Poll: What year did you start using the Internet regularly?

[MacRumors]

Vote: Poll: What year did you start using the Internet regularly? (http://www.macpolls.com/?poll_id=179&ref=forums.macrumors.com)

[usersince86]

Remember, we're talking about the INTERNET, not AOL, CompuServe, or whatever... (even though those may have had the internet, many users think of them as the same, and they're not -- and especially weren't several years ago).

Just a thought!

[howard]

when was the internet first really created?...and when did it become public/mainstream?

[NW80pdx]

I remember I started using the internet via long distance dialing in about 1995. there really wasn't much out there.

[zimv20]

Originally posted by usersince86
Remember, we're talking about the INTERNET, not AOL, CompuServe, or whatever...

1984, if we're including bitnet and arpanet.

[Mudbug]

I had what I like to refer to as a webpage up on the net in 1989 for my High School soccer team to post a calendar for games and practices. Used a connection on a PC (what we had at the time) using Sprint landlines. I remember "upgrading" the modem in the computer to a 28.8 from the 9600, so that it wouldn't take as long to load from page to page, and boy were we thrilled with the results.

Then we made the mistake and joined Prodigy (that's another story).

Just for the record, I can now load every page I ever visited from 1989 - 1995 in around 6 seconds, instead of the 6 years. I'm not kidding.

9600 baud to 3 Mbits in 14 years. Not a bad transition.

*edit* unless VAX counts, or straight Telnet, then we're talking 1985 or so...)*end edit*

[shadowfax]

wow. these statistics look strikingly predictable--a bell curve with 95 as the peak. i started in about 1996, if i rememebr correctly.

[Rower_CPU]

'97 for me. I really had no regular connection with the 'net until college.

It's been quite a ride since then, though...

[Rajj]

Originally posted by howard
when was the internet first really created?...and when did it become public/mainstream?


The internet was created in 1968, then ARPANET, but it did not become mainstream until the 90?s.

[Nermal]

First signed up with a now-dead ISP called Voyager in Dec 95. They charged by the hour, the the first month's bill was $80. Found a flat-rate $30 local ISP (who is still around), and actually started using the net regularly sometime in 96. Got DSL in Nov 2001, the day it finally came out in my town, and have been using it ever since.

[gotohamish]

I put 1993 which I when I used it regularly...

...however, who here remembers MacTerminal? I used that with our Apple Modem in about 1986. I remember lots of usernames and failed passwords. Some things never change! I still have MacTerminal in it's original box. Aaah, memories.

[Rajj]

My fist Internet fix was in ’88, but I didn’t start using it regularly until ’95.
I think my ISP was Compuserve , and I paid about $45 month, and then I got cable in 1997, and had it every since!!

[punter]

When I started 28.8 was considered "experimental" and almost advised against! My isp was US$9 a month (hey that's still good value) but often gave me download speeds LESS THAN 100 B/s!! CRIKEY.

Dad has an apple modem (9600 maybe?)

[marcsiry]

I didn't even know I was using the Internet when I was working at a government think tank back in 1990. All I knew was that I was checking my e-mail via the ARPANET (in a terminal emulator window on my Mac II).

I got an inkling of the upcoming power of the ARPA/Internet when I slipped in the Chooser and accidentally chose "Pentagon" instead of "Pubs" (my department). Two days later my document arrived by "pouch"- I had accidentally printed to Arlington, VA, nearly 3000 miles away...(all docs had a cover sheet indicating who printed them, and since they were classified they couldn't just be thrown away- they had to be accounted for).

I was first aware of the "Web" around 1993 when I visited a demonstration at the Electronic Cafe in Santa Monica of the hot new tech available then- Gopher, Veronica, and WWW browsing courtesy of Mosaic :-)

[Ambrose Chapel]

I started on Gopher and Lynx back in 93. I remember thinking a few years later, how are people going to remember these urls with all these colons and backslashes? ha...

[void]

I started using the net in '94, at the ripe old age of 4...

