When did you first hear of the internet

[kendalcottages]

Very early 90s for me. I was at Uni using stuff like Usenet and email (just before the web came along).

 

[redjedi]

I think I used it for the first time in 95 when I was 14 at a friends house. Can't remember what we used it for but there wasn't any porn on it in those days

First proper use of it was then in 97 when I moved to London. 56 Kbps ?? those were the days.

 

[gavintc]

I had heard about earlier, but I was connected through dial up in summer 0f 1996 and by early 1997 I was on 2MB broadband. I had moved to Canada in between and they were considerably ahead of the UK.

 

[magnatom]

At uni around about 1990,1991. Some of the older students started using 'chat boards' and showed us how to log in. Blue and white screens with different chat rooms where you could in almost real time, chat to folk from around the world!

One girl took a liking to me on there (from Canada). A few weeks later a letter arrived from her, asking if she could come and visit. Apparently one of the girls form my course thought it would be fun to pass on my details to her.

I suppose this was one of the first breaches in confidentiality on the web!

 

[threebikesmcginty]

Can't remember what we used it for but there wasn't any porn on it in those days

That you could find!


I think I got it around 95-ish, dial up through an outfit called zetnet. Took hours to load a page...much the same as now really.

 

[Coco]

Does Prestel count?

 

[Theseus]

In the mid 80's I was using JANET while at Poly to talk to other people around the world. Sometimes we even discussed stuff relevant to our degrees. The one discussion I do remember with some clarity was the aftermath of the Challenger disaster including all the bad taste jokes that came out of it.

 

[psmiffy]

I went to school when the only way to have a computor was to build one yourself - we had a very clever (and I suspect also a good wheeler dealer) physics teacher that sourced the parts from god knows and we helped put this monstrosity together. The programming we did (circa 1971) was in algol.

When I went to colledge when if you wanted to use a computer you had to write the programme yourself and laboriosly punch it out on cards - programming was in basic and then variations of Fortran (circa 1979)

I first saw a computer with a keyboard in 1982

I remember reading about the internet in the early 90s (New Scientist?) and thinking mmmm that might be useful - but as my employers attitude was that computers were something typists used for producing our reports getting to actually touch one was difficult (even though they asked my advice when they needed to do things out of the ordinary) and paranoia reined even at that early stage that something might get in if connected to the outside world

I think it must have been about 95 that I first used the internet - I needed some information and went to somewhere else to borrow a computor connected to the internet - on returning to my office triumphant there was definetly a hint that I was somehow deviant and should have used the normal channels - library -British Library - a wait of 4 weeks

 

[Shaun]

Proper internet? 1993'ish I think ... the good old dial-up modem service.

Before then it had been local BBS's - which did a roaring trade in Hull because we have an independent phone network and you can stay on the phone all day for just a few pence.

Before that, 2400bps modems at work to join two branches at either side of town.

Before that, tin cans I think ... lol

Cheers,
Shaun

 

[Headgardener]

Must have been back in 19? When I bought my computer from Tiny and AOL was my service provider but soon changed providers as AOL were expensive to be with and struggled with, infact at times just refused to load, some sites.

 

[tyred]

For those that look back nostalgically at 56kbs modem connections, those of us who live in rural Ireland still have to do this.

 

[g00se]

First used emails at Uni in the mid 80s - but the Internet proper was in '88 when my first job at the same Uni was as a assistant systems admin maintaining the SMTP email systems and I got the job of setting up the Usenet feed for the computing school. Technically it was the national JANET (Joint Academic Network?) network which was X25 and not TCP/IP - but it was effectively the Internet.

Spent many an hour or two a day 'testing' the Usenet system to make sure it was working (Usenet was worldwide distributed bulletin boards running over the Internet).

This was all pre-web days.

Also, for any techies, this was pre DNS days, so maintaining the list of domain names to IP addresses was a bit of a pain.

And did you know - way back then - the UK had fully qualified domain names in the opposite order to what they are now? Eg. john.smith@uk.co.hotmail...

 

[CopperBrompton]

First email and forum (bulletin-board) use was in 1983, on a 300-baud modem. Later used JANET which became part of the Internet.

 

[Dayvo]

1995 for me when I started at uni!

But it was until my final year that I realised it was far easier to type essays etc., instead of writing them by hand!

 

[Downward]

I reckon 1998/1999 at Library to get Car Insurance Quotes

Bought a PC and Modem in 2001 with Printer, Scanner, Digital Camera for about £900 !