I first used the internet in at least 1999 when I started secondary school. I may have used it before then at primary school (though probably not) or at home, I can't remember.
Thinking back, it's strange knowing that we had to 'ration' our time on the internet, so we didn't hog the phoneline or waste too much money waiting an hour for a page to load :eek:
Can't remember my first internet provider, but I know I had AOL quite early on, hated waiting for it to dial (and I seem to remember it often failed at dialing too which was annoying), and the AOL browser was awful too, if only I knew back then that I didn't have to use it.
This thread is bringing back some memories . We started off with AOL in 1999, then we went to Freeserve, then BTclick (pay per minute). In 2001 we upgraded to BT Anytime and I thought it was the best thing ever as it was the summer holidays and I was no longer restricted to 30 minutes a week online! Got broadband in 2004, I think we got a HomeHub in 2007.
I mainly went on Five and Steps' websites when I first got the internet (I used to search for 'Five' on all the search engines to look at everything the internet had to offer on the subject!) as well as the bored.com sites and Neopets. I flirted with chatrooms (MSN chatrooms and teenchat) though my parents weren't keen on me doing that! Dailyconfession.com was another site I used to visit every day, and I had a Geocities site for a while, too.
I used to go on the Steps official site and many of their fansites.
Our first PC was one of those Tiny packages in 1997. Are Tiny still in existence?
We had a dial up connection which blocked the phoneline and cost hundreds every quarter.
It had a 19" screen but because it was old style the back was massive.
I signed up for a hotmail account which I still use to this day.
Didn't they use to have things called discussion groups which were attached to your email?
first went online in the 80's on my BBCb using an acustic coupler to dialup text based bulletin boards..
the first time I used the "internet" really was in I think 1990 or 1991 with pipex.... The internet is a totally difrent beast now than what it was then. there was no web serch engines just directory services.
the first search engine was called the world wide wob worm and it searched for your keyworrds and displayed results as it found them... nothing in the way of indexing or relivence.
i remember very well the first time i used google and was amazed at its speed and accuracy..
Hmmm about 98 with freeserve. I had a phone cable about 5 metres long that i had to plug in to dial up. I used to be allowed 30 minutes a day or something. Finally got Telewest around 2000 though!
I'm sure there were packages in the 1990s allowing people to use the internet without running up a massive telephone bill.
Not that I recall. The cheapest was 1/2p per minute. Plus, you had to put up with the fact that your mother would be irate that she was "missing her calls" while you were on the internet.
My homepage used to be 800go.com which I thought was just amazing. Ask Jeeves was brilliant and the invention of the MP3 format was groundbreaking...you could download a whole single in about 15 minutes!
This thread brings back memories! Does anybody remember Microsoft Chat? Was sort of an early MSN from what I remember, and the conversations appeared as like a comic strip. We never had the internet on our home computer when we had this programe, so I always just used it for that purpose- to create my own cartoon comic strips:rolleyes::D
Started using the internet in around 98 on my auntie's work laptop whenever we went to hers or she came round ours for a girlie night with my mother.. used to frequent the official Star Trek and Harry Potter sites mainly until I was around 13!
Our first PC was one of those Tiny packages in 1997. Are Tiny still in existence?
We had a dial up connection which blocked the phoneline and cost hundreds every quarter.
It had a 19" screen but because it was old style the back was massive.
I signed up for a hotmail account which I still use to this day.
Didn't they use to have things called discussion groups which were attached to your email?
Tiny went into administration a few years ago and was bought by it's rival Time Computers (part of the larger Granville Technologies Group). They over stretched themselves though launching a nationwide chain of computer shops called The Computer Shop (how original), they themselves went out of business in 2005. The asset were sold off and the Time name is now used by a new company calling themselves Time UK (management buy out if I remember).
Tiny is now the name of a small ISP as well but they have nothing to do with the original Tiny.
Mine was the first computer in the house with a modem, so I decided to have a go at linking up to the 'net to see what all the fuss was about.
Started with AOL as there was a free disc in a computer magazine...I think a lot of us started that way! Good old dial up that we couldnt use until after 6pm, and then we had to restrict how long we were allowed to be on there. A lot of times I remember we didnt have a lot of choice how long we were on there, as the connection would break and we couldnt get back on.
