Early Internet experiences

[neubejiita]

I remember that I was on a BBS system in Victoria dialling long-distance and I was downloading Doom files and chatting about the game. That was a lot of fun indeed. Even before I had the Internet I was already getting into Doom. Good times indeed.

[Xaser]

Heh. First thing on the 'Net I ever did was play Worms 2. Used to fire that up as a wee dude and blast away. Then I started downloading Doom maps one day, and suddenly I wind up here. What the hell happened? o_O

[SaladBadger]

Earliest thing I remember are the gimmicky sites where they would feature all the fancy features of the internet of that era (animated gifs, embedded music files, garish backgrounds that make the text unreadable) and I played a lot of those in-browser java applet games (since back then the only sites I cared to visit were loaded with nothing but them). I was young when I was first on the internet, so I didn't really stray far away from the kid's game sites that were littered about the internet. Didn't think I'd ever find communities like this one, actually.

[Quasar]

I actually started out on BBSes. Most of these were standalone systems with no outside connections, but a few of the largest ones were members of FidoNet and could transmit files, messages, and other data between nodes in a limited way - this was great and gave you access to a lot of stuff. However, the biggest BBSes had an internet connection and could send real email, and sometimes let you access stuff like usenet and gopher. One of these was Hotel California, in OKC, at which I had my first email address -- james.haley@hotelcal.com

Unfortunately the advent of AOL saw BBSes decline and Hotel California, after trying to transition into an ISP, went out of business in 1999 or so.

While using BBSes, I also discovered that the local Pioneer Library System offered a public dial-up access point to their network. You could, of course, browse the PAC and reserve or renew books, but this AIX-based terminal system also had a gateway to the internet, where you could browse the web via Lynx. So my first ability to browse the web was through this monochrome VT100 emulation over 19.2 dial-up.

After this I eventually got an AOL account, mainly because all of my friends had one and wanted me on there with them. That's where I got my handle, 'Quasar', which was actually not thought up by me but by my friend 'FoxMajik' (yes, he was one of the original furries >_> )

[Phml]

I think I only got on the net in '97 or '98 and being even more technologically inept than I am now I mostly used my few minutes a day to marvel at the ability to talk with people all around the world, like in one of these hippie ads you see on TV where everyone smile like they're high, YES THOSE PEOPLE EXIST and I was one of them.

Yet somehow the only conversation I remember is an ackward chat with my highschool crush, who happened to get Internet at her place same time I did and lived no more than a few towns away.

[DeathevokatioN]

If I recall correctly, I got my internet somewhere in either 2002 or 2003, the first site I logged onto was the official Unreal website, I was a huge fanboy and still am of that game. The first Unreal, that is, the second one was shit.

[Vordakk]

DeathevokatioN said:

The first Unreal, that is, the second one was shit.

Same thing for Unreal Tournament 1 and Unreal Tournament 2003/2004. First one ruled, second one not so much.

[DoomUK]

Considering I grew up in the 80's and had been surrounded by computers since I was very young, I was a bit of a latecomer to the internet. I didn't start using it regularly until 1998/99 or something. Quake 3 was the first game I ever played with total strangers somewhere else in the world.

[printz]

One of my first Internet excursions was looking for Doom wads. Go figure!

[The Ultimate DooMer]

printz said:

One of my first Internet excursions was looking for Doom wads. Go figure!

Same here, the first thing I did on the net (after completing the induction at college) was download doom wads onto floppies at 1-5k/sec from the college library's 20MHz 386's :P

[PRIMEVAL]

I remember the secretary dude from my dad's old work came over one day (they were good friends) and were showing me the internet. First thing they did was download a picture of a naked lady, imported her into paint, and 'touched her up' with bigger nips, botoxed lips, and hairy pits. I was about 6 or 7 at the time. Great first experience.

[Koko Ricky]

I remember downloading a picture of Andrea from "Reboot" and trying to giver her nipples in MS Paint.

[Technician]

GoatLord said:

I remember downloading a picture of Andrea from "Reboot" and trying to giver her nipples in MS Paint.

Who didn't?

