Do you remember when the INTERNET was NEW?

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This video made me feel some serious NOSTALGIA:

We got our first home computer in 1994 & I remember how super-excited I was. There was something so thrilling about it, like stepping into a new frontier. Every click was an adventure, as you never quite knew what you’d discover next. Even hearing that dial-up modem connect was exciting, the anticipation as a webpage slowly loaded, and the sheer joy of finding a new online community or cool website made it all worth the wait. It was a time of exploration, where each session online felt like uncovering a hidden gem in a vast, uncharted world.

Today, the internet is such a seamless, high-speed experience where everything is instantly at our fingertips. The excitement of discovery has evolved into an expectation of instant access and I don’t think I have felt that type of excitement about any other technology.

What about you guys? Do you remember when the INTERNET was NEW?

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I loved BBs time: same but in small communities,. more tech oriented people, less noise.

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I’m not sure about new, since I’m only about to turn 29 yrs old. However, I do remember dial-up internet. Growing up, I was allowed to use computers for games and every now and then, I’d watch my mom dial-up to check email for work. I don’t think it’s something I can every forget :joy: I also remember cord phones and not being able to walk around freely. And how about pagers?? My first phone was a walkie-talkie cell phone that looked like a brick! Sorry, going down the rabbit hole of nostalgia…

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While most people associate dial up with HTML3 style WWW and early pop3 e-mail and webmail clients, its realy fun began in days of Commodore 64, Spectrum, Amiga and Atari, almost a decade or two before.

Bulletin boards were like private clubs, but offering most of what Internet would later just globalize:

  • Chat with System Operator, if there
  • Chat with other users, if BBS had few land lines
  • Topics and discussions delayed via Blue Wave format
    Blue Wave (mail reader) - Wikipedia
  • File download (like FTP) and upload - file sharing among users
  • First game FAQs, solutions, hints etc.
  • Manuals for productivity
    Interfrace is DOS styled with simple graphics, but basically you could do a lot before real FTP/WWW
    ,- Since speed of transfer (today net speed) was arhaic 9 to 56kbps - compression utilities like LHA, ARC, ZIP were a big thing then (today ZIP and RAR survive)
  • Picture and music sharing
  • Simple text based ASCII games and adventures
    And it gave rise to both shareware, demo scene … and a bit of non commercial piracy :smiley: Which was important for countries where no legal support existed at that time (which is everything but West Europe,. USA, NZ and Australia)
    Bulletin board system - Wikipedia

In fact, its still possible to run BBs via Telnet

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