I'm putting this in the 90s thread because 98 was really when the internet boom began.  For me, it was spring/summer of 2000 (yeah, it's not in the 90s, but close).  We had NetZero and you didn't need to pay a PENNY for it back then (only to get the software...that's it).  I forget when we switched to Comcast, though.

I used it in H.S. all the time (starting in 1996), but we didn't have a PC and internet in our house until 2001.

I first had access at my job approx. 1995-96 I think.  I got my first pc at home and went on-line there....probably summer of 1997. 

I got first got online back in late 1995 or early 1996. We had AOL. That was back when dial-up seemed fast.

I first sent and used email and used the internet (www) at Ohio State in the fall of 1995. I had a computer in the home and internet access in the summer of 1997, when I was 20 and a junior at Ohio State.

First used it in 1998. We didn't get it at home though until early 2000.

I think the first time I went online was in 1991, when Prodigy was still around. It was very slow and didn't do much for me. The next few times I remember being around 1994 and 1995... but I actually didn't get Internet service until February of 1999.

I think the first time I went online was in 1991, when Prodigy was still around. It was very slow and didn't do much for me. The next few times I remember being around 1994 and 1995... but I actually didn't get Internet service until February of 1999.



Wow, you got on the internet in '91? I'd imagine it was probably a bit different but probably mostly like it is now.

Wow, you got on the internet in '91? I'd imagine it was probably a bit different but probably mostly like it is now.


My best friend's dad had it and he was excited to show me it, so he signed on and I rememebr it taking a LONG time to sign on... when it finally came up it was really slow and I just didn't know quite was to do.. so I logged off  ;D

I think the first time I went online was in 1991, when Prodigy was still around. It was very slow and didn't do much for me. The next few times I remember being around 1994 and 1995... but I actually didn't get Internet service until February of 1999.

I bet it was mainly just a few words and that was all.

My best friend's dad had it and he was excited to show me it, so he signed on and I rememebr it taking a LONG time to sign on... when it finally came up it was really slow and I just didn't know quite was to do.. so I logged off  ;D



;D. Back then DSL was just a dream. Hell, I thought dial-up was slow in 1998, there's no telling how much slower it was in '91.

I first got the internet in late 1995. I still remember my first sign on, lol.

In 1999...

I bet it was mainly just a few words and that was all.


It was actually very similiar to how AOL sorta looked at it's very earliest. The graphics were a bit lame, but it still had an opening page with news and junk and some pictures.

In 1999...


  Ditto...

  First WebTV then a Dell PC in 2000...

  go ;)...

Late 1995 or early '96. We used something called "Blue Sky." It was free, but it used to take forever to connect and was rather prone to abruptly disconnecting. It was also completely text-based; there were no graphics.

That's going back to the real Stone Age of my Internet use.  :D

2002

1999 with a Webtv.
--
Dave.

Spring 2000, with a third party internet service, followed by net-zero and AOL.

If i recall my dad got it around '96 maybe even '95 i think.

1999 with a Webtv.
--
Dave.


  Another WebTV graduate, here...

  My thing with WebTV was the chats at TalkCity.  OMG I spent on obscene amount of time in the chat rooms.  I had to stop because staying up all day and night caused me to be late for work on several occasions...

  I do not even want to look at another chat room for as long as I live...

  groove ;) on

We had dial-up on my dad's old Pentium 1 66MHz - I think it was 28kbps, lol. They installed internet at our school around 1997 or so, but I remember using it from late 1995 or so. I started frequenting message boards, chat rooms.etc about 1998.

Mid 90's with that god aweful annoying buzzing sound thingy.  ::)

   Another WebTV graduate, here...

   My thing with WebTV was the chats at TalkCity.  OMG I spent on obscene amount of time in the chat rooms.  I had to stop because staying up all day and night caused me to be late for work on several occasions...

   I do not even want to look at another chat room for as long as I live...

   groove ;) on



Yep, if I remember right the Talkcity chatroom was on the Webtv homepage. I think I went there a few times. Though I didnt became late for work or anything cause of that.  :D

--
Dave.

The first time I went on was in the Summer of '96 (gosh, that's a full decade now!) at my dad's office. I still remember it really well, I think it was a weekend or something, he'd gone to catch up on some work, and said it was cool if I used one of the main office computers which had the 'net on it.

I was so amazed by it, and 3 hours later, was still glued to it thinking it'd only been 10 minutes, lol. I don't remember exactly what I searched - I think info on movies, songs, some Yellow Page searches and all.

P.S. The first time I heard the word "Internet" was in 1994 I think. I thought something like "Ahh, what's that, who needs it?" Just 2-3 years later, I couldn't live without it. ;D

   Another WebTV graduate, here...

