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Old 01-25-2013, 07:07 AM
 
Location: Ontario, NY
3,513 posts, read 7,762,799 times
Reputation: 4266

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Quote:
Originally Posted by swagger View Post
If BBSing counts, '89 is when I first went online. I thought the OP specifically asked about the Internet, though.
I thought the subject was specific to the internet too. I was first using the Internet in 1994. I actually got online with Windows 3.1 and a DOS based program. The "browser" was something called Gopher, all text based, wasn't as pretty as Netscape which I used later, but it was very fast even with a dialup modem.

I first got involved with BBS's about 1988. My first modem was 1200 bauds. I never did get involved in services like AOL or Prodigy, my first Internet ISP was Digicon.
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Old 01-25-2013, 09:39 AM
 
Location: Louisiana
494 posts, read 1,607,609 times
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In the 90s for me, when my family got our first computer. Can't remember my age, but I do remember that it was an IBM Aptiva with Windows 3.1. We had LOLAOL at the time
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Old 01-25-2013, 11:07 AM
 
Location: U.S.A.
19,638 posts, read 20,130,445 times
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We got our first home computer around 1987. This of course did not have internet, but we had silly games like summer olympics n whatnot.


I got my first personal computer w/ internet in '98. Can't remember what kind of computer it was, but I was definitely using AOL!
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Old 01-25-2013, 04:16 PM
 
Location: SCW, AZ
8,271 posts, read 13,373,882 times
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Don't know when exactly but it was sometime between Berlin Wall coming down and Pluto no longer being a planet.
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Old 01-27-2013, 01:06 AM
 
1,446 posts, read 4,589,652 times
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First ever Use: Late 1996 at friend's house.

Constant User: September 1997, when I started college.
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Old 01-27-2013, 02:42 AM
 
Location: Upper Midwest
1,873 posts, read 4,400,849 times
Reputation: 1934
In late 1995 or 1996. I was introduced to it during our computer/typing class. Our teacher dedicated an entire class to teaching us about the internet. I think it only lasted one day. Toward the end of class, we were allowed to do an internet search and print off one picture of anything we wanted. First internet search I ever did was for "The Beatles" and the first picture I ever printed off was a picture of three remaining Beatles. (This was during the period that "The Beatles Anthology" was released).

We got internet hooked up in our school's library in 1997. I would spend a couple hours after school just dinking around on it. I'd go in there, print off pictures, mess around. Look up websites of my favorite bands, etc. Some comps had Internet Explorer, some had Netscape.

And I got my first computer w/internet service in 1999. My mom and stepdad bought a pair of Compaq desktops for them and for me. It's now in the closet, unused. It was so state-of-the-art at the time, and now it seems so heavy and bulky. I couldn't imagine hooking up that thing and having it take up so much space. LOL The computer screens were so long in back. Thank God for flatscreen desktops.
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Old 01-27-2013, 02:45 AM
 
Location: Upper Midwest
1,873 posts, read 4,400,849 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by D217 View Post
We got our first home computer around 1987. This of course did not have internet, but we had silly games like summer olympics n whatnot.


I got my first personal computer w/ internet in '98. Can't remember what kind of computer it was, but I was definitely using AOL!
Those old Apple IIs were fun. My fave floppy disk programs were Print Shop and The Oregon Trail game. I now have an updated version of Oregon Trail and it's not the same with the updated graphics and everything. Give me the old floppy disk version back.
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Old 01-29-2013, 01:22 PM
 
1,963 posts, read 5,609,002 times
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interestingly i remember the local LA libraries back in the early/mid 90's used to have access to specialized catalogs/databases of other research institutions available through terminals via VT100 emulation. I guess if you include Telnet that would be "internet" connectivity, although a far cry from the graphical WWW of today.

Also about that time I remember my friend's dad had a dial-up SLIP account at a think-tank and he showed us how to use Gopher via Archie/Veronica to download stock data sets for our history project. We actually tried searching for song files from our favorite grunge bands but only came up with album art, which was a bummer lol. btw, the whole BBS scene was before my teen years but did that rely on TCP/IP protocol?
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Old 01-29-2013, 02:08 PM
 
Location: Western Colorado
12,858 posts, read 16,822,510 times
Reputation: 33508
1997. Windows 3.11 on a Packard Bell machine, dialup at a blazing 14k. I remember the modem dialing, those tones, then connecting to the world of 'teh interwebz'! I still have my first Yahoo email address from way back then.
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Old 01-29-2013, 02:11 PM
 
Location: Mableton, GA USA (NW Atlanta suburb, 4 miles OTP)
11,334 posts, read 26,033,577 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by smokingGun View Post
interestingly i remember the local LA libraries back in the early/mid 90's used to have access to specialized catalogs/databases of other research institutions available through terminals via VT100 emulation. I guess if you include Telnet that would be "internet" connectivity, although a far cry from the graphical WWW of today.
Might be internet if you were logging in between networks. We had DDP connectivity when I worked on mainframes at Unisys, but that was all within the same network even though the machines used were in different parts of the Twin Cities.

Quote:
Also about that time I remember my friend's dad had a dial-up SLIP account at a think-tank and he showed us how to use Gopher via Archie/Veronica to download stock data sets for our history project. We actually tried searching for song files from our favorite grunge bands but only came up with album art, which was a bummer lol. btw, the whole BBS scene was before my teen years but did that rely on TCP/IP protocol?
BBSes used other protocols originally, and most connections were modem-to-modem, not via ethernet, but the ones that exist today often support TCP/IP and can be accessed via telnet.

Messaging networks like Fido, RelayNet, and others used their own tech, and file xfers were usually done with Ward Christensen's Xmodem with 128k packets and then moved to smarter sliding-window variations like Zmodem using 1k packets or larger.
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