Share in the comments how your journey with the Internet has started. Feel free to share some screenshots as well!
Every participant of April's Challenge gets 100 bonus points, a unique "Nostalgia" badge, and some priceless opportunity to share & explore other's memories. Sometimes we can be shocked how much time has passed since we've started our vintage PC Computer & tried to connect with the world for the very first time! π
Let me start with my school memory of the late 2000's. It is a Polish, local predecessor of the modern-era social media platforms, Epuls. It was a true thing back in 2007-2008. Despite a quick fall and disappearance in favor of Facebook, the majority of Polish kids born in the late 90's still gonna remember this website very well!
Well, in my early Internet days with not as many popular websites as available today and slow connections, I used it mainly for two purposes email (Hotmail and their 2MB of storage π) and gaming with friends/classmates. Mainly Doom or Duke Nukem.
And last but not least Mosaic was the browser of choice then became Netscape:
My 1st ever interaction with a computer was when I was forced to buy one for my then-day job in the newspaper distribution industry, back in 1995: an i386, it was a beast at the time!
I only used it for Lotus 1-2-3 and nothing else...I was too scared to break it or accidentally wipe it π€£ but not long after, I bought a 56k modem and hooked up my parents' telephone line, much to their dismay and a sudden increase in their telephone bill! The sounds that thing made when connecting...I do NOT miss that, hahaha!
Playing online games never really was my thing and still isn't, but the first game I recall downloading was Delta Force: Land Warrior - I LOVED that game, so much so that I kept a copy and eventually installed it again so that my son could play, more than 20 years later! π
Oh my, Nostalgia! Where should I start? OK, it's only going to be about the web, or maybe the Internet? I did start with a Spectrum sometime around 1986, but that doesn't count, as it was only connected to a cassette player π
Internet started for me in 1991, with a very interesting class of computer communications. So many new technologies! One of my first feats was sending an email to the teacher impersonating the president of the US. He was not impressed, the lab was a closed network, he must have looked at the originating IP, and starred immediately at me. Caught in the act πππ
In the following semester, another teacher told us that the future would be something called WWW. We were not impressed π€£
I finished University in 1993. I had to have an internship, which was mandatory at the time. Switched to Lisbon, and where I landed it was pretty clear: the future was gopher! www? nahhh!
I then went to the Communications Regulator in Portugal. Pretty impressive times, and Portugal was temporarily the second country with the biggest mobile penetration in Europe! Why? Because our fixed lines were so bad! The worst part there? When Management determined that we should disconnect from the Internet! Probably the only institution/organization that I know that did such a thing. A story so bad that I could write a book about it!
And this was all more than 25 years ago. Even before the first page registered by the Internet Archive:
https://web.archive.org/web/19960510144231/http://www.microsoft.com/ie/IE.HTM
Oh boy! The good thing about getting old is, that you remember exactly what you did 30 years ago.
In my case, the first touchpoint with the internet was at the University of Salzburg (I pretended to study Computer) Science) in 1992. We were playing with bleeding-edge technology in the WWW building the homepage for the university. If the following pic looks familiar to you, then I'm afraid you are about my age!
I also recall that our professor was pushing hard to get this done, to do "real" stuff again! π
Hi Team,
I remember my beginnings online in the early 2000s in Poland.
I was about 12 years old at the time. My parents installed one of the first network accesses in the housing estate where I lived - I remember the dizzying 128 kbps and weekend game downloads. Then a friend who had a 2X speed CD burner would come over to my home and we would burn those games to discs using the memorable Nero Burning Rom software. Later there was illegal trading on the estate with my friends π€£.
In those days with friends I played an On-Line game called RedDragon, which was available in Poland and the Czech Republic. The gameplay in Red Dragon online takes place in a fantastic world inhabited by eleven playable races, which differ in their difficulty to lead. Thus, there are different factions in the game, such as humans, elves and dwarves, each with its own unique characteristics and units. The player's task is to develop his state by managing its economy, territorial expansion often requiring fighting battles. An important part of Red Dragon is the association of principalities into coalitions.
A while later I became interested in making websites and I made my first website at the age of 13 still based on Joomla CMS. I remember that this CMS did not require too much knowledge of programming. And so it went on:)
Radek
Real users used text-based IRC in the Linux shell (for instance Irssi)
Wow! It hasn't been a long time ago, but I started in approximately 2004 or 2005, I remember creating my first and unique @hotmail.com account.