   My thing with WebTV was the chats at TalkCity.  OMG I spent on obscene amount of time in the chat rooms.  I had to stop because staying up all day and night caused me to be late for work on several occasions...

   I do not even want to look at another chat room for as long as I live...

   groove ;) on


When we first got the internet, we also spent obscene amounts of time in chat rooms. I have to thank my brother for that, as he was the first to discover them and quickly addicted. We literally were taking turns at the computer so we could chat, even into the wee hours of the morning. Probably within 2 months, I got sick and tired of it, and now find most chat rooms rather repulsive.

When we first got the internet, we also spent obscene amounts of time in chat rooms. I have to thank my brother for that, as he was the first to discover them and quickly addicted. We literally were taking turns at the computer so we could chat, even into the wee hours of the morning. Probably within 2 months, I got sick and tired of it, and now find most chat rooms rather repulsive.


Yeah, Chat Rooms were such a novelty - I think they were a bit of a fad from about 98 to 01, when many homes were just getting the internet. By about 2003, chat rooms were old news as most people used instant messengers and what-not, or internet dating sites. The only decent chat applet atm is Yahoo Chat, although I personally haven't visited a chatroom in quite awhile.

Yeah, Chat Rooms were such a novelty - I think they were a bit of a fad from about 98 to 01, when many homes were just getting the internet. By about 2003, chat rooms were old news as most people used instant messengers and what-not, or internet dating sites. The only decent chat applet atm is Yahoo Chat, although I personally haven't visited a chatroom in quite awhile.


Yeah, things seem to have changed a lot. Once in awhile I'll go in them for laughs, and the people that hang in there just seem so souless.

When we first got the internet, we also spent obscene amounts of time in chat rooms. I have to thank my brother for that, as he was the first to discover them and quickly addicted. We literally were taking turns at the computer so we could chat, even into the wee hours of the morning. Probably within 2 months, I got sick and tired of it, and now find most chat rooms rather repulsive.


  Yeah, repulsive is right.  And they were very addicting...

  I actually met a woman in "real time" after a couple of months of chatting, e-mailing and phone calls.  So, I guess it wasn't all bad... 

  Remember this..?

  a/s/l? a/s/l? a/s/l? a/s/l? a/s/l? a/s/l? a/s/l? a/s/l? a/s/l? a/s/l? a/s/l? a/s/l...? groove ;) on...

   Yeah, repulsive is right.  And they were very addicting...

   I actually met a woman in "real time" after a couple of months of chatting, e-mailing and phone calls.  So, I guess it wasn't all bad... 

   Remember this..?

   a/s/l? a/s/l? a/s/l? a/s/l? a/s/l? a/s/l? a/s/l? a/s/l? a/s/l? a/s/l? a/s/l? a/s/l...? groove ;) on...


lol, age, sex, location - be damned I say  ;D

I actually met 2 people through online connections. Both ended up being relationships in real life (and one still is).

April 1996, with MSN ($30 a month for 20 hours of access, I believe, then $2.50 or something ridiculous like that for each additional hour).

Eventually they did away with the time limit, and I was free to waste tons of time in MSN's Hockey Chat.

I finally got my Webtv hooked up, 1 or 2 days after christmas 1998. The first 2 or so months, absolutely blew me away.

   Another WebTV graduate, here...

   My thing with WebTV was the chats at TalkCity.  OMG I spent on obscene amount of time in the chat rooms.  I had to stop because staying up all day and night caused me to be late for work on several occasions...

   I do not even want to look at another chat room for as long as I live...

   groove ;) on


Lol, I can relate to the all-nighters in chat rooms. I was very much obsessed with it, for the first 2 or so months.

We got our first home PC in 1997, and then the internet in either late '99 or early 2000 - not sure!

I remember going to New Jersey to stay with a friend for a couple weeks in '99 when I was 15 and I really started to get clued up on it then - I had never seen aol or yahoo messenger before then. I was fascinated by the way it all worked - I was desperate to get the net to talk to people all over the world!

This thread has been done before on this board:

http://www.inthe00s.com/index.php/topic,16969.0.html

Here's what I wrote on this topic back then:

"The first time I ever used the Internet was in the second half of 1995. It was to look up the official web site of the then-current movie Toy Story, www.toystory.com. I was going through an 80s nostalgia phase at the time, so the first few sites I looked up after that were fan sites for 80s cartoons and tv shows, like 'Transformers' and 'Airwolf'. After a while, though, I realized that there was a whole load of porn on the Internet. So pretty soon, I was mostly using it to do searches for naked pictures of Jenny McCarthy!  ;D"

I first had the Internet installed in my house back in '96... wow, I can't believe it's been ten years! I remember the original inthe80s.com site being one of the first web sites where I became an active member back in 1997...

