How Was It Back When the Internet First Reached Your Country or State?

[Debater Slayer]

For those of you who were alive when the internet first reached your country or state, what did you think of it at the time, and what did others you knew think of it? What were the general sentiments about its potential for success or lack thereof?

When did your household first use the internet? When did they make it a fixture of their lifestyle as it is for so many of us now?

 

[JustGeorge]

When I was in 4th grade, we did an AOL pen pal project.

I got so lucky as to have a very interactive one, and she ended up teaching the class a lot about how internet communication worked.

We didn't get internet in the home until I was about 13. My mom went from being pretty active with us to getting totally sucked in. She traveled around to meet friends sometimes. I wasted all the printer ink on a repetitive basis, printing pictures of Daniel Johns. She'd yell at me, and I'd continue(I considered it charge for all the babysitting I had to provide).

I don't think the internet became a significant part of my life until my early 20s, when I learned how to shop online, and started playing WoW.

 

[Stevicus]

For those of you who were alive when the internet first reached your country or state, what did you think of it at the time, and what did others you knew think of it? What were the general sentiments about its potential for success or lack thereof?

When did your household first use the internet? When did they make it a fixture of their lifestyle as it is for so many of us now?

While I was aware of the existence of modems and computers connecting to other computers pretty early in life, and I also knew of the BBS systems which people could dial into with their computers, it wasn't really until the early 90s that I heard of the idea of the "internet." Or, as it was called "the information superhighway." Al Gore had been touting it, which is probably where a lot of Americans first heard about it.

Most people didn't have access to the internet at first. Personal computers were growing in popularity, but without modems or any real set up to connect to the internet. My dad had Compuserve, which had some features, but we had to add the Mosaic browser before we could log on to websites on the World Wide Web. But his modem was kind of slow, like 9000 baud or something, as I recall. Later on, he got a 28,800 modem, which was a step up. I myself got a 686 which had only a 19k modem, and I signed on to a local ISP, but then went on to AOL. Then I switched over to Earthlink and got an IBM with a 56k modem, although DSL and cable modems were also coming on the scene about that time. In the early 2000s, I switched over to a cable modem and have been on cable ever since.

One thing I remember from the mid to late 90s was going on to Usenet, which wasn't the WWW but various message boards (called "newsgroups"). It used to be part of the basic internet package offered by ISPs, although at some point, they started phasing out Usenet or making it an extra add on. A lot of the groups were unmoderated and could get rather wild. I believe Usenet still exists, although I haven't really bothered to check lately.

When the internet first came on the scene, I don't think many people knew what to make of it. Some people were scared to get any kind of internet connection at all. I knew some people who refused to get into it at all.

 

[Debater Slayer]

While I was aware of the existence of modems and computers connecting to other computers pretty early in life, and I also knew of the BBS systems which people could dial into with their computers, it wasn't really until the early 90s that I heard of the idea of the "internet." Or, as it was called "the information superhighway." Al Gore had been touting it, which is probably where a lot of Americans first heard about it.

Most people didn't have access to the internet at first. Personal computers were growing in popularity, but without modems or any real set up to connect to the internet. My dad had Compuserve, which had some features, but we had to add the Mosaic browser before we could log on to websites on the World Wide Web. But his modem was kind of slow, like 9000 baud or something, as I recall. Later on, he got a 28,800 modem, which was a step up. I myself got a 686 which had only a 19k modem, and I signed on to a local ISP, but then went on to AOL. Then I switched over to Earthlink and got an IBM with a 56k modem, although DSL and cable modems were also coming on the scene about that time. In the early 2000s, I switched over to a cable modem and have been on cable ever since.

One thing I remember from the mid to late 90s was going on to Usenet, which wasn't the WWW but various message boards (called "newsgroups"). It used to be part of the basic internet package offered by ISPs, although at some point, they started phasing out Usenet or making it an extra add on. A lot of the groups were unmoderated and could get rather wild. I believe Usenet still exists, although I haven't really bothered to check lately.

When the internet first came on the scene, I don't think many people knew what to make of it. Some people were scared to get any kind of internet connection at all. I knew some people who refused to get into it at all.

Fascinating info. Thanks for sharing!

It sounds like you were an early adopter of the internet, then? I first started using it in the early 2000s, on dial-up. We had to limit our usage so that the phone bill wouldn't go up too much, and of course, whoever was using the internet had to pause or stop altogether when someone else at home wanted to use the phone.

DSL felt like such a massive leap when we first got it, which was around the mid-2000s. I remember browsing Wikipedia for the first time and being blown away by the amount of information I had access to, although it was also a bit tedious for me to use because I had to look up a huge number of words at the time, as my English was still at an intermediate level.

Yahoo! Answers was fun as well, but frivolous questions and low-effort answers, while occasionally good for a few laughs, ended up helping to drag the site down both in quality and traffic.

 

[ChristineM]

For those of you who were alive when the internet first reached your country or state, what did you think of it at the time, and what did others you knew think of it? What were the general sentiments about its potential for success or lack thereof?

When did your household first use the internet? When did they make it a fixture of their lifestyle as it is for so many of us now?

I first used it at uni, i was very unimpressed with the empty desert but it was handy for getting projects in before the deadline without having to travel to uni.

So i was online in my digs more or less from the beginning.

When we set up our business it was important we could keep in touch with customers and give them immediate (28kbps) access to our work. It was (among other things) one of the key points of our early mild success.

