Old Internet - Page 2

thrawn_aj · 03-20-2011, 12:45 AM

The Encyclopedia Galactica site (on a Geocities page - OMG, remember Geocities?

I had my first website on there

). It's debris can still be seen here - http://www.slawcio.com/foundation/cover2.html.

Geocities, Angelfire, ICQ (

) - all those familiar haunts that seem so alien now. Even AOL (setting up a restricted account for my teen cousin under the orders of my uncle

while said teen cousin blubbers that his social life is over).

Heck, I still remember "command line" web browsers

. Not too different from early mobile web tech if you ask me

.

AprilHare · 03-20-2011, 01:01 AM

Anyone else remember gopher?

gopher://gopher.quux.org/
Best way to experience is with Firefox and the Overbite addin: http://gopher.floodgap.com/overbite/
There are some web browsers that still support gopher out of the box though!

AprilHare · 03-20-2011, 01:17 AM

I'd have to include IRC in Old Internet. We've all switched to Facebook etc. but IRC is still superior if you want a chat with a large group of people.

HarryT · 03-20-2011, 06:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AprilHare

Anyone else remember gopher?

Absolutely. When I first started using the Internet in 1992, Usenet and Gopher were the dominant things on it.

kindlekitten · 03-20-2011, 01:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jbcohen

Got you beat Mike. This one is from a bit before my time, so I got to go to my grand ma for this one, she is gone now but I can remember he talking about the internet. In those days it wasn't called the internet it was called DARPA net and there was no forums such as this one back on her days. She used to talk about using the one and only DARPA protocol called FTP, which was all there was in those days. FTP was used to list things and send files back and forth between computers, we are talking 1930's and 40's here so we are talking old school. For an example of what she was talking about try ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub this site is all FTP and that's it. You ant to talk about old school internet april hair, this is it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

Don't be silly. ARPANET was created in 1962 - it most certainly was NOT the "1930s and 40s" - and the FTP protocol dates from 1971.

:tup :

wodin · 03-20-2011, 02:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jbcohen

Got you beat Mike. This one is from a bit before my time, so I got to go to my grand ma for this one, she is gone now but I can remember he talking about the internet. In those days it wasn't called the internet it was called DARPA net and there was no forums such as this one back on her days. She used to talk about using the one and only DARPA protocol called FTP, which was all there was in those days. FTP was used to list things and send files back and forth between computers, we are talking 1930's and 40's here so we are talking old school. For an example of what she was talking about try ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub this site is all FTP and that's it. You ant to talk about old school internet april hair, this is it.

It was a bit later than the 1930's and 40's, I had a MILnet (the real world implementation of DARPAnet) account in the mid eighties. We had Telnet which gave us command line access to UNIX servers, similar to SSH, and FTP for transferring files. There was no WWW, or Email. I was in hog heaven when they put in a 9600 baud underwater cable from Kane`ohe Bay to San Diego. There were probably fewer than a couple of hundred hosts available, most were at larger universities.

Most communications was done on "bulletin boards" which was a computer, usually sitting in someone's spare bedroom, and connected to a telephone line with a dial up modem. One person at a time could dial into it, and leave messages similar to here at MR. But you had to wait for the other person to log off before you could log on. And sometimes it was a race to see who could get on first.

ardeegee · 03-20-2011, 02:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wannabee

Before www I used to call the printer and ask him to switch his fax off and turn on the modem. I'd send him a 3 meg file on a 1400 modem in about 45 seconds.

No, you didn't.

Assuming that you mean a 14,400 modem, sending a 3 megabyte file took you 27 minutes under the best of conditions. To send a 3 megabyte file in 45 seconds would require a modem with an upload speed of around 533,000 bits per second, which is about 15 times faster than the fastest standard analog modems ever marketed.

Aurora W · 03-20-2011, 06:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thrawn_aj

Geocities, Angelfire, ICQ (

) - all those familiar haunts that seem so alien now..

ah, Angelfire. Used to spend a whole lot of time at a ER site that used to be hosted there, while chatting with my significant other via AOL or ICQ (depending which was behaving better that night) while he was in tech school 1/2 the country away.

Hard to believe we used to video and voice chat back then

- saved a fortune in long distance.

Figlilly · 03-20-2011, 09:48 PM

The B*stard Operator From Hell. One of the first internet jokes that did the rounds at my work.

Does anyone rememer the web rings? The days when frames were the next big thing? Ah Usenet. I used to check in every morning at work.

wannabee · 03-21-2011, 07:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ardeegee

No, you didn't.

Assuming that you mean a 14,400 modem, sending a 3 megabyte file took you 27 minutes under the best of conditions. To send a 3 megabyte file in 45 seconds would require a modem with an upload speed of around 533,000 bits per second, which is about 15 times faster than the fastest standard analog modems ever marketed.

I'll bow to you expertise mate. But there was some sort of compression algorithm on both modems that was standard for the time and 14-4 sound familiar. I'm an artist not a techie but I can still remember ripping my hair out and looking at my employees and asking "Can't we get them to turn their old modems on again?" I'm really certain it wasnt anything as long as you mentioned. I do remember on quite a few occassions having sent the files more than once accidentally because they went that quick I didn't notice them go and have to explain why I sent them more than once.
It was 1994.

wannabee · 03-21-2011, 07:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

Absolutely. When I first started using the Internet in 1992, Usenet and Gopher were the dominant things on it.

Like I said in the previous post I wasn't a techie but earlier in 1993 I used to think "What wonders do the gopher people have behind their electronic magic?"

jbcohen · 03-21-2011, 07:39 AM

Grandma went back a ways before computers started talking to each other, she used to tell me about her astonishment when computers started talking to each other "they can do that" she told me she used to think. She told me about her first job at the DoD where she would walk about with a bunch a wires on her arm and would plug them into sockets on the huge computer in the basement in order to program the thing. She used to tell me about teams of programers wandering through this tangled web of wires trying to figgure out what went wrong.