We also used Freeserve at one point, and another one called Eurobell. We finally ended up with BT and remain with them to this day - we got broadband about four years ago now - and I'm still amazed you can download a movie - a whole MOVIE in less than an hour!!! I once waited two days to download a whole series of Top Gear!
Mine was the first computer in the house with a modem, so I decided to have a go at linking up to the 'net to see what all the fuss was about.
Started with AOL as there was a free disc in a computer magazine...I think a lot of us started that way! Good old dial up that we couldnt use until after 6pm, and then we had to restrict how long we were allowed to be on there. A lot of times I remember we didnt have a lot of choice how long we were on there, as the connection would break and we couldnt get back on.
We also used Freeserve at one point, and another one called Eurobell. We finally ended up with BT and remain with them to this day - we got broadband about four years ago now - and I'm still amazed you can download a movie - a whole MOVIE in less than an hour!!! I once waited two days to download a whole series of Top Gear!
I forgot about that bit in bold. It was 8p/per minute before 6pm and 1p per minute afterwards.
When the first "flat fee" access came out, you had to disconnect after 59 minutes, otherwise it wasn't "free" at all. It completely messed up your downloads, which as you said, would take a matter of days unless...you used a "download accellerator"!
Oh, and if you had a website, you were nobody unless you knew how to do frames, midi files that played when the page loaded and if you were really clever, you might even have a perl based flatfile guestbook running in your cgi bin! :eek:
[QUOTE=classixuk;46880931]Not that I recall. The cheapest was 1/2p per minute. Plus, you had to put up with the fact that your mother would be irate that she was "missing her calls" while you were on the internet.
My homepage used to be 800go.com which I thought was just amazing. Ask Jeeves was brilliant and the invention of the MP3 format was groundbreaking...you could download a whole single in about 15 minutes!
[/QUOTE]
I'm sure the deal I had with Telewest in 1999 allowed unlimited internet access in return for renting the second telephone line. It's 11 years ago and I didn't keep any old bills so I can't say for certain.
When they introduced broadband in 2001, it cost only a little more than the second phone line so I went for it. 512k might not be much today but it was a big improvement back then.
i was on freeserve around 98 i think,went on chat rooms mostly as they didn't take time to load,56k modem,i haven't been on a chat room for years.
it used to jsut be about porn...good to see things haven't changed:D
1990 or 1991 with Demon. Dial-up when (illegal) 28,800 bps modems were just comming in . Only a National call rate number at approx around 4p a minute for the phone call. 0845 local call numbers came later.
The 1980s weren't long after the 1960s and that wasn't long after the second world war so I doubt if computers had even been invented then. I think computers started in the 1990s and then Google invented the internet which is where we are now.
Mine was the first computer in the house with a modem, so I decided to have a go at linking up to the 'net to see what all the fuss was about.
Started with AOL as there was a free disc in a computer magazine...I think a lot of us started that way! Good old dial up that we couldnt use until after 6pm, and then we had to restrict how long we were allowed to be on there. A lot of times I remember we didnt have a lot of choice how long we were on there, as the connection would break and we couldnt get back on.
We also used Freeserve at one point, and another one called Eurobell. We finally ended up with BT and remain with them to this day - we got broadband about four years ago now - and I'm still amazed you can download a movie - a whole MOVIE in less than an hour!!! I once waited two days to download a whole series of Top Gear!
Dial Up? Those were the days!!!:D
You post just makes me remember how bad it was in the late 1990s, whenever you tried to phone anybody on their landline & it was constantly engaged.:mad:
For me it was Sept/Oct 1996 when I started Higher Education at City College in Norwich. In the computer room they had 6 out of about 40 or so PCs connected to ye olde dial uppe. You had to put your name on a booking list to use it up to 2 hours.
Wow - just realised it's now 10 years since I have had a home PC and an internet connection. :eek:
Comments
Scotnet?
First time was 95 at college
Thinking back, it's strange knowing that we had to 'ration' our time on the internet, so we didn't hog the phoneline or waste too much money waiting an hour for a page to load :eek:
Can't remember my first internet provider, but I know I had AOL quite early on, hated waiting for it to dial (and I seem to remember it often failed at dialing too which was annoying), and the AOL browser was awful too, if only I knew back then that I didn't have to use it.