[Xeros612]

Netscape Navigator, Windows 95, dialup, and something about that one 90s Hercules show. That's about all I remember.

[Sharessa]

Heh, the Internet in the mid-90s was funny. It took like 10 minutes to load a page, so you'd sit there reading it then look at the pictures afterward if they were even done by then. Of course, since it was dial-up, you could only be on the internet for a short while every day or else risk tying up your phone line, so you'd visit maybe one or two sites every day. I also remember downloading .wads at a rate of maybe 2-3 a day because they were such HUGE files.

Shaikoten said:

Oh god. Not my first experience but one of my earlier interactive contributions, I recall a Star Fox roleplaying group on the official Nintendo message board. I also did medieval pub roleplay in the Delphi Forums chatroom. All kinds of sword fighting and buying drinks. Then of course the MUDs soon followed, a habit I have not yet kicked, and something visual games have not come close to touching in terms of freedom of creativity.

(This is all mid 90s or so.)

Back in the day, Wizards of the Coast had a chat room on their site. One of the rooms was a tavern roleplaying room. I used to hang out in there and RP with people. I remember a lot of lulz because whenever someone would enter they'd go "X walks in and takes a seat in a dark corner of the room". At one point I said "man, this tavern has a LOT of corners, must be at least a dodecagon". Much jocularity was had that day.

There was also this guy named Wizard of the Toast who RPed as a kobold. He was trying to make his own card game.

Oh yeah, they also used to do giveaways there. One time I made a really puntastically bad joke, and one of the Ops sent me a bunch of Portal cards as a "prize".

[Enjay]

I sort of drifted into the Internet. I used to visit bulletin boards and was a member of Compuserve so I used to visit the Compuserve forums quite a bit (my first WADs were uploaded to the Compuserve action games forum). As there became more and more web content to be accessed I just sort of migrated across, initially using the Compuserve browser to do it but then just using a proper browser, cancelling my subscription to Compuserve and... well, that's it really.

[Ralphis]

Printing out fake pokemon on a ton of paper for no reason, create Unidoom, use AOL, stick fighter, thinking wwf.com was the coolest thing in the world, finding out about emulators and having my head explode, napster (lots of metallica, kid rock, eminem, and limp bizket wtf), warez, rainbow 6 over msn zone

[Stygian]

I remember having an old Pentium I-class Hewlett Packard PC, Windows 98 and Prodigy dial-up for the longest time, not to mention the screechy modem. We eventually upgraded to a computer with Windows XP after about a decade living under a rock. I remember my friend showing me all of these weird shock sites with games on them and Quake 3 when all I had was Doom and a hard drive full of random anime clips that sister had downloaded. My family recently swapped over to AT&T from Comcast and my mother had to ask whether or not the new cable would tie up the phone line and the saleswoman laughed and told her she was a dinosaur. I'm still behind the times.

[hobomaster22]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitehouse.com

Yeah. Using 56k that never connected anywhere near 56k, tying up the only phone line in the house, and watching jpeg images load pixels at a time.

[Shaikoten]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Palace_(computer_program)

Anyone ever use Palaces? I was totally all over the Korn palace fad. I was pretty big into Korn in general. Yeah, I know. I find it amusing how the legacy of The Palace has to do with the cutesy female "dollz," you see those things pop up every once in a while, but I had totally forgotten where they came from.

[Technician]

hobomaster22 said:

Yeah. Using 56k that never connected anywhere near 56k, tying up the only phone line in the house, and watching jpeg images load pixels at a time.

Kids have it so good today.

[Maes]

Danarchy said:

Heh, the Internet in the mid-90s was funny. It took like 10 minutes to load a page, so you'd sit there reading it then look at the pictures afterward if they were even done by then.

Heh, you wish. Most browsers back then didn't quite have the principle of "asynchronous downloads" or "multithreading" quite right, and a page often simply froze into a blank/grey limbo until a sizeable portion of it was downloaded. Of course, don't even speak about being able to scroll or type into forms while it was still loading.

