How long have you been 'connected'?

[Mark]

While clearing out a pile of professional computing mags from the early-mid 90s (Dr. Dobbs Journal mostly), I found a 'Compuserve Guide to Getting Online' dated circa February 1996. I'm not sure if I actually 'got online' then or before that, but its still 12 years ago. I've been 'connected' in some way or other almost without interruption since then. Scary. :shocked:

So, when did you start your online presence, be it Compuserve/AOL, some dial-in BBS or MMORPG system (remember those?), or even the internet? Can you remember what it was that got you hooked?

[Haly]

It was late 97-98 iirc. Although that was at Swansea Uni while my Dad was working. Mainly looked at x-files sites and poked about with hotmail and mailing lists.
Didn't have the internet at home until a couple of years after that.

[kaiowas]

When I started uni in Sept 95 internet was available in all the computer labs and I spent far too long using it. Didn't have my own PC until after I was working sometime in 99 though.

[Davey_Pitch]

When I started Uni in Sept 97. Had my own computer at home but it wasn't online at that point. Can't really imagine what it would be like without an internet connection any more. Scary thought!

[petemc]

Since about 95 too when they got it at school. We were allowed a few minutes to surf each day due to costs. I remember the coolness of emailing a guy in Pennsylvania to discuss my homework. The herding instinct of penguins :D Things were so new back then. We had to make our own under-construction gifs because we couldn't find any. We built the schools website for fun. Grey was the default background colour.

[Mark]

Grey was the only background colour, at least for a while. With black text and blue underlined hyperlinks. You were lucky if you found one .gif on a page. Pages with several were a real revelation (until you realised just how long they took to load).

[petemc]

Hehe :D Times New Roman all over the shop.

[Feek]

100576,347 was my Compuserve ID but I was online before then via Micronet 800 which was part of the Prestel system. I joined Micronet in around 1984.

*90#

[Tak]

I got my first PC in 1999 but I never used the internet until I moved in with Mic in 2001-2002.
My first online ID was kp_nuts2000 which is still my yahoo email account. I then joined The Castle of Fun which is a online roleplaying forum (think D&D meets Loony Toons) and used the name Takhisis which has been my primary name ever since :)

[Mark]

@Feek - Yup, I'd completely forgotten about Prestel and its *90# madness until someone else reminded me. Didn't use it much but the reminder brought back the memories of watching the text slowly appear on the screen as each page (1K bytes or less) downloaded.

[Goose]

Around 2001, I think. I guess that makes me e-young (which is better than being an e-OAP ;) ).

[Will]

I remember at school they had ISDN!!!!1111 we were connected then in my early teens so 93-94ish. At home we had a good old 9600baud modem that we used to use on BBS and I believe some form of Netscape - I can't for the life of me remember who we dialed up with... possibly ATT or Hemscot - probably around 95. I started playing quake online in 97ish.

[Joe 90]

think it must of been around 97 when i was about 11/12 - a young newb, caught in the web of AOL. had a US robotics 56k modem ;D
http://www.marksweb.co.uk/images/uploads/modem.gif

[Del Lardo]

School had an internet connection in the library from around '95 but it was hardly ever used as it was heavily cencored. Even the BMW website set alarm bells off!

Got a home connection in '97 from AOL back in the good old days where BT would charge 1.5p/minute for the call and AOL would tak another 1.5p/minute on top of the £14.99/month charge. I was allowed 2 hours access a week before I had to start paying my parents and remember what a revelation it was when they introudced the 0800 numbers with fixed cost of £14.99/month. If anything it was a bigger revalation than my first 512k connection with NTL which was pretty special!

[Matblack]

I started with a 9600 baud USRobotics modem, this was pre-web and I was using BBS sites, you used to dial into them directly and they were effectively forums, the one I remember distinctly was 'The Wacky Carrot' board which I believe was run locally. Progressed through 14,400, 28,000, 36,000 baud to 56k.

When I moved out of home I got 512kb BB and a whole new world opened up :)

MB

[Pumpkinstew]

It was probably sometime in a 1996 when I plugged in a modem and 'surfed the web' for the first time at home.
It tied up the phoneline of course so the amount of phonecalls trying to sell us double glazing instantly fell to zero as all they got was the engaged tone.
I can still hear the screechy noises it made when it connected. :)

[petemc]

Baud. I miss that term :)

[Matblack]

The first time I used dial-up (the internet wouldn't be around for a good while yet) was on one of these, http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=19 it had a whopping 20mb hard dive and my father used it to write a program for his business which I believe was used on the same machine for about 15 years.

I remember being stunned by the power at the time and playing endlessly with Lotus123 doing graphs and stuff, despite not having the power of the Atari ST I had I somehow knew that PC was the way forward and didn't buy another games machine, from there on it was only PCs for me.

MB

[Desmo]

I had a 9600 baud modem for my Amiga 500 so that was my first outing into the unknown. After that it would have been my first proper PC with a 56k modem. Then I had ISDN installed in my bedroom and then on to ADSL.

[Del Lardo]

despite not having the power of the Atari ST I had I somehow knew that PC was the way forward and didn't buy another games machine, from there on it was only PCs for me.

MB


I had the same realisation around 1992 when I was given the choice of getting an external HDD for my Atari ST or a family PC. Even at 11 years of age the choice was an easy one and a 486 SX25 with 4MB RAM and 170mb HDD arrived soon after. I was really jealous when my best mate got a 486 DX40 with 4MB RAM and a 250mb HDD a month later ;D

[Flibster]

Amiga 1000 with a 256k upgrade and a 2400kbps modem. :D

Still had access to the BBS *although it changed to a website* up until 2000..... Then it shut down. :(

[Nutcase]

I messed briefly with BBS things on the BBC's in the early/mid 90's. First time on the 'net I'm not sure. Don't remember if we had it at school or not, but my Dad bought a 486SX25 when they were brand spanking new, and bought a modem for it, so about that time I guess.