[peterjhill]

1992 for me... On VAX, UNIX, and a trusty Macintosh IIsi connected via thicknet. I believe that the Mac only supported classful IP networking back then. Those were the days...

Anyone remember bolo... A multiplayer network tank game where you could make custom maps?

How about gopher? or the first release of mosaic or "macweb" Let's crank up the wayback machine...

I had some access to milnet in the navy, but not what I would call "regular use", that would have been in 89-91.

I highly recommend "Where Wizards Stay Up Late" if you are interested in reading about the history of the Internet.

[mac15]

when netspace 3 and IE 3 exploded. I started using the net in 96 (but regualrily in say 98) when I got my imac!

[iGav]

First exposed in 1994
Frequently in 1995
Designing for since 1996

[gerror]

beyond '93. Had a very fast connection at school. And only mac's. Had and email adress using telnet. I could remember 2 years later or so, I was already downloading Beavis & Butthead clips from MTV.com

[rt_brained]

"Internet"?

[wallinbl]

I started using it in 1994, when Ga Tech required it.

Gopher was great. List after list.

Many of you guys are probably Mac users, but does anyone else remember the peril of running Trumpet Winsock and Spry Mosaic?

I actually remember thinking that email was just a pain in the ass that I wouldn't have to use once I got out of college.

Newsgroups were pretty good in 1994, though.

[DakotaGuy]

'97 when I went to college...never even knew what is was before then.

[phrancpharmD]

Must have been 1994 when I started using it for research in college on a Windows machine. I hated those indecipherable Gopher lists and was so stoked when I finally discovered what Netscape Navigator did - I vaguely remember Trumpet and Mosaic, but definitely remember how using a search engine resulted in five to ten unique links and the other 90 were the same.

[Mr. Anderson]

When I was in high school I first started using it and had access to it but it was nothing like it is now. And that was back in the early 80s.

The first time I started using it regularly would have been in 87 I think on Unix boxes, via a shell - no browsers.

Anyone here remember when Mosaic came out and changed everything?

D

[bbarnhart]

My CS professor showed me usenet around 1990 and I was addicted. I'd been using BBS's for many, many years before that. After I was through with school I searched and searched for a way to connect my computer to the "Internet" so I could continue to use usenet. Then came the world wide web.

[eyelikeart]

I got hooked in late '96...

my first experience was the excitement of being able to do a search for James Dean and pull up a page about his life...28K modem...

those were the days...

now I bitch if a page takes longer than 5 seconds to load... ;)

[sososowhat]

In 1988/89 I was working as a contractor at Apple, testing their original Unix, A/UX. I left to start a contracting agency specializing in Unix people.

From November 1989 to about 1991 we did 100% of our recruiting using misc.jobs.offered & ba.jobs.offered (then we grew big enough to afford ads in the SJ Merc).

What's interesting is that

a) We considered this something of an abuse of protocol. Postings were supposed to be non-commercial. We limited ourselves to one post per week as we were afraid that more would get us flamed.

b) A few companies were posting their own recruiting ads, but no one (& I mean, no one!) other than us was doing it as a broker until at least 1991 or 92. It was a huge competitive advantage for us - we specialized in Unix people, and the best all read misc.jobs.offered. By the way: there was no misc.jobs.contract yet, or anything like it.

[wallinbl]

Originally posted by bbarnhart
My CS professor showed me usenet around 1990 and I was addicted. I'd been using BBS's for many, many years before that. After I was through with school I searched and searched for a way to connect my computer to the "Internet" so I could continue to use usenet. Then came the world wide web.

I had the same problem in 92-93! I had heard of the Internet, but could not for the life of me figure out how to connect. I contacted every BBS in town, figuring one of them must have access. It wasn't until I was in college (94) that I could actually get on.

[jfruh]

Anyone here remember when Mosaic came out and changed everything?

It was the last week or so of my freshman year of college -- so, May 1993. I had signed up to live in the "computer network pilot project" dorm -- every room had Ethernet connections (a first for my university). My little Mac Plus looked kind of silly with the Univesity-supplied SCSI Ethernet card sitting on top of its external 20 MB hard drive ...

