Posted on 12/20/2015 9:22:56 PM PST by pluvmantelo
I remember using Gopher, and I remember my first browser was Navigator.
I also remember spending all night long downloading games from BBS using a 2400 baud modem.
I lurked for a couple of years because of that.
I remember many printed and verbal battles back then but initially it did not make much difference in my business since so few regular people used it but over the years the Internet (and the development thereof) expanded and ended up being the wisest decision I ever made.
What galls me to this day is that our universities use our tax money and think everything they either invent or develop is theirs exclusively while in fact it belongs to the taxpayers.
Anyone remember the days of bulletin boards and terminal access?
FreeRepublic.com is the only bulletin board you will ever need!
It is - I spend 99% of my on-line time right here...
Surely by now you’ve had time to put together an “about” page.
A great, great, life-changing day for so many of us!
I lurked through the FReeper protest of the Hanging Chads in Florida.
AL GORE GET OUT OF OUR HOUSE !!!
I couldn t imagine a use for a PC when they first came out. I also thought that the information superhighway would be the pornography superhighway. Hey, I was one for two.
I remember in the early 90s asking a tech friend if we would ever be able to read entire books on computers. He said it would probably happen but at least 50 years in the future. Now I read entire books downloaded to my cellphone.
I remember reading an article around 1997 that the Internet FAILED in the matter of online commerce.
At 82 my memory is a little shot but I remember the sound of the dialup modem to connect to compuserve and remember my nerdy nephew calling me about a guy named Mark? Andreesen and a site called Netscape and the rest is mental overload. My only regret is not signing up sooner! (bragging rights)
LOL
ahhh.... the days when 80286 cpu’s ruled, 1200 baud modems shrieking protocol handshaking, Compuserve and America Online, browser wars, heady times.
Finding FreeRepublic was like being behind enemy lines and listening to London calling...
I used to cruise the BBS’s but I got internet pretty quickly. I paid $35 a month for 30 hours. Usenet was the only real use for the internet then. Mosiac was the browser of choice.
I remember going using gopher yo look stuff up. If you really want to ferret out old timers, ask about ‘archie’, ‘jughead’, and ‘veronica’ searches. Of the 3 veronica was by far the most advanced. For doing compound searches. First ‘web’ site I ever saw was some cartography site run by a university. I think I still have the bookmark for it, but it is long since dead.
I prefer physical books that I can curl up with. I do have a kindle app on my desktop computer though. I might get a kindle if they make one with a big-enough screen, but I hate the thought of being a slave to a “device.” I still have a camera-less flip phone.
I still recall a few of my earliest online experiences during the late 1980s.
I could dial up my buddy’s computer and we’d chat back and forth online. It was slower than picking up the telephone to talk, but it was exciting to think we were on the threshold of something new.
I used to dial into the Houston public library to peruse the card catalog system. Their website was also a portal to other libraries around the country. I was so cool! [or so I thought]
I used to do some construction projects and went to Home Depot, Lowes, etc. to walk the aisles and shop prices for different cuts of lumber. Tiring of that, I spoke to the manager of a Home Depot in 1990 and tried convince him that setting up a BBS containing a catalog of their current lumber prices would be a tremendous service to estimators. I argued that it would give Home Depot a competitive advantage. He gave some lame excuse why it could not be done; I was not convinced by his excuses.
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