[Desmo]

I remember my first proper PC having a 40MB hard drive ;D

[Nutcase]

Our first PC came with a massive 120mb drive, but I still have the 20mb hard drive for the Beebs :) With its own case, and you have to manually tell the head to park :cool:

[jmc41]

early '98, but didn't really start using it regularly until mid-99, GCSE time :s
Must have been on the dell p133 back then, a huge upgrade from the 286 :D

[Mark]

I just found a receipt for an old PIII 600MHz laptop I had. That's before the company went bust while it was away being fixed and I had to go chasing after the administrator and insurers to recover the loss. Total price - £2300 :shocked: :shocked:

I paid £850-ish for a T7700 laptop with 4GB RAM last week. :/

[killerkebab]

Had it around '98, and had absolutely zero interest in it. Fast forward to moving to France in 2001, AOL subscription, and the discovery that a game called Deus Ex had a multiplayer patch released for it...

... that was the end of that, and six months later my dad had to get us ADSL (one of the first towns in the whole of France to get hooked up, Will should understand if he remembers where I'm from :D) because of an astronomical phone bill incurred by spending something close to 100 hours on the telephone every month...

[Garp]

Would have been around '97 when I went to college. Parents got it at home not long after Freeserve came to exist, had to use their machine to access it though so that meant I didn't do online gaming and stuff until much later.

[Dr. Z]

I had dialup at home in 1996/7 but had a T1 in 1992/3 when we lived in London. I think I was one of the first people to get a 56k modem and remember the great days of paying Demon to access the internet before ic24, x-stream, redhotant and madasafish came along... It was about then that my parents got completely fed up of the phone being engaged all of the time and so we had NTL broadband put in pretty much as soon as it came out.

[leowyatt]

I remember my first proper PC having a 40MB hard drive ;D

mine had 20MB and a 5 1/4" floppy drive :p

I came online in around 1995 at school, home probably weeks after and have been online pretty much ever since ;D

[FakeSnake]

A long long time ago!
I moved out of my Parents in around 1987, got my 1st PC not long after that.
Previously had a range of Spectrums, Atari ST and Falcon.

Got my 1st modem as soon as got my PC, a fantastic 1200baud one!!!
When the BBS I was a member of (dont recall its name!) upgraded to 2400, then 9600 then 14.4k then 28.8k I followed along.
Got a compuserve account about 1990.Then with BTinternet around 1995. Been with BT ever since.

[HollyThirtyFive]

I cant remember exactly when we got the internet but I remember being about 9 perhaps getting to grips with hotmail! So must've been 96ish.
I remember having a thing for "Habbo Hotel" at one point but have no idea what else I did & waiting about 2 hours for each page to load! I think I got hooked as soon as I got msn when I was about 12/13. I remember I wanted something kinda rock n roll, my best friend suggested "hells angels" which I turned into "heavens devil". It is becoming rather embarrassing admitting that is my email at 20 :o

[Treefrog]

Sometime shortly after March '03, cos it was only when I moved here that I got th'intarweb on my PC (Yes, all of it ;D)

[SidewinderINC]

February 1999 :)

got my first PC in about 1992 though when I was 6, got a 486 with windows 3.1 on it, that was awesome. used to play football manager on it as gateshead :p

[LeperousDust]

I don't remember exactly what the "internet" was really like back then as i didn't really use it much apart from school work research etc... It was around late 97 (probably september around start of school). Some modem that wasn't top spec (whats the one below 56k?). Good old days of netscape navigator! None of this IE3 crap! We started it right too, dad got a separate line installed so i couldn't tie the phone line up :D But heckled me ever 10 minutes to get off cause it cost so much :p. A year or so later we got unlimited dial up for £10 a month and it was brill! Then a year or so later (by 2000/2001) we jumped to broadband as i showed it made financial sense (line cost + unlimted dial up was about £3 cheaper than "hi-speed" cable broadband!).

I've been online ever since, its weird to think i never really used to "use" the internet, it was pretty useless! Now computers don't really do much without! Haha

[lostkat]

1998, because I's just passed my driving test. We had a 56k modem, Dad signed up to Which Online and the computer (only one in the house) was in the conservatory. Spent an absolute FORTUNE on phone bills until we got one that was free in the evenings and eventually one that was free all day. When I went to Uni, I had no internet for the first year (halls), but then I had a had freeserve dial-up, then AOL in our student house. I was only allowed to use it after 10pm as my psycho housemate went MENTAL if I was on there at any other time, even if noone was expecting a call. She used to pick the phone up for no reason other than to disconnect me. Mum & Dad didn't even get broadband until about 2002 :D

[Pickers]

I was a proud owner of a 28.8kps modem Xmas 1995 and was connected through compuserve (I can still hear the woman saying "welcome to compuserve" when you logged in). Stuck with dial up for years and didn't get broadband until 2004...

[MarcLister]

About October 1997 I think, with Compuserve/AOL. Used to download files for GP2 I think. :)

Then I found sites of pics of Louise Redknapp. :oSome modem that wasn't top spec (whats the one below 56k?).33.3Kb?

Good old days of netscape navigator! None of this IE3 crap!We also used Netscape for a while I think, when we weren't using the rubbish AOL thingy.

[Stan_Lite]

Must have been around 2000ish. I didn't have a PC but ONDigital (later ITV Digital) started a service calle ONNet which allowed you to access the internet through your digibox without a PC. I got the taste for it then and soon got myself a PC and a modem.