Anyway, most of the year I had used the network to interact with other students in the dorm (there were some MUDs set up) but nothing that would be considered the "Internet" per se. (I didn't even send email, since I didn't know anyone outside the dorm who had it.) But on this last week, I stuck my head in to the room of my friend Scott, who had what at the time was a high-powered PC. He was looking at pictures of Byzantine churches in Istanbul (we were both interested in ancient history).

"Hey, did you scan those at the Classics dept.?" I asked him.

"Nope," he said. "They're on a computer at the University of Chicago."

"So how are you looking at them?"

"With this program called Mosiac. It connects to that computer directly over the network."

We just looked at the pics for a bit and then he said "You know, this is probably going to be huge."

"Yeah," I said. And we were right! :D

[wdlove]

I started using the internet regularly in 1994. Can remember using 28K and the external modem at that point in time wasn't a regular user!

[gwuMACaddict]

we need to all take a minute and thank the one and only al gore for inventing them damn thing



'oooo- they have the internet on computers now!'


:D

[zuffen]

My first mac experience was in 86 with a 512 unit ( I think that what it was), prior to it I had been learning programming on a Commodore 64. Went to college and learned on machinesthat were 8088, 286, 386s, Dos and windows 3. whatever

Seems like it was 88 and a dialup to the national weather service.
486 processors were the fastest thing and my god a PC cost like 4K.

Those were hazy days.

Then I remember running fiber optic in 93, working at a college, had to polish the ends by hand with a little spit and fine sandpaper.

Spent a couple years out of IT.

My first real dump into the WWW was fall 96 at work (evening shift) during the night, god there was so much weird unpassworded porn in those days, I spent alot of time in chat rooms learning, got burnt out after about 4 months of steady useage and then actually used the thing for research instead of "fun". The top speed PC was a pentium 90 and there wasn't a Mac in the entire building. Moved into town and had a chance for a dial up account that wasn't long distance. Bought an Acer PC from U bid this was before ebay I think, thing was junk and sent it back. Bought a Compaq 4840 p266 with a 56 K modem. Seems to me that things really started moving in 97/98, I mean web expansion and the general population.

changed jobs and started working on MACs, quadras to 9600s

Bought my G3 400 6 months after it debut.

Dang things sure have moved along. What year is it?

[trebblekicked]

i didn't really use it much until it went more graphic (93-95), but i did spend some time on text-based infogroups, and i remember playing a game called "everdark"- a no graphics, massively multi-player RPG. anyone else remember this?
i sent my first email in 1986. it was part of a class demonstration. we emailed some kids in alaska. i remember being moderately impressed.

[funkywhat2]

In 1993 my dad bought my family's frst computer. It was a Midwast Micro with a Pentium 100. We were the first in our city with cable modem access in 1994. The computer died in 1995, with my dad taking online classes at Carnegie Mellon (for their MSIT program. Interesting note: he was the first distance graduate of the program). Then I started using it in school. In 1997 I started back at home again, using dial-up on a dual Pentium Pro box (200 MHz!) that was my dad's workstation. Then he went back to school to finish the Carnegie Mellon program, and got a cable modem, along with a new computer (Compaq PW 500 with dual Xeons). In 1999, I got Gateway Essential 500. I used the cable modem untill March of this year, when my ehternet card died. Then the cable service was cancelled, due to $ constraints. Yesterday I began using AOL to get online from home. Right now I'm on my school's "high speed" network. Hopefully, the cable will come back to me soon.:eek:

[yzedf]

Originally posted by Ambrose Chapel
I started on Gopher and Lynx back in 93. I remember thinking a few years later, how are people going to remember these urls with all these colons and backslashes? ha...
Those were the days... waiting 24 hrs for the new Netscape version to download (2400 baud modem), checking out the berkeley ftp site for the latest versions of DOOM... fingering the girl across the room ("I've been fingered!" - loved it when she said that while everyone was trying to type up their midterms)... cruising the campus network, drive by drive (c thru gg IIRC)! Watching the pr0n load line by line... an entire semester of school work (college) would fit on 2 or 3 floppy disks). I still remember finding out that the dorm had been wired for "ethernet" in 1992!!! The hard part was finding someone in the dorm that knew what ethernet was, lol.

