventually got up to a 14.4, woah!), ran a local BBS, and was heavy into the ANSI scene (iCE/ACiD, those guys for anyone who knew). Was introduced to the internet via that, using a leet pbx to dial into some free isp in the states of irc. I was such a rebel, lollerskates.

Eventually I was introduced to MUDs, yadda yadda, and the Tang just would NOT come off her nipples.

Dregor Thule · Post by **Dregor Thule** » December 8, 2005, 10:39 pm

Asheran Mojomaster wrote:God, the internet has evolved so much from the BBS's back in the day. I remember when I was like 3 or 4, playing Legend of the Red Dragon and Sidewalk Surfer on my dad's BBS haha. All on DOS too. I hated Windows when we got it, DOS was so much better.

It makes me sad and sore to think you were 3 or 4 back when LoRD was around. I feel so old

Fash · Post by **Fash** » December 9, 2005, 12:26 am

WWIV!

Arborealus · Post by **Arborealus** » December 9, 2005, 12:43 am

Dregor Thule wrote:
Asheran Mojomaster wrote:God, the internet has evolved so much from the BBS's back in the day. I remember when I was like 3 or 4, playing Legend of the Red Dragon and Sidewalk Surfer on my dad's BBS haha. All on DOS too. I hated Windows when we got it, DOS was so much better.
It makes me sad and sore to think you were 3 or 4 back when LoRD was around. I feel so old

*ahem*

So acoustic coupled modems?...anyone...anyone...:/...

I remember teh BBS's in the early 80's on my best friend's PET...we would dial the phone by hand wait for carrier then hook the phone to the modem via the 2 plastic cups...Old School Representin'!

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » December 9, 2005, 1:58 am

Arborealus wrote:
*ahem*

So acoustic coupled modems?...anyone...anyone...:/...

I remember teh BBS's in the early 80's on my best friend's PET...we would dial the phone by hand wait for carrier then hook the phone to the modem via the 2 plastic cups...Old School Representin'!

That's one step beyond me gramps! I entered the computer world with a shiny new C-64 cirra 198x

Post pics of your rigs! C-64

That PET reference takes you back into the late 70's!

1977: January - Commodore first shows a prototype PET computer at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show.
1977: January - Commodore's Chuck Peddle shows the first PET to Radio Shack, hoping to have Radio Shack sell it.
1977: April - Commodore Business Machines Inc. shows its PET 2001 computer for US$600. The computer shown is a one-of prototype.
1977: June - Commodore shows its first production PET computers at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show.
1980: May - Commodore Business Machines introduces the CBM 8032 microcomputer, with 32KB RAM and an 80-column monochrome display.
1980: May - Commodore Business Machines introduces the CBM 8050 dual 5 1/4-inch floppy disk drive unit.
1980: Commodore Japan introduces the VIC-1001 (later called the VIC-20 in the USA).
1981: January - Commodore announces the VIC-20, for US$299. During its life, production peaks at 9,000 units per day.
1982: Hi-Toro Incorporated is formed by a group of midwest investors trying to cash in on the video game craze. The name was later changed to Amiga, Incorporated after being confused with the lawn-mower manufacturer, Toro. Within one year, there are rumours of an incredible computer codenamed Lorraine featuring unheard of graphics and sound capabilities, multitasking, 80 column display, 5+ megs of Ram and MORE!
1982: January - Commodore announces the Commodore 64 microcomputer, showing a prototype at the Winter CES, for US$600) for US$595.
1982: January - Commodore introduces the 16K SuperVIC.
microcomputer. It is to be an enhanced Commodore 64 with 128KB RAM expandable to 896KB. Price US$995.
1982: September - Commodore Business Machines begins shipping the Commodore 64. Suggested retail price is US$595.
1982: Commodore releases the 1540 Single-Drive Floppy for the VIC-20.
1983: January - Commodore Business Machines begins selling the Commodore 64 through mass merchants, which drops the retail price to US$400.

The C-64's competition: (Apple II)

how ugly!

I rolled with this setup in college along with a dot matrix printer!:

fear the mouse!

It's cliche to say, but college students have it sooooo much easier these days with the internet and useful computer applications. You can cut and paste your way to a degree.

Leonaerd · Post by **Leonaerd** » December 9, 2005, 2:00 am

I wonder if they made them ugly on purpose. Really.

sarlen · Post by **sarlen** » December 9, 2005, 3:46 am

This was the dream machine I started with, complete with cassette drives!!

http://www.commodore.ca/gallery/hardwar ... endium.jpg

Dregor Thule · Post by **Dregor Thule** » December 9, 2005, 10:27 am

sarlen wrote:This was the dream machine I started with, complete with cassette drives!!

http://www.commodore.ca/gallery/hardwar ... endium.jpg

That there was my second computer, first was a VIC 20. Man, I still remember playing River Rescue on that thing. I played my c64 so much.. had a couple disk drawers filled with copied games from a friend. I still even remember the commands! L-shift o-"$",8,1 ftw!

Drolgin Steingrinder · December 9, 2005, 11:15 am

That's my first computer, the fantastic Sinclair ZX Spectrum. 1982...damn.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » December 9, 2005, 12:03 pm

I never had an Apple II ( Or Apple ][ ) so this may seem like a dumb question.. But shouldn't the drive be connected to the cable for it to work?

We had those in school and I never liked the keyboards. Too mushy.

Knarlz · Post by **Knarlz** » December 9, 2005, 1:08 pm

First comp was an Apple 2+.
A whopping 48k memory.
The dang thing was $2,000 in 1982.
I paid $100 to blow the memory out an additional 16k!

Ultama 2 FTW. that, Zork 1 and Wizardry 1 were my first 3 games.