[Koko Ricky]

Shaikoten said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Palace_(computer_program)

Anyone ever use Palaces? I was totally all over the Korn palace fad. I was pretty big into Korn in general. Yeah, I know. I find it amusing how the legacy of The Palace has to do with the cutesy female "dollz," you see those things pop up every once in a while, but I had totally forgotten where they came from.

Funny that you mention Korn. A friend of mine posted some 90s-ass picture of them on his Facebook, a remnant of the awful taste in music he (and I) used to share. I decided to see if I could find any other tacky 90s pictures of them and stumbled across a fanpage that had information about the odd bands some of the members were in before Korn, like L.A.P.D.

[CODOR]

July 31, 1996. Don't ask me how I remember that, but I do...

The ISP was run by a local independent phone company (i.e. it somehow managed to not get eaten by Bell over the previous century or so). I remember a friend of mine having some connection problems so they sent their tech guy over to check the phone lines -- that's how small they were, they only needed one person on tech support.

I had a crummy 14.4k modem at the time; it wasn't a Winmodem per se, but it couldn't do v42/v42.bis without a driver -- and since I could never get the Windows driver to work, I never had error correction or compression (for the Internet at least, the DOS software that came with it worked fine for the few BBSes I was ever on). It wasn't long after the ISP introduced 36.6k support that I upgraded to a decent modem. (I never did have a 56k until after I had DSL -- I got one in a box o' PC parts a friend was getting rid of.)

[Mr. Freeze]

Netscape navigator, Windows 95, and mechwarrior 2.

[hex11]

Maes said:

Heh, you wish. Most browsers back then didn't quite have the principle of "asynchronous downloads" or "multithreading" quite right, and a page often simply froze into a blank/grey limbo until a sizeable portion of it was downloaded. Of course, don't even speak about being able to scroll or type into forms while it was still loading.

Turn images off, or just use a text mode browser (Lynx). That worked well for me, even on the 14.4K modem I had until 1998 (upgraded to cable modem!) In fact, the 14.4 was even fine for Quake 1 DM or CTF so long as I could find a fairly decent server (250-300 ping) that wasn't flooded with LPB's on T1 (ISDN dudes at least had some lag to contend with).

Didn't use web forums back then anyway. Usenet was still going strong, so there weren't as many network problems to deal with (most ISPs had local NNTP server).

[Technician]

Mr. Freeze said:

Netscape navigator, Windows 95, and mechwarrior 2.

My dad bought me Mechwarrior 2 from the bargain bin. Good times, friend.

[Grain of Salt]

[Csonicgo]

Quasar said:

That's where I got my handle, 'Quasar', which was actually not thought up by me but by my friend 'FoxMajik' (yes, he was one of the original furries >_> )

I KNEW IT

[Maes]

The first time I used the internet circa 1996 I think I went straight ahead to some ZX spectrum emulator sites, as I was amazed at the concept that you could somehow have full-speed, playable emulators on a 486, and my only source until then was a "Greek Spectrum Warez Pak (TM)" I got from my friendly neighborhood pirate ;-)

I had even scribbled some URLs I gathered here and there on the labels of a bunch of blank floppies I had taken with me to "download the goodies" I expected to find. Most of them turned out to be inaccessible/took to long to respond, and I only had a vague idea of what surfing was like from trying offline browsing from some CD-ROMs.

The "state of the art" in the Cyber Cafe I went in at the time was a bunch of leased 28.8 kbps lines (yeah, they had a bunch of normal 28.8 kbps modems permanently "dialed up" with the telco, and the 10 stations of the cafe had to make do with a total combined shared bandwidth of maybe 50-60 kbps tops. If you had to do "serious" downloading (more than a few 100 KBs) you'd better be alone in the shop!

Strangely enough, I didn't consider searching for Doom resources at the time: I was still "living off" my Doomania shovelware CD, and Doom II v1.666 and Ultimate Doom v1.9 were all the rage for me. Downloading stuff was so costly, time and money wise, that I really couldn't grab more than 2-3 MB per hour, so I ruled out searching Doom stuff since I reasoned it would be too big and probably not much better than what I already had on the CD :-p