Yeah, things seem to have changed a lot. Once in awhile I'll go in them for laughs, and the people that hang in there just seem so souless.


It's fun playing games with peoples' minds.  :D ;)

96er here too. Must've been the boom year!

By the way, the world wide web just turned 15 years old today.

http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,57013,00.html

For me, it would be somewhere around 1982, when the company my mom worked for first hooked up with ARPANET (I spent a lot of free time writing programs and messing around on the terminals and mainframe).

About a year later, I worked for a computer store, and they had accounts to both CompuServe and The Source that we would access on our spare time.

In 1986, I first started to use Q-Link, the direct fore-runner of AOL.

In 1988, I first started to access BBS services, and participated in FIDONet.

In 1990, I ran my first BBS, and provided FIDONet access (along with several other net services).

In 1995, I worked with a BBS which got an Archie connection to "The Internet".

In 1996, I first accessed the "World Wide Web" Internet.

So take your pick, most of those could be considered "first".

First used the Internet at school around 1995.

Got WebTV in 1998

Got Internet through the PC in 2000.

I got first got online back in late 1995 or early 1996. We had AOL. That was back when dial-up seemed fast.


:o You mean it's *not* fast? I think 56kbps is pretty swell.

:o You mean it's *not* fast? I think 56kbps is pretty swell.


I don't know if you're serious...

but back in the day few people had problems with Dial up being too slow...this was before widespread Java graphics, high-res images, fancy graphics, downloadable sound and video clips/streams, Napster and other file sharing clients...online gaming was still for nerds...Good ol' days.

I don't know if you're serious...

but back in the day few people had problems with Dial up being too slow...this was before widespread Java graphics, high-res images, fancy graphics, downloadable sound and video clips/streams, Napster and other file sharing clients...online gaming was still for nerds...Good ol' days.


It's true, because of the advanced graphics and extra data being transferred, 56k can be extrememly slow in today's www market. Even in 1999, it was nearly unbearable, but we got through it for two years before going wireless in 2001 and then later getting cable, and
now DSL.

It's true, because of the advanced graphics and extra data being transferred, 56k can be extrememly slow in today's www market. Even in 1999, it was nearly unbearable, but we got through it for two years before going wireless in 2001 and then later getting cable, and
now DSL.


I live out of range for DSL or any highspeed internet by 1 mile, oh well this dial up is better then nothing, however my cousin would die if he ever lost his DSL, he stays on those online games all the time.

--
Dave.

I don't know if you're serious...

but back in the day few people had problems with Dial up being too slow...this was before widespread Java graphics, high-res images, fancy graphics, downloadable sound and video clips/streams, Napster and other file sharing clients...online gaming was still for nerds...Good ol' days.


I'm only half-serious.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm too cheap for high speed...for now. Most of the stuff I use the web for isn't graphic-intensive, so I don't really feel as though I'm missing out, ya dig? Besides, my wife would kill me if I stayed online any more than I do now! Let that be a lesson to all you single youngsters.  ;)

We used dial-up for a few years before we upgraded to DSL.  It was a bitch having to get off the computer so someone else could use the phone.  Now, we have DSL which moves at warp-speed and wireless.  No more issues.  :)

I don't know if you're serious...

but back in the day few people had problems with Dial up being too slow...this was before widespread Java graphics, high-res images, fancy graphics, downloadable sound and video clips/streams, Napster and other file sharing clients...online gaming was still for nerds...Good ol' days.



Yeah, we just got dsl availible out here(in the middle of nowhere lol) earlier this year. I didn't really spend that much time online because there wasn't that much I could do. Now I stay on here all the time. I admit that dial-up seemed fast enough when I first used the internet back in 1998/'99 but these days it just dosen't cut it anymore.

In 1994 I had a CD ROM for our Mac and this is how I first heard about the internet.  It was describe by the CD ROM as a place where one could, " Read news from all over the world" and " find information on many subjects."  When I was in the sixth grade in 1996 I used the internet for the first time.  My group and I used Yahoo to find info for our South America project.  I first started using the net at home around 1999 to help make my Fantasy football team.

Early 1999 for me.

The first site I went onto was F1racing.net

I also happen to remember the first email I ever sent and received. Back then, I was reading one of the Star Wars novels by Kevin J. Anderson (I was really into Star Wars at the time). After a little bit of online sleuthing, I discovered the author's email address and messaged him. I asked him something about the chronology of events, and which novels and comics I should consider "canonical." You know... basic geek stuff. ;)

In any case, he responded about a week later. I guess that probably would have been in '96.

I didn't get connected until March 2005. :o






Don't know how I managed to survive before that. ;D