In the early 2000s we got fibre at 250kps then 500kps. By 2012 we were running at around 2.5mps. we bought an ex gulf war mainframe without operating system. Had it set up for us as the company storage/collaboration server and internet server. Internally it ran at a little short of a gigabyte per second. The internet ran at 2.5mps.

Then we moved to rural France, currently on vdsl at about 85mps which is being updated throughout the country as we speak, expected gigabyte full fibre by 2025.

 

[Debater Slayer]

When I was in 4th grade, we did an AOL pen pal project.

I got so lucky as to have a very interactive one, and she ended up teaching the class a lot about how internet communication worked.

We didn't get internet in the home until I was about 13. My mom went from being pretty active with us to getting totally sucked in. She traveled around to meet friends sometimes. I wasted all the printer ink on a repetitive basis, printing pictures of Daniel Johns. She'd yell at me, and I'd continue(I considered it charge for all the babysitting I had to provide).

I don't think the internet became a significant part of my life until my early 20s, when I learned how to shop online, and started playing WoW.

Do you mean she traveled around to meet friends from the internet or friends in general? I imagine it would have been interesting if she got into making online friends so early on!

Do you like the internet more now or when you first used it? (I realize that RF gives an unfair advantage to the present. )

 

[Revoltingest]

I first used it on ebay.
Year 2000 or so.

 

[SalixIncendium]

What were the general sentiments about its potential for success or lack thereof?

Al Gore invented it, so it was sure to last.

I really didn’t concern myself with it, so I’m not sure. Either that or I simply don’t remember.

When did your household first use the internet? When did they make it a fixture of their lifestyle as it is for so many of us now?

In 1997 we bought a Compaq computer and signed up for AOL.

I remember staying up too late hanging out in chat rooms until my then wife yelled at me and ultimately accused me of having an affair.

 

[Stevicus]

Fascinating info. Thanks for sharing!

It sounds like you were an early adopter of the internet, then? I first started using it in the early 2000s, on dial-up. We had to limit our usage so that the phone bill wouldn't go up too much, and of course, whoever was using the internet had to pause or stop altogether when someone else at home wanted to use the phone.

DSL felt like such a massive leap when we first got it, which was around the mid-2000s. I remember browsing Wikipedia for the first time and being blown away by the amount of information I had access to, although it was also a bit tedious for me to use because I had to look up a huge number of words at the time, as my English was still at an intermediate level.

Yahoo! Answers was fun as well, but frivolous questions and low-effort answers, while occasionally good for a few laughs, ended up helping to drag the site down both in quality and traffic.

Yeah, I was almost 30 when it came on the scene. I still used the university library, and I'll admit it was a shock going in there and finding computer terminals in the area where there used to be card catalogs. I remember even being somewhat indignant about it, "Where are the card catalogs?" They had been moved to an upper floor, so they didn't go away entirely - at least not for a few more years.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Al Gore invented it, so it was sure to last.

I really didn’t concern myself with it, so I’m not sure. Either that or I simply don’t remember.

I have a fuzzy memory of what the general sentiments about it were when I first became aware of it. I guess this is a function of how long it has been since. After all, every single year in the '90s is closer to 1975 than to the present.

In 1997 we bought a Compaq computer and signed up for AOL.

I remember staying too late hanging out in chat rooms until my then wife yelled at me and ultimately accused me of having an affair.

I'm sorry you went through that. I've heard similar stories, and they never sound pleasant to experience.

 

[JustGeorge]

Do you mean she traveled around to meet friends from the internet or friends in general? I imagine it would have been interesting if she got into making online friends so early on!

Both, actually! She did make some online friends early on... I remember her going to Texas for awhile to meet online friends. I had to stay home(didn't like that).

Do you like the internet more now or when you first used it? (I realize that RF gives an unfair advantage to the present. )

I think I use it for vastly different things now. I'm fairly focused with my internet usage. I really don't use it for much other than communicating(here on RF, and on Discord) hunting up recipes, and occasionally buying something fun.

Back then, I used it for printing stuff. I did some online communication after we first got it, but I had an active social life then so it wasn't a focus. I do suppose I looked up recipes then, too!

In both cases, I think the internet cut back on quality of family life. My mom pretty much abandoned us for her computer and social life. Now that we have internet(we didn't get it until Covid), we are definitely not as close. My husband's a YouTube junky, and its changed his personality to an extent.

On a more positive note, its helped me cope with isolation.

Good and bad in all.

 

[Quintessence]

Because I had a parent whose job depended on staying abreast of information technology trends, I more or less grew up with it as it developed. Perhaps as a result of that, the internet doesn't really stand out to me as anything especially noteworthy. I didn't really think anything in particular about it at the time. I certainly didn't think about it in terms of whether or not it would be "successful" (and I wouldn't think about it that way now, either, as someone who just doesn't think in those terms in general). Nobody was making money off it back then in the first place. It was better then, not ruined by commercial interests. Then it got ruined by commercial interests. No longer was it a bunch of scholarly references put together by nerds, fandom pages put together by nerds, chat rooms mostly used by nerds, or personal pages put together by nerds. It became a mess.

 

[Heyo]

I was too young to notice the arrival of the internet in my country. It was not a public affair. So it was already there when I learned about it, but it was still restricted to universities and big corporations. My first personal access was through a 2400 Baud modem via a private club of enthusiasts who had a connection to the uni. That was in the mid '80s, when 640k was enough for everybody.