When did you first use the Internet?

[thrasher]

For me, it was in the fall of 1986. I had a 300 baud modem.

back then, it was Usenet newsgroups and BBS's. Its interesting that Usenet is still around...

[TJ Willy]

1991. 1400 baud modem. long distance phone call. I was in high school.

[TJ Willy]

Originally Posted by BigMike

The Internet as in the World Wide Web.

1993 - all text, no graphic browsers.

Not sure BBS counts as Internet though. My first modem was 1200 baud and I used to hit a few BBS sites. Probably in the late 80's using my Tandy1000.

Snap! I had a Tandy 1000! I was kicking the commy kids ass with 256k ON BOARD BABY! And lets not forget the BUILT IN 5.25 floppy. My external 3.5 floppy only cost $99 too. What a deal!

[TJ Willy]

Originally Posted by BigMike

I had dual 5.25 drives. Wrote an entire DbaseIII Inventory and Order Entry system for the Equipment company I worked for. Compiled it with Clipper. The entire thing fit on a 5.25" floppy.

One upper...

[Kfengler]

Around 1982...







This is the last Hewlett Packard 9000/730 UNIX worstation I used, others for a lot of years... all I did was email (elm) and newsgroups...

[thrasher]

Originally Posted by Kfengler

Around 1982...






This is the last Hewlett Packard 9000/730 UNIX worstation I used, others for a lot of years... all I did was email (elm) and newsgroups...

LOL. That's cool Karl! 1982 predates TCP/IP on the internet, I think. You must have been on an ARPANET network? I was on the internet pretty much from 1986 onward,... so all TCP/IP.

Elm was an excellent character based emailer in its day (plus it was free) as was the EMacs editor. Much better than anything else out there for sure.

[TalonChief]

Originally Posted by thrasher

...the EMacs editor

I just never could get the hang of emacs. I did grow to appreciate VI.

[thrasher]

Originally Posted by TalonChief

I just never could get the hang of emacs. I did grow to appreciate VI.

vi was always much faster for a quick edit. emacs took a lot of memory, but was darned powerful. I used vi a lot too, and to this day still keep my mouse on the left as to use the right hand for the vi keys on the keyboard.

[Kfengler]

Originally Posted by thrasher

LOL. That's cool Karl! 1982 predates TCP/IP on the internet, I think. You must have been on an ARPANET network? I was on the internet pretty much from 1986 onward,... so all TCP/IP.

Elm was an excellent character based emailer in its day (plus it was free) as was the EMacs editor. Much better than anything else out there for sure.

Hey, I'm getting old... that HP 85 was the first "computer" I played on a lot...
When I worked at Control Data (1976-78) in Mississauga Ont. I once used an IBM that looked a lot like that HP85 but all I managed on it was the weekly Football Pool! I like my Drafting Board and LeRoy pen set much better...

...the UNIX workstation was later, that's when I first did the ELM & Newsgroup thing. I actually used it for CAD/CAM work too, using ME10/ME30, SolidDesigner.

In my days at Corporate America, I messed with Cobol, Fortran, and PLC a tiny bit. Took a university course entitled "Computer Operations for the Non-Computer Manager." The subtitle (really) was "How to Keep the Data Processing Department from Pulling the Wool Over Your Eyes."

The computer room was kept at about 60 degrees, had Colossus-like tape drives the size of refrigerators, and had just invested in the latest high-tech gadgets, a couple of hard disk drives. 64K (yes, K) each, in a unit the size of a two-drawer file cabinet.

[TalonChief]

Originally Posted by Kfengler

Around 1982...

Used to use one of these run an automated calibration & maintenance program for the F-4G Wild Weasel radar warning receiver support stations.

!995, I believe.

Right after Al Gore invented it.............

[thrasher]

I was referring to the Internet in general,... even before the WWW when Unix machines, VAXs, and PDP11's ruled the net. I just thought it was funny that people used to discuss and argue with each other on usenet newsgroups and BBSs back then the same way we do here and now.

Nothing much has changed in that respect.

Yeah, and everybody else is still wrong and I'm still right.

My first computer (which I still own for some bizarre reason) was a Commodore 64. I seem to recall a speed demon 300 baud modem......

First real business computer was a 386SX, with a whopping 20 meg hard drive. The salesman actually tried to talk me into a 10 meg, saying there was NO WAY anyone would have any use for a bigger hard drive.