What was you first contact with internet?

[wumpus]

In 1989 I had just started a job in college "unix first aider", basically someone who babysits the computer lab and helps out with the easier problems. The computers were Sun workstations (3/50s and 3/60s, probably less powerful hardware (except the monitors) than most PCs, but with an OS roughly more advanced than XP) and really, really, cool (especially to someone previously used to 8 bit machines).

Then I realized that the thing was connected to roughly every other unix-powered (more or less) computer in the world. Then USENET (webforums are a pale shadow of USENET. Client-based discussion FTW). At some point I remembered I read a WarGames parody/fanfic involving the arpanet and simply assumed that the arpanet described was fiction. Now I had access to said network after nearly a decade of development. It was awesome.

[ZedNova]

I'm significantly younger than most of you, the first time I used the internet was in 2000, when i was 4 years old. I had no idea what it was, just went to PBSkids.org and played what games and activities they had there. It was on a windows 95 machine.

I didn't get into real video games and learning about computers until i was 10.

[vger]

I discovered the internet in the late 90s when I went to work for an early dotcom to pay for my student loans from film school - except I didn't know what the internet was, or what photoshop was, or anything. I BS'd my way into a job and mastered HTML and photoshop in 4 hours. Amazingly enough I won a Yahoo! award for that site, which completely destroyed my career as a filmmaker (since I rationalized that making money fast would let me make my own films) and created a bunch of award winning sites... but then there was that dotcom crash and, yeah, here I am now writing sci-fi novels.

Thanks, internet, for destroying my dreams, you b@st@rd!

Way too similar to my background, only the dot com crash happened before I even got the chance to make real money off of it. Web design just happened to be the ONLY "practical" thing I was any good at. All of my other talents were in "feast or famine" careers, such as filmmaking, and my parents who were always mainly obsessed with taking the "stable" route wouldn't let me pursue anything else as a career. And now there's no such thing as a stable career. Go figure.

[Flixxbeatz]

I was born in '94, and my first contact with the internet was 2005 (pretty late for someone born on that bracket) in our school. Didn't done too much stuff that time, and mostly visited sfogs, google, death clock flash games (forgot which one exactly) and pokemoncrater. Those were the 'ish back then

[micha]

1990, first year of Uni for me, and the first year of the WWW. Before that BBS's. I still miss Usenet (NNTP, netnews,or just news). Was -way- better than the www-based forums these days where you have to a) be online, and have to have a separate login for every single bleeding one. Offline based reading FTW - yes, even these days (planes, etc anybody?).

Our Uni already had X-Terminals, so got to see a graphical web browser pretty much as soon as it got developed. Replaced all the other hyperlinked systems (archie, veronica, etc) quicksmart. And because in Australia local calls are billed on connection and not time, I had internet access at home too - call in to the Uni on my 2400baud (fast at the time) modem through my Amiga.

Spent most of the first years on email, usenet, and MUDs. My first homepage was on GeoCities (Oh! Those blink tags and neon-coloured pages everywhere!)

[Sirrobert]

I'm significantly younger than most of you, the first time I used the internet was in 2000, when i was 4 years old. I had no idea what it was, just went to PBSkids.org and played what games and activities they had there. It was on a windows 95 machine.

I didn't get into real video games and learning about computers until i was 10.

Talk about growing up with the internet

[bigdad84]

Early 2000's I remember my first contact with dial-up Internet. (We just got fiber optic in 2013). My grandma got a computer from her kids so she could stay in contact with them. I used it for gaming. Runescape was life.

[magnemoe]

Way too similar to my background, only the dot com crash happened before I even got the chance to make real money off of it. Web design just happened to be the ONLY "practical" thing I was any good at. All of my other talents were in "feast or famine" careers, such as filmmaking, and my parents who were always mainly obsessed with taking the "stable" route wouldn't let me pursue anything else as a career. And now there's no such thing as a stable career. Go figure.

My early work career has lots of similarities with my early KSP experience. Crash burn and hit the ground fast. Even was part of funding two companies. First did not have enough TWR, second failed more spectacular as we had investors. Fun time like waking up on an expensive hotel and not know where you are.

[Drunken Hobo]

When I first started typing this, my earliest memory was around 2002. Then it moved to late 2001, and now I think we're back to early 2001. Funny how memory works.

