What is your earliest Internet memory?

[homoe]

That LOUD & IRRITATING sound of 'dial up'

[storyspinner70]

Originally Posted by homoe

That LOUD & IRRITATING sound of 'dial up'

AOL for the win!!!! Not. Lord god that long long connect. And the anger when someone forgot and picked up the phone before it connected or pitched a fit when you were on it and they just HAD to make a call.

I had a computer long before I had internet. Thinking back makes me nostalgic. lol...Tiny amber screen. Floppy. Dos. My parents bought it for me to write my poetry and novels and school papers on. Oh, and so I could print them out on that loud ass printer. It was so awesome then.

[dreadgeek]

Using a 1200 baud coupler modem (the kind where you literally put the handset into the modem!) for a local BBS. (That will give you an idea how long ago *that* was!)

My first embarrassing Internet moment was when I had my first real PC (486 DX/16Mhz processor, 128mb hard drive, 8megs of ram) and I fell for an early iteration of "there is a new and dangerous virus that will delete all your files!" email which I then posted somewhere in the USENET hierarchy.

I've had some form of online access for 30 years now.

Cheers
AJ

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by storyspinner70

AOL for the win!!!! Not. Lord god that long long connect. And the anger when someone forgot and picked up the phone before it connected or pitched a fit when you were on it and they just HAD to make a call.

I had a computer long before I had internet. Thinking back makes me nostalgic. lol...Tiny amber screen. Floppy. Dos. My parents bought it for me to write my poetry and novels and school papers on. Oh, and so I could print them out on that loud ass printer. It was so awesome then.

I'm very proud to say that I've *never* had an AOL account! Never.

Cheers
AJ

[Greyson]

My earliest memories of the Internet are the late 90's at Gay.com in the Butch-Femme room. I laughed my butt off. There were some very funny people there. I was an internet virgin. Then one day I scrolled down to the Leather Room. I walked in and there was no turning back. From there I found the "Dash" site in 98 and from there to here.

[girl_dee]

Originally Posted by Greyson

My earliest memories of the Internet are the late 90's at Gay.com in the Butch-Femme room. I laughed my butt off. There were some very funny people there. I was an internet virgin. Then one day I scrolled down to the Leather Room. I walked in and there was no turning back. From there I found the "Dash" site in 98 and from there to here.

Me too! I was in the "older lesbians" room even though i was technically too young. ... heh

Wr sure had some laughs......

[girl_dee]

Originally Posted by meridiantoo

I remember DOS commands and the green cursor/words. I remember my father telling me that they were inventing the Internet. He told me how it would work, what it would do. I was about 16-17 at the time. My first computer game was King's Quest. I had no idea what was coming lol

Oh, and I wrote papers for High School on Word Perfect.

I still niss DOS commands! I like driving the computer.

[TL1]

Aol
Dial up
Aol lesbian chat rooms
Though I rarely use it that aol email is still active

[girl_dee]

Never had AOL, I had AT&T,,,

I just remember being able to find information on ANYTHING. Isn't it amazing to be in the era where the internet was introduced?

[~ocean]

Originally Posted by girl_dee

Me too! I was in the "older lesbians" room even though i was technically too young. ... heh

Wr sure had some laughs......

I was there too Dee lol and yes we had many many laughs back then ~ also here and in the dash as well..** sings ** memoriesssss

[girl_dee]

Originally Posted by ~ocean

I was there too Dee lol and yes we had many many laughs back then ~ also here and in the dash as well..** sings ** memoriesssss

yes we did Ocean lady...... omg i should have never ventured into that place......

[Venus007]

I loved computers from the moment I met them.
I used to prowl around the University of Notre Dame when I was like 11 and I would see the students with their punch cards in boxes rushing about and looking terribly intelligent and important.

My first personal computer experience was at my friend Adam's house, his parents were wealthy and his dad had a computer, it was HUGE. We read that we could cause it to generate tones at particular frequencies and tried to control the toaster via sympathetic hZ tones. (We were like 13 or 14)

I took a BASIC programming class in the 9th or 10th grade (early to mid 1980s) and became besotted with computers and programming (I went on to take COBOL, FORTRAN, and Assembler)

A friend of mine had CompuServe (we paid to connect hourly and it could rack up FAST) and I remember being able to read the NY Times and the San Francisco Chronicle digitally. There were also odd conversations with fellow tech nerds (we didn't even call ourselves that at the time)

The CompuServe connection was done through an acoustic coupler that the phone receiver fit into


After that it was AOL, when I started there were an amazing number of people on, like 35,000 (heh)

After that it has been a continuous connection throughout my life.
I met several love and ahem other interests via the web
Some of my very best friends were met this way as well

[girl_dee]

Originally Posted by ~ocean

I was there too Dee lol and yes we had many many laughs back then ~ also here and in the dash as well..** sings ** memoriesssss

i MISS chatting with you !!

[PlatinumPearl]

AIM - AOL Messenger and ICQ.

A friend in college introduced me to the internet and chat rooms we use to meet up in the school computer lab and check out ICQ chat rooms it was all so fascinating to me.

I don't recall how but I use to get the AOL disks in the mail for free dial-up internet for set number of hours and always managed to go over. After going over I had to wait for a new disk to be mailed out which got frustrating at times until one day I called AOL to complain and an AOL Rep told me tips to save on the time used on the net to read and respond to emails.

I still recall using pillows to muffle out the sound of connecting to the internet in the wee hours of the morning not wanting to wake up family members lol. Good times!

[Femmewench]

I joined AOL and found OnQ right away. The OnQ chat rooms had moderators. I'd slip into a room hoping just to observe and every damn time someone would say hello to me. I just wanted to hide until I felt I knew what was going on!

I met my best friend and many others there.

[cathexis]

Originally Posted by girl_dee

I still niss DOS commands! I like driving the computer.

One area in my life where I refused to be Toppped ... by my computer. Sometimes, I'd like to strip Windows off and go back to good ole X-Tree Gold to really find and fix the problem.

One night, I was trying to get to an onion site, and could not "get under" Windows. Fixed the problem, but it would have been quicker/easier if I didn't have to install TOR right THEN.

Earliest computer memory? A Tandy put it together yourself 286. Soon upgraded to a 486. I, too had Delphi Forums and CompuServe, but mostly BBS's. Except that there was this one science site, think it was called Alta-Vista. Used to go to the GTs as well. Was a sub-op for awhile on a fairly large site. Most of the BBS's were full of "ankle byters."

Must disagree with the majority opinion.
I LOVE the sound of a computer handshake. You can always tell if you're connected and generally how good the reception is going to be (i.e. are you likely to be bumped off the site).