After creating my first email account, I started using the MSN chat app on Windows XP. I think that was the most remote idea I've had about starting the WWW.
In the 3 next years, I started to study programming with VB6.0 .NET.
I first became involved with computers in the mid-1980s when I was a university student, but I remember being introduced to the Internet around 1995. What left an impression on me was a BBS called newsgroup (Usenet). We researched work issues (comp.*) and talked about hobbies (rec.*).
In retrospect, newsgroups may have been the starting point for SNS.
I remember using an OS/2 PC to access newsgroups at the time.
I found a screenshot for os/2. nostalgic.
EDIT: November 2020 wow this really blew up over the years. I have made a direct download available here https://freesound.org/people/wtermini/sounds/546450/ enjoy Also back in 2012 a wonderful poster was made by Oona RΓ€isΓ€nen http://www.windytan.com/2012/11/the-sound-of-dialup-pictured.html ...
This reminds me of the days back in High school where we would use AOL Instant Messenger (AIM)
We used this right up until it was blocked and we then started to use AIM Express!
those were the days! if you want to reminisce, check out the time machine:https://archive.org/web/
Using Windows 95 in 1996 and playing a game called Cyberia!
And later Starcraft and Starcraft Broodwar. Back when "expansions" were full games!
Going to gamefaqs.com as if I were reading the daily paper.
Going to spacejam.com/1996/jam.htm
Which is up and running and hasn't changed at all!
My first experience was on an Amstrad pc1512 with 512 Ko of Ram and essentially for playing double dragon !
Afterwards, I assembled my first pc at 16 years old with the last available os "win98" and my 1st internet connection 56kb with an AOL offer with 50 free hours !!
Good to back to basics : AOL Instant Messenger like you @ChadTurner , caramail chat, winamp, age of empires and all my divx with all existing decoders. I remember my mum in fury because she wasn't able to make a call.
And my story has started in 1990, when my mother purchased our first personal computer (PC) -> IBM x286. Same as first @AntonioSousa 's computer - had 20MB of disk. So the decision was either to install Windows 3.11 with 10 floppy disks or keep running MS-DOS with few games.
The first game I recall was of course prince of persia!
And many many others.. Nevertheless, I already knew computers are my future - I was 4 years old then! Six years later in 1996, I took the first computer and internet training and connected first time to the internet! The first browser was IE 3.0!
I still remember the excitement of searching for anything you can imagine using different search engines like yahoo.com, altavista.com, Infoseek, or MSN. When I write this, I think I have the same excitement using Chat GPT! Do you as well?
Hahahah,
Nostalgic:
Started with Caramail and Messenger:
I remember when want to use internet at home, no Wifi available, Fix phone should be unplugged to use the cable in the PC.
New generation dont know this.
π
Nostalgia π
I started with MSN messenger for chatting and red alert as a daily game π
My Nostalgia will start with before Internet was used at home β Tandy 1000 EX. This will start my love with computers. My dad told my mom he needs to read the instructions before we setup. Did my mom and I listen? No way!
I got addicted to games real quick that were from Sierra like Kings Quest, Police Quest and Space Quest. Look at those graphics.
My first interaction with the Internet was in college and sending emails to other people at colleges or looking up different items on the Internet. Amazing how far we have come!
1986?
Atari 800XL with a Zenith Mono monitor, Epson FX-85 printer, and a 300 baud modem that I'd dial to various BBS. compuserve.com email address. No hard drive - software was loaded from 5-1/4" floppy disk.
Well, I hadn't have the privilege of experience the early days of the Internet, so my nostalgia is quite short, when compared to so many historical events here π
My first experience was with the old Hotmail, when I created my first email account at school!
As with many here, all things back then revolved around fun & games (literally!), and here in Portugal a really popular website was Jogos10 ("Games10"):
And, of course, Miniclip:
Didn't have the opportunity to use Internet that time but had a big fat computer in the house where I would randomly play games and watch videos. It started from this clippy. then there was sheep.exe. MS paint was another wonder for me and never ending fun with talk it. Also who else loved playing the windows version of DX- Ball?
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