Don't underestimate that ISDN, that and DSL are the norm here in Egypt

Extreme Coder

Well, 128 kb/s isn't really that bad. It's hitting the minimum for multiplayer games, but they should still be playable.

i bought a 1200baud modem for my commodore64. it had a little internet sandbox called blue something, but by the time i bought the modem it had already gone out of buisness...then next i was chatting in an AOL chatroom.

AOL on Windows 3.1. I think it was 2.0 or 3.0.

around 95 in a cybercafé ... back then i was mostly on undernet (irc)

Good old Ward and his XModem protocol. My first experience on-line was with a Texas Instruments Dumb Terminal and acoustic coupler. The "screen" was a thermal printer. My next machine ran CP/M and had a 300 baud manual modem (a three way toggle switch with "Originate", "Receive" and "Off"... no AT command set.) I was a member of several BBS systems (once they popped up), as well as a member of The Source (which got bought/swallowed by Compuserve). Yeah... I'm old too.

I got a compaq with Windows ME on it for Christmas when I was about . . . 12 or 13 I believe and within a few months I'd torn the entire thing apart and decided to upgrade by putting a 200mb hard drive in ( which I didn't realize would slow the system down ) I spent a lot of time on download.com, AIM, and message boards learning about computers. ( I used to carry this notebook around in middle school that said " R.A.I.D. " - REDUNDANT ARRAY OF INEXPENSIVE DISKS, miraculously I managed to still make friends and hang out with girls ) Then finally I upgraded my video card and started playing Medal of Honor and joined a clan which consumed a huge amount of my time as I made friends across the globe, and eventually I started playing Rangarok Online which took over my life for a while.

As of now I use my computer for science research, linuxy stuff, electronic music production, and shamefully I admit . . . world of warcraft : P

Unfortunately I was a little to young to have tried dial-in BBSes and what have you. My first internet experience was with AOL 3.0. Crappy AIM speak and all

hmmm
Compuserve - circa 1992
Internet - 95/96
Online Gaming - Tribes 1998

If I go back it was around 1992 and I dialed long distance into a BBS to access the internet

in 1998 when I was in middle school and we finally upgraded from our old IBM 486 and got dial up. I went to yahoo, registered an account, and then started going to all the "hot" sites at the time (new grounds, first version of hamster dance, etc)

I do not know (or remember) what kind of technolgy I used at the time. This was in the early '90s (may be very late '80s) and I dialed locally to my University (was in the US at the time) to login Chicago Library and do some research. I used emails too. Running dos.

When I went back to France, only the network admins had email addresses in my current university. I cryed for one, and was one of the first non techies to get it

does bbs servers count ? ^_^

Absolutely!!!!

okeli dokeli

started with swedish bbs servers in 1994? with a 14.4 modem

^_^

My first was back in 98 / 99 looking at TV websites such as the simpsons. oh the joy :P

Ok, this is my first post in this forum (need to put that "invite message" out of its misery - as if anyone spending enough time online to find this forum is going to be bashful about posting, LOL).

My first online experience was on an Apple IIC - new and improved, compact for its day, sporting a huge 128k floppy drive with that amount of RAM - what a work horse!!

The modem was 300 BAUD.

My first service was the Source (surprised to see that only one other posted about the source), then, when it went belly up, I moved on to AppleAmerica or Appleonline or something like that - it was based in Virginia and eventually became America Online. Somehow, I found and joined Compuserve - still have my original subscription - with its xxxxx.xxx numeric ID numbers. I still run the classic compuserve version on my windows machine - have had no luck installing it in Ubuntu with or without Crossover.

My communications software was called AppleTalk.

There was no hard drive on the computer, so any downloading was limited to what would fit in ram or on my 5 1/4 inch floppy - but, oh, were those fun times. I felt like I was really breaking some new ground.

Other software of the time was equally ground breaking and time consuming. I upgraded my IIC by adding a zip chip that increased the CPU speed from 1 something to almost 8 something (was that Mhz??). Hard Hat mac would have spasms at that speed, and you could not keep up with Munchman at all.

I used a "sophisticated" desktop publishing program for which I paid a lot of money - came in a hard plastic box, had a slick thick manual, and the splash screen featured the letters SPRINGBOARD dropping down from the top of the screen and bouncing into position.

It was very capable, but too hungry for memory on my pitifully limited little machine. Anything more than a very lightly populated page would cause untold thrashing between the RAM and the floppy-contained scratch disk. But it worked - not unlike aps like Pagemaker that would follow in the Windows/Apple world.

All of this occured back in the early '80's. Thinking back on it, I was absolutely as hooked then as I am now. I had this text based game called Amnesia - a roll playing puzzle where you had to type in your responses to questions that would pop up during the course of navigating through the game. A close answer often was not close enough - agonizing.

I apologize for going a bit OT, but, this thread just brought so many memories flooding back to my brain. There were so many evenings when I would encourage my young son to sit and watch me plod around on the keyboard, all excited to have discovered this or that mundane feature of the fledgling internet. He would try to act interested, but, would often just nod off in the middle of some "important" discovery.

Ah, yes, those were (weren't) the days.

As one who experienced that age, I can truly appreciate how much more all of us can do on today's machines as we spend so much less on equipment and software (much less on software since having discovered open source).

I remember paying $1800 for my first flat-bed scanner. It was an Epson color scanner with 600 DPI resolution.

Still does an excellent job - although it uses a parallel interface - I should try to get it working in Ubuntu - think that can be done???

Well, I should close now - I've meandered all over the place.

Great thread - thanks!!

Del

nice experience/story delcallo

ermmm, must be when i was in year 8 or 9 we had this ISP that cost £20 for a year free internet calls after 6pm till 8am n free all weekend after few months i could never connect all ways a busy tone so i just signed up to a 0845 that cost like 5p per min or somthink local call for some time then i remember when we signed up for cable 512kb i was doing my year 11 exams n it was my last exam when having it installed in my home hehe

when i saw the download speed i was like WOW hehehe i was one happy boy lolol xD


but now 512kb is old skool

Dial up in 3rd grade..mmm..good times, didn't get internet myself til 1998, but when we did..it opened up a whole new world. Email was the coolest thing created at that time to me I guess times have changed.