Anyway, it was probably Habbo Hotel. Was introduced to it by a friend and ended up with half of my school year on it. It was fairly pointless, but a pretty interesting novelty at the time. I remember wasting many hours queueing for a virtual diving board. Plus, being about 10-years-old, it was an endless source of amusement when a censored word came up as "Bobba", and you'd try and string the most offensive sentence together, only for it to come up as "I want you to Bobba my Bobba until there's Bobba all over your Bobba".

I'm glad I haven't matured at all since then.

[Rich]

I was sent to look up information on literacy and numeracy hour when in primary school (4-10 years old); however, my first escapade on internet was cut short as I was put in detention after the teachers discovered I had vandalised a table in my previous class.

[EdFred]

I am not allowed to say without getting an infraction.

[Yasmy]

ftp, gopher and email on a library system in 89 or 90, but that was pretty uninteresting.

My first interesting encounter was the college computer network in 91.

We had an instant messaging system called zephyr which you could use to message anyone logged in on campus or any particular machine.

People didn't have to be running a client; it would just pop a message window up on their screen.

Used finger a lot to locate people back then too.

[TheSaint]

I was just reading this thread with my wife and laughing. All the guys who were saying that their first encounter with the Internet was in the late 90s to early 2000s. By 2001 I had already found several dates on the Internet, I had met my wife on the Internet, I had found several jobs on the Internet, and my primary job description involved the Internet. I feel old now.

[Sidereus]

I was just reading this thread with my wife and laughing. All the guys who were saying that their first encounter with the Internet was in the late 90s to early 2000s. By 2001 I had already found several dates on the Internet, I had met my wife on the Internet, I had found several jobs on the Internet, and my primary job description involved the Internet. I feel old now.

Were you wearing an onion on your belt?

[TheSaint]

Were you wearing an onion on your belt?

It was the fashion at the time...

LOL

[dharak1]

Probably when I was really little. I remember my grandparents had an old computer that had windows xp. The first memory I have with a computer would be around 2005 I had this Arthur CD that had all these cool games and there was an awesome one with clouds and balloons. Then a couple years later when I was probably 7 or 8 my cousin would come over and we would play games in the browser on websites. Now I have 3 computers that I've acquired from offices and stores and online. Pretty crazy that my whole life wide spread internet has been around.

[PB666]

Probably when I was really little. I remember my grandparents had an old computer that had windows xp. The first memory I have with a computer would be around 2005 I had this Arthur CD that had all these cool games and there was an awesome one with clouds and balloons. Then a couple years later when I was probably 7 or 8 my cousin would come over and we would play games in the browser on websites. Now I have 3 computers that I've acquired from offices and stores and online. Pretty crazy that my whole life wide spread internet has been around.

What do you mean _old_, I am still using a work computer with XP. I have two machines that dual boot dos one that uses the GEMM GUI.

I consider old is any computer in which the operating system and graphical user interface are two separate entities.

[Sidereus]

What do you mean _old_, I am still using a work computer with XP. I have two machines that dual boot dos one that uses the GEMM GUI.

I consider old is any computer in which the operating system and graphical user interface are two separate entities.

That would make all Linux OS's old...even if they just came out.

[T-Bouw]

I only remember that I had to use a Netscape-browser. At the time it was THE browser.

Also, search-engines were almost none-existent, so you had to use these so-called starting-pages which contained a lot of links.

I miss that dial-up sound!

Edited March 4, 2015 by T-Bouw

[tater]

LOL. There were about 100 domains (total) when I first started playing with what is now the internet (ARPANET).

[Tex]

I was born in '97 and we got our first computer in 2000. I obviously don't renember the first website i visited or anything, but that dial-up sound brings back so much nostalgia.

Reading through these though, It's pretty crazy to step back looking at my gaming rig, and thinking what it would look like to someone from 20 odd years ago

Huh. I was born in '97 as well, actually, but I remember no dial-up! I was raised mostly internet-independent, but I did have an NES and later a N64. I actually recently re-acquired an N64 so that's been a blast

[TonyC]

2011, for various reasons.

[Randazzo]

LOL. There were about 100 domains (total) when I first started playing with what is now the internet (ARPANET).

[pokerface]That was the one Dan Quayle invented right?[/pokerface]

I remember it was around 1994 or so, via AOL. Back when it was creepy chatrooms and such.

[InterCity]

Late nineties. I remember our house had the dial-up.

[tater]

The nice thing was that the signal to noise ratio of early discussion groups (Usenet newsgroups) was actually pretty high as virtually everyone in the conversation was a science or engineering person.