I resisted going on line as I knew I would spend way to much time there. My wife got me hooked up for my birthday about 10 years ago.
I haven't seen here since.

Marbus · Post by **Marbus** » December 9, 2005, 1:10 pm

The first computer I actually owned owned was an Apple ][e, we went and ordered an ][ plus but when it came (which took like 4 months, just in time for Christmas 82) it was a ][e which had a whopping 64k rather than 48k of memory! However I had started some programming classes back in the late 70s on TRS-80 Model IIs and IIIs...

Marb

Drolgin Steingrinder · December 9, 2005, 1:14 pm

Aslanna wrote: We had those in school and I never liked the keyboards. Too mushy.

You obviously never tried the rubber keys of the Spectrum *shiver*

Sylvos · Post by **Sylvos** » December 9, 2005, 1:15 pm

My first was an Amiga 1000.

it was the best

Lynks · Post by **Lynks** » December 9, 2005, 1:50 pm

The all powerfull Vic20! Complete with 1 button joystick, a canadian tire tape recorder to put all my games on and Gorf!

masteen · Post by **masteen** » December 9, 2005, 2:04 pm

BEHOLD! The glory that was the trash 80 coco 2.

I had mine decked out with a 5.25 floppy, a tape backup drive, and even it's own 13 inch TV/monitor. The tape drive was more useful than the floppy drive because all the good games were on cartridge, which is what the fucking floppy connected to. That's some good engineering there!

It was replaced in 8th grade by an Apple 2 GS:

I upgraded this bad boy to ONE WHOLE MEGABYTE of RAM, 3.5 inch floppy, and 2 5.25s, and this weird little gizmo called a mouse

Moonwynd · Post by **Moonwynd** » December 9, 2005, 2:10 pm

My first was in 1982. The Texas Instruments TI99/4A.

http://oldcomputers.net/ti994a.html

I still have it in the attic!

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » December 9, 2005, 2:27 pm

OMG Moonwynd beat me to it.

The Texas Instruments TI-99/4A was a neat little computer that was never really given a chance. It came out somewhere around the same time as the Commodore VIC-20. It originally cost quite a bit, but the price soon fell to the level of competing 8-bits. Most of its software ran from cartridges, called Command Modules. It was the first small personal computer to have a 16-bit processor. It also had a radical silver and black case. And, for awhile, also included a Speech Synth module that sounded remarkably good.
Unfortunately, the TI-99/4A had several strikes against it:

- Bill Cosby was the pitchman. (Is there anything this man won't sell?) Commodore had William Shatner, who was much cooler.

- Used a normal cassette player for storage. This requires fiddling with
cables and volume levels. Commodore's dedicated Datacassette player was much easier to use, and more reliable at writing and reading information.

- Required a large expansion box in order to add memory. Even with expansion, BASIC programs only had 12K for code.

- Was rumored to be very slow. (Turns out it was very slow in BASIC, due to its BASIC being doubly interpreted. But it was much faster at the machine language level.)

Which is too bad. It was a nice little computer that deserved a little more attention.

miir · Post by **miir** » December 9, 2005, 2:34 pm

Hahah, Gorf rocked!

Siji · Post by **Siji** » December 9, 2005, 4:08 pm

Aslanna wrote:I think I used QEdit as my editor!

I still use Qedit. No, seriously.

QEdit Advanced v3.0
Copyright (C) 1985-1993 SemWare Corp.

And several Norton Utilities 8.0 (1994) dos utilities.

Ashur · Post by **Ashur** » December 9, 2005, 7:14 pm

Back in 1981 I used a paper terminal to connect to Bell Labs to play Adventure. It looked like a typewriter with an acoustic coupler on it. You would dial the phone, enter your access code and then insert the reciever into the coupler, then the paper would come to life like a printer and you'd get your mainframe login prompt. I couldn't locate a picture of one.

That was my first adventure into remote computing. Graduated to the BBS scene with Ataris and then landed a job with CompuServe in 1993. That was the life - free internet when it was booming.

And yeah, the old PPN (program project number) that they assigned customers was a shitty thing to remember. I ca still remember mine because it was easy and I had it so long. 7006,201. That made my email address 7006.201@compuserve.com, which sucked because I found out the emailaddress for Feedback, CompuServe's Customer Service was 7006.101.

I knew that email address was ou biggest killer and that AOL would win through marketing on that ploy alone. I got to be part of the project to bring POP Mail to CompuServe and worked there until WorldCom bought them and sold the online service to AOL. Then was hired by thier Network division and worked in Marketing for electronic messaging products.

Post by **Sylvus** » December 10, 2005, 5:07 am

Ashur? Or is it Methuselah?

Sylvos · Post by **Sylvos** » December 10, 2005, 6:39 am

Sylvus wrote:Ashur? Or is it Methuselah?

lol
Ancientburn?

Arborealus · Post by **Arborealus** » December 10, 2005, 8:27 am

Aight teh PET and Modem:

Tenuvil · Post by **Tenuvil** » December 10, 2005, 2:55 pm

Couldn't find pictures but my first PC was the CompuAdd 212, 12 mhz 286, EGA graphics, 4 mb RAM, 5.25 floppy, 20 mb hard disk. It was like $1500 in 1986. The drive alone was $499! Apparently IDE drives were new and in very short supply compared to the old MFM/RLL drives. I ended up having to pirate a DOS 4.01 diskette to get the thing to boot. Remember back then you could not buy DOS without a computer, and they wanted an additional $150 for DOS disks...

The salesman assured me that a 286-12 would be a capable machine for years to come. About eight months later Microsoft released Windows/386 which broke the 640k barrier via the superior memory management inherent in the 386 CPU, making 286s obsolete. I found out that the thing wasn't upgradeable, completely proprietary case/motherboard design...which led me to the almighty Computer Faires and building your own PC.