Pop talked about putting together programs in punch cards which he had to be very careful to keep in proper order.

wannabee · 03-21-2011, 07:53 AM

My first computer. Purchased by the company I worked for to use SUPERCALC instead of the old Kalamazoo ledgers (which never crashed). It sat idle for over a year when I said one long weekend "Can I try that at home as see if I can get it working?"

Fortunately it also had an 80 column green screen that would sit on top instead of scrolling that tiny window back and forth.

The FIRST truly portable [read luggable] computer!
edit: The OS was CPM. Very similar to DOS.

jbcohen · 03-21-2011, 08:57 AM

Here's a link for anyone interested in old school computing or simply want to take a walk down memory lane or simply interested in what old school computing was in the 80's http://pc-museum.com

Mortis · 03-21-2011, 12:16 PM

Funny, my first computer was a Heathkit H89 (had to look that up) my dad loved building things and had built a couple of Heathkit projects, a couple of Ham Radio's. The funny thing is he never used the radios for much, at the time we lived in the arctic (73) and he used the ham radios to pick up radio commercial stations(?) in Canada and once in awhile we would hear Russian on the radio.

Wannabee my first portable computer was a Compaq Portable II, it came with a hard drive, mine was upgraded to a whopping 40 meg! the processor was an Intel 80286 (AT)turbo(?) it could be switched between 6 or 8MHz.

I bought it used, very, from the company I worked for, I paid $800 in 1988.

03-20-2011, 12:45 AM	#16
thrawn_aj quantum mechanic Posts: 705 Karma: 483827 Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: NorCal Device: Nook1, Samsung Transform, Nook2	The Encyclopedia Galactica site (on a Geocities page - OMG, remember Geocities? I had my first website on there ). It's debris can still be seen here - http://www.slawcio.com/foundation/cover2.html. Geocities, Angelfire, ICQ () - all those familiar haunts that seem so alien now. Even AOL (setting up a restricted account for my teen cousin under the orders of my uncle while said teen cousin blubbers that his social life is over). Heck, I still remember "command line" web browsers . Not too different from early mobile web tech if you ask me .

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03-20-2011, 01:01 AM	#17
AprilHare Wizard Posts: 2,981 Karma: 11862367 Join Date: Apr 2008 Device: Sony Reader PRS-T2	Anyone else remember gopher? gopher://gopher.quux.org/ Best way to experience is with Firefox and the Overbite addin: http://gopher.floodgap.com/overbite/ There are some web browsers that still support gopher out of the box though!

03-20-2011, 01:17 AM	#18
AprilHare Wizard Posts: 2,981 Karma: 11862367 Join Date: Apr 2008 Device: Sony Reader PRS-T2	I'd have to include IRC in Old Internet. We've all switched to Facebook etc. but IRC is still superior if you want a chat with a large group of people.

03-20-2011, 09:48 PM	#24
Figlilly Zealot Posts: 122 Karma: 2514066 Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kindle Oasis 2&3, Paperwhites, Kindle Touch, Kobo Clara, IPad Air2	The B*stard Operator From Hell. One of the first internet jokes that did the rounds at my work. Does anyone rememer the web rings? The days when frames were the next big thing? Ah Usenet. I used to check in every morning at work.

03-21-2011, 07:39 AM	#27
jbcohen Wizard Posts: 3,025 Karma: 11196738 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Piper College Device: Samsung A21	Grandma went back a ways before computers started talking to each other, she used to tell me about her astonishment when computers started talking to each other "they can do that" she told me she used to think. She told me about her first job at the DoD where she would walk about with a bunch a wires on her arm and would plug them into sockets on the huge computer in the basement in order to program the thing. She used to tell me about teams of programers wandering through this tangled web of wires trying to figgure out what went wrong. Pop talked about putting together programs in punch cards which he had to be very careful to keep in proper order.

03-21-2011, 07:53 AM	#28
wannabee Media Bloke Posts: 2,381 Karma: 113956855 Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: NSW - Australia Device: iOS	My first computer. Purchased by the company I worked for to use SUPERCALC instead of the old Kalamazoo ledgers (which never crashed). It sat idle for over a year when I said one long weekend "Can I try that at home as see if I can get it working?" Fortunately it also had an 80 column green screen that would sit on top instead of scrolling that tiny window back and forth. The FIRST truly portable [read luggable] computer! edit: The OS was CPM. Very similar to DOS.

03-21-2011, 08:57 AM	#29
jbcohen Wizard Posts: 3,025 Karma: 11196738 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Piper College Device: Samsung A21	Here's a link for anyone interested in old school computing or simply want to take a walk down memory lane or simply interested in what old school computing was in the 80's http://pc-museum.com

03-21-2011, 12:16 PM	#30
Mortis Canucklehead in Malaysia Posts: 1,633 Karma: 3127774 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Device: iPhone, Kindle	Funny, my first computer was a Heathkit H89 (had to look that up) my dad loved building things and had built a couple of Heathkit projects, a couple of Ham Radio's. The funny thing is he never used the radios for much, at the time we lived in the arctic (73) and he used the ham radios to pick up radio commercial stations(?) in Canada and once in awhile we would hear Russian on the radio. Wannabee my first portable computer was a Compaq Portable II, it came with a hard drive, mine was upgraded to a whopping 40 meg! the processor was an Intel 80286 (AT)turbo(?) it could be switched between 6 or 8MHz. I bought it used, very, from the company I worked for, I paid $800 in 1988.

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