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An Amiga with a 2400baud modem and using BBS. Was only able to use it a little as there was no flat rate telecoms back then and it cost a fortune :S

I was about 8, so it would have been 1992. I got bored and stumbled onto a BBS my father used to go to. Never knew about the modem, but the computer was an IBM PC-XT. One my father and I rebuilt. Didn't play around with BBSes until much later. I didn't get online again until I discovered IRC when I was 11. Eleven plus years later, you can still find me on dalnet.

It was my dad that got me in to computers, it was just about the only thing we has in common. Not too unusual for a teen aged boy and his dad. Back in the day we used a Sinclair Spectrum 48 with a modem just as big. I can't remember the baud rate but I do remember the service was Prestel. It would have been around 1983 or 4.

About 2001 when we i had an old dell dimension with win 2000.. i think it was hosed by the time i gave it back to my dad whenever i start it up theres a bit of 2000 that tries to overrun XP.. i think its trying to come back and haunt me lmao

my first online experience was around 1996/7 with a 33k modem that i upgraded to a 56k few month later, it was very impressive and also very expensive ^^.
I was laming a lot on warez boards and ftp's (omg ! that's bad !) searchin' cool audio apps to make eltectro-tech music, i was on windows (omg again ! ) and didn't know linux which i have discovered in 2002.

Playing C&C: Yuri's Revenge online.

The first time I went online was in school back in 1997 or 1998. Yahoo chatrooms were the cool thing to be using, and there was little actual web surfing other than around Yahoo's pages.

I have no idea what the speed was, but it can't have been great.

My first experience with computers was a lot earlier though, using a ZX81 at around 1990/1991 before upgrading to a Commodore 64 and an IBM XT 8088. We finally got a computer capable of running Windows 3.1 in 1995/1996.

I can't tell you the amount of times I broke that machine whilst learning DOS and Windows, and playing around with config files

Back in the early/mid '80s, a number of different BBSs (anybody else remember Ward Christianson?) and, of course, the CompuServe network...kind of a cross between chat & email with tin cans & strings...

My first modem? A 150-baud acoustic coupler.

Gawd, I'm old...

Mine would be setting up a 28k modem on my old colour classic and discovering Yahoo in 1995. I remember being only allowed online for an hour a day because phone costs were high.

My mom started me on computers when she was in punch card operator training back in mid-late 70's. The coding and all of that intrigued me. My uncle had a machine, could not remember what it was, but this thing was huge!!

In high school, I putzed around with some apples, commodores and some old PC's. DOS 3.2 was my first DOS. In college, I was invited to the basement of the library where they had a precursor to the internet, but cannot remember what it was called. Been on yahoo since soon after they opened.

But, enough of the ancient history lessons

Mine was using the library internet service and I can actually have a dialup account at home wired to their server. I was amazed at the age of 10 at that time with pages of information flowing along me. I remember that was the time where mp3 was just started and I was really glad to download some mp3 files to play ard which took an hour for a song.

Great experience and a true internet user from then on.

I played Duke Nukem 3d Atomic Edition online. The game was 1v1. He whooped me bad. Me and my mom were trying to figure out if we could use cheats online. It was quite funny. The guy was not a douch tho so, it was all good.

Thus started my delve into online video games.

The Imagination Network. I was a Shadows of Yserbius addict @ 13 years old. I only lasted 2 1/2 months due to outrageous bills and parents anger.

About 1998. Back in the days of AOL kids. -_-

My first computer was a Compaq Armada 7770DMT with Windows 98 from eBay. IE had never been upgraded from 4.0 to 6.0 so I spent several hours on dial-up downloading the update for it and Outlook Express with fingers crossed because I had no idea what I was doing. After finally getting it ready to go I opened IE and waited a couple of seconds for the MSN homepage to appear but my first online experience was;


404 File Not Found

Server cannot find the file you requested. File has either been moved or deleted, or you entered the wrong URL or document name. Look at the URL. If a word looks misspelled, then correct it and try it again. If that doesn't work backtrack by deleting information between each backslash, until you come to a page on that site that isn't a 404. From there you may be able to find the page you're looking for.

My first experience with the Internet was in 1996, in a Linux run cybercafe. yes, Linux was already in cybercafes then. It was also that same day that showed me Linux, and I didn't look back.

We had an ISDN 128k connection - that was FAST for those days.

I suppose at the time, it was mainly Usenet and IRC, and collecting mail with Pine.

The first time I used the internet, I visited weather.com. This was back in first grade and it's been about 10 years since then and they still can't get the weather right.

Well hello, and thanks for the invite to participate in this intersting social discussion form, will have to check back often.

In reply to the question:

I remember going "online" circa 1980's with the old phone in a cradle thing prob 1200baud modem or something. Would dial up a highschool sponsored BBS. Very tame, very slow. Then in college it was ethernet, and one day I discovered IRC and the whois and finger commands and discovered I had/or could get an e-mail account and had no idea what that was (1992). Remember the computer lab guy helping me a lot (while I was supposed to be writing my english term papers etc) and finding mosaic, netscape eventually yahoo. Used to use dial-up modem to get into Learnlink (Firstclass) at Emory University. Now I have my own Firstclass server Stansgnosticus - A Place Full of Knowledge

Used to use dial-up, then DSL, then cause of how expensive phone was went to cellphone and cable modem, now have cable internet and use primarily a sprint EVDO on my laptop.

It has been an interesting journey and I am a work in-progress and learning by firsthand experience all the way.

Look forward to seeing me start to push my comfort and learn PHP, open-source software, linux (ubuntu/ubuntustudio) and web portals etc for work.

Best regards,

Steve
smorrea_nospam@stansgnosticus.net

1983. I got a Commodore 64 for my birthday. I had been saving up for an Apple IIe by mowing lawns, selling greeting cards, recycling paper and bottles etc. Well, getting a computer for free and being a 13 year old with $1400 in a shoebox was dangerous. I got a disk drive, a 9pin printer, some software and a vicmodem. The Vicmodem came with 40 hours of free compuserve. I logged on as Captain_Snoopy and started my adventure. I was a compuserve member all the way until about 1998. Anyway, I remember being on a bulletin board with one other guy from Queens and he was my age. We used to talk about strange things.