We had a dial up connection which blocked the phoneline and cost hundreds every quarter.
It had a 19" screen but because it was old style the back was massive.
I signed up for a hotmail account which I still use to this day.
Didn't they use to have things called discussion groups which were attached to your email?
the first time I used the "internet" really was in I think 1990 or 1991 with pipex.... The internet is a totally difrent beast now than what it was then. there was no web serch engines just directory services.
the first search engine was called the world wide wob worm and it searched for your keyworrds and displayed results as it found them... nothing in the way of indexing or relivence.
i remember very well the first time i used google and was amazed at its speed and accuracy..
http://web.archive.org/web/19990125084553/alpha.google.com/
for the older net addicts you will remember the above site very well !!
God, it was so slow!!
Not that I recall. The cheapest was 1/2p per minute. Plus, you had to put up with the fact that your mother would be irate that she was "missing her calls" while you were on the internet.
My homepage used to be 800go.com which I thought was just amazing. Ask Jeeves was brilliant and the invention of the MP3 format was groundbreaking...you could download a whole single in about 15 minutes!
Started using the internet in around 98 on my auntie's work laptop whenever we went to hers or she came round ours for a girlie night with my mother.. used to frequent the official Star Trek and Harry Potter sites mainly until I was around 13!
Tiny went into administration a few years ago and was bought by it's rival Time Computers (part of the larger Granville Technologies Group). They over stretched themselves though launching a nationwide chain of computer shops called The Computer Shop (how original), they themselves went out of business in 2005. The asset were sold off and the Time name is now used by a new company calling themselves Time UK (management buy out if I remember).
Tiny is now the name of a small ISP as well but they have nothing to do with the original Tiny.
Mine was the first computer in the house with a modem, so I decided to have a go at linking up to the 'net to see what all the fuss was about.
Started with AOL as there was a free disc in a computer magazine...I think a lot of us started that way! Good old dial up that we couldnt use until after 6pm, and then we had to restrict how long we were allowed to be on there. A lot of times I remember we didnt have a lot of choice how long we were on there, as the connection would break and we couldnt get back on.
We also used Freeserve at one point, and another one called Eurobell. We finally ended up with BT and remain with them to this day - we got broadband about four years ago now - and I'm still amazed you can download a movie - a whole MOVIE in less than an hour!!! I once waited two days to download a whole series of Top Gear!
I forgot about that bit in bold. It was 8p/per minute before 6pm and 1p per minute afterwards.
When the first "flat fee" access came out, you had to disconnect after 59 minutes, otherwise it wasn't "free" at all. It completely messed up your downloads, which as you said, would take a matter of days unless...you used a "download accellerator"!
Oh, and if you had a website, you were nobody unless you knew how to do frames, midi files that played when the page loaded and if you were really clever, you might even have a perl based flatfile guestbook running in your cgi bin! :eek:
My homepage used to be 800go.com which I thought was just amazing. Ask Jeeves was brilliant and the invention of the MP3 format was groundbreaking...you could download a whole single in about 15 minutes!
I'm sure the deal I had with Telewest in 1999 allowed unlimited internet access in return for renting the second telephone line. It's 11 years ago and I didn't keep any old bills so I can't say for certain.
When they introduced broadband in 2001, it cost only a little more than the second phone line so I went for it. 512k might not be much today but it was a big improvement back then.
it used to jsut be about porn...good to see things haven't changed:D
1990 or 1991 with Demon. Dial-up when (illegal) 28,800 bps modems were just comming in . Only a National call rate number at approx around 4p a minute for the phone call. 0845 local call numbers came later.
I thought that Microsoft invented the Internet
No, Tim Berners-Lee invented the internet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee
http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/
Dial Up? Those were the days!!!:D
You post just makes me remember how bad it was in the late 1990s, whenever you tried to phone anybody on their landline & it was constantly engaged.:mad:
Wow - just realised it's now 10 years since I have had a home PC and an internet connection. :eek:
I know it's hard to understand these days, but the web != the internet.
I had a free shell account from some new york provider in 1991.. used it mostly for email, ftp, and irc.