[macdong]

I started using internet regularly after i graduated from high school and got hired by a company to work with QuickTime in 2000.
That's 3 years after i started using computer, 2 months after I got my first Mac...

[Pancake]

I started using the internet in 1995 on my Mom's powermac 7100. Being in seveth grade then, I spent the vast majority of my time basking in the glory that is free interent porn. The interent was an amazing thing for horny nerd in 7th grade.

Sadlt, I found out several years later that when you lose your virginity it is to only one girl, and not to the whole cheerleading squad.

[Eniregnat]

I think that people may confuse when they started using the Internet with using the Internet regularly. I was aware of the internet, but until I had access to DSL (about 5 years ago) my access was sporadic at best.

[Snowy_River]

I, for one, started using the internet in High School, back in 1987. My High School was, as I understand it, the first High School in the country to have a direct connection to the internet (not dial-up). However, my use was limited.

When I went to college, I used the internet to play such games as NetTrek (what ever happened to NetTrek, anyway?) on NeXT machines. I also, of course, used email.

However, I didn't start using the internet really regularly until about 1993 when I actually got my own ISP. That was when I could do things from my own computer, rather than going to the school's computer room.

[bryanc]

I used to spend a lot of time frequenting USENET newsgroups like rec.arts.sf.written, rec.scuba and comp.ai.*. But back in the early 80's I used to log into a number of BBS's running FIDOnet using my trusty Apple ][ (48k of RAM and a (*gasp*) _Floppy_ disk drive...now that was a kick-@ss computer!).

For someone who isn't a computer scientist (I'm a biologist), I've been quite a geek for a long time.

[-hh]

Originally posted by zimv20
1984, if we're including bitnet and arpanet.


1985 was when my ARPANET account was set up.

Been on it proverbially "every day" since - - its now 18 years old and still running strong, although the domain did get renamed back in April '88.


And since this is a Mac site, it is only fitting to mention that the oldest post of mine that I've found in the Google Archives is in the INFO-MAC Digest, specifically Volume 6, Issue 24.

For reference, the last Info-Mac Digest on file is from last November 2002, and is V19, #86.


-hh

[wdlove]

Originally posted by -hh
1985 was when my ARPANET account was set up.

Been on it proverbially "every day" since - - its now 18 years old and still running strong, although the domain did get renamed back in April '88.


And since this is a Mac site, it is only fitting to mention that the oldest post of mine that I've found in the Google Archives is in the INFO-MAC Digest, specifically Volume 6, Issue 24.

For reference, the last Info-Mac Digest on file is from last November 2002, and is V19, #86.


-hh

It sounds like you are one that could give us alot of interesting historical information! I've seen some information about the Internet's history beginning with the ARPANET on PBS. It was very stimulating! ;)

[mc68k]

when i got into HS in 96'-97, i don't tremember exactly when.

[dreamlance]

I think we hopped on AOL in 93 but it was in 94 that we started using the now-deceased Linknet to dial up. Those were interesting days. No IMing, slow as molasses chat rooms, etc.

[Centris 650]

My college roomate in 89 (I believe that's right. It was the year that Hurricane Hugo hit SC) had an Apple IIgs (I think) that he would sign on to BBS all the time. Another friend had access to some really cool BBS's. We used to waste HOURS on end playing games online.

After college I bought a Centris 650 and a co-worker had AOL. I signed on in ~92. I kept that screen name until 97 when I got sick of AOL. Tried a local IP but it was HORRIBLE! No Mac support to speak of and when I went in for a question they picked on me for having a Mac! :mad: Needless to say I complained and got a free year of service. Not too shabby. Just dropped Earthlink for a DSL connection. Ahhhh the sweet taste of speed....hmmmmmmmm.

