Do you remember your first times on the internet?

[Dry Lips]

Remember when you used to go to Best Buy to buy web browsers?

No, you did? As far as I know, Netscape was always free. Didn't really use other browsers, and I didn't really use Internet on my own machine until much later.

Another thing is that (unfortunately) I never paid for my software. As a teenager you don't really have money for anything, and I guess it was difficult seeing the point of buying stuff when your friends provided you with all the software and games your heart could desire.

I'm glad things are different now.

[mips]

No, you did? As far as I know, Netscape was always free. Didn't really use other browsers, and I didn't really use Internet on my own machine until much later.

Mosaic/Netscape etc was always free

[QIII]

Long ago, before there was TCP/IP ......

[jrela2000]

1997

Freshman in college.


Started hanging out in the computer lab a lot.

lot of people used a site called wbs.net. It was always on that login page so I gravitated toward it. Became a real chatroom junky after that.

By the time I got it at home, it was first through an internet machine made by MSN, which would make my first ISP MSN I suppose. It was horrible.

[mips]

Long ago, before there was TCP/IP ......

There was?

[QIII]

Yeap. But, of course, that wasn't really the "internet" (or "interwebs" as one high profile politician once called it.)

And there weren't no goll darn perty pictures and all that sissified stuff, neither.

[odiseo77]

First time was around 1997 or 1998. The very first time I used it I remember thinking the websites were like open text documents everyone could edit, so I was careful not to change anything... (of course, I quickly realized I was wrong).

[dpny]

I never did figure out how to join a webring.

You had to grab and hold on really tight. Of course, the web moved a lot slower in those days.

[ratcheer]

Yes, it was 1992 and I was at work, getting my first taste of the World Wide Web. It was slow and flaky, but very exciting. I am trying to think of the name of that first browser, but I can't come up with it from memory. I'll have to look it up.

PS - The first one was not the one I used, "WorldWideWeb" by Tim Berners-Lee. I used the second one, Mosaic, the forerunner of Mozilla. And it must have been 1993, because that is when Mosaic was invented.

Tim

[MisterGaribaldi]

I used to be on FidoNet myself, back in the day. I loved the "doors" they had for the BBSs, and of course the echos.

My first time on the Internet was through AOL in about 1992. Mostly I sent/received email, and also got on all kinds of FTP servers. I used to think how cool it was to access an FTP server in Hong Kong, or in England, or France, etc.

My first more-modern era ISP was in 1995. I'll never forget because it almost wound up costing me my job. I was on a local ISP, and a friend wanted to show his parents what it was like, so I gave him my user name and password. By chance, he was logged on and I tried to log on, and they automatically flagged my account. When I called up, they told me I violated their terms. I explained it was just a one-off situation and that I was trying to show someone how cool it was to be online. They told me marketing their service wasn't any of my business, and so I told them they could go f*** themselves, and I slammed the phone down on them.

About two months later, a customer came into the store I was working at at the time, and they were asking about local ISPs and wanted one that was Mac-friendly. I recommended one, and stated the others weren't really Mac-friendly unless you knew what you were doing. What I didn't know is that the owner of my ex-ISP was in the next aisle, and so he decided to complain to management about me. I was dragged into the office, raked over the coals, came within an inch of losing my job, and the next six months management (well, one member of management, mostly) did everything he could to get rid of me, ultimately putting me on the lot to pull carts, and then he kept writing me up for lack of performance, even though I was doing the same amount of work as everyone else out there.

As it happened, in the next plaza over (they shared a big parking lot) was an OfficeMax, and I managed to get in with them, back in the copy shop. Once I knew I had the job, I really felt like a load had been lifted, and the next time I bumped into that manager, I told him I really didn't care what he had to say, and that I wasn't interested in seeing any more performance-improvement paperwork.

I've had a lot of really, really *bad* employers over the years.