[-hh]

Originally posted by wdlove
It sounds like you are one that could give us alot of interesting historical information!

Yes, I have some interesting references :p

Actually, the thing I miss the most are simple, short emails.

In the "Old Days", transmitting a binary meant that the Sender had to know how to UUENCODE it and the receiver had to know how to UUDECODE. This was a minor burden, but it was enough to make people think twice before sending any large files.

Today, my account's 80MB quota (originally ~4K) gets zapped every day because of people who think nothing of emailing a 20MB MS-Powerpoint attachment to clog things up. Its agony when you're on the road with a 56K modem.

And I still have a copy of Mac NCSA Mosaic 1.0 ...somewhere.


I do have to admit that its pretty nice to be on the "haves" side of bandwidth, at least at work: my first connections back in '85 was 300 Baud at home (for those who remember "The Source", which was superceded by "GEnie"), and a whopping 9600 Baud at work. While that's horribly slow by today's standard, when all you were getting was pure text, 9600 Baud was plenty fast. Of course, a Mac Plus with a 10MB Hyperdrive was considered pretty fast then, too: imagine being able to keep your OS on something other than a floppy disk!



-hh

[NoWonder]

Originally posted by Mudbug
I had what I like to refer to as a webpage up on the net in 1989 for my High School soccer team to post a calendar for games and practices.


Interesting. According to http://www.w3.org/ (http://www.w3.org/History.html) You were writing html back when hypertext was still in the proposal stage. Very impressive. Especially considering the first web browser wasn't written until Oct of 1990. The phrase "World Wide Web" hadn't been coined yet.

Or you could just be making stuff up.

--nw

[wdlove]

Originally posted by -hh
Yes, I have some interesting references :p

Actually, the thing I miss the most are simple, short emails.

In the "Old Days", transmitting a binary meant that the Sender had to know how to UUENCODE it and the receiver had to know how to UUDECODE. This was a minor burden, but it was enough to make people think twice before sending any large files.

Today, my account's 80MB quota (originally ~4K) gets zapped every day because of people who think nothing of emailing a 20MB MS-Powerpoint attachment to clog things up. Its agony when you're on the road with a 56K modem.

And I still have a copy of Mac NCSA Mosaic 1.0 ...somewhere.


I do have to admit that its pretty nice to be on the "haves" side of bandwidth, at least at work: my first connections back in '85 was 300 Baud at home (for those who remember "The Source", which was superceded by "GEnie"), and a whopping 9600 Baud at work. While that's horribly slow by today's standard, when all you were getting was pure text, 9600 Baud was plenty fast. Of course, a Mac Plus with a 10MB Hyperdrive was considered pretty fast then, too: imagine being able to keep your OS on something other than a floppy disk!



-hh

Sounds very interesting, thank you for your tiem to respond! ;)

A real, "Those were the Days" type of feeling! :)

[scem0]

probably about 1995. Not too sure though.

[mim]

Originally posted by dukestreet

Anyone here remember when Mosaic came out and changed everything?

D

Yeh! I have pretty fond memories of 1990 to 1995 - when the net went from text to graphics. Strange and heady days. It was really incredible that the net was really only known to geeks pre-1993, but then in the space of a few years everyone was talking about the electronic superhighway (lol).

I used to love spending whole days at a time without sleep on irc - it seemed so important then, scripting bots taking over channels, lurking in "lesbian only" channels. There were loads of people, but it seemed a fairly tight-knit community.

I remember going travelling for 6 months in late 1994, and coming back in 1995 to find that the whole face of the net had changed - irc had grown 10x and seemed to be full of angry young men. No one remembered the hero's of only 6 months ago. There were so many more web pages, and a lot of them had advert, or were selling space.

My mom had a boyfriend who was an "internet consultant" he charged $80/hr to teach people to 'surf the net'. Naturally I told him to f- off. What a dill.

But so much changed in so little time. I still find it amazing.

[Billicus]

I can't say that I started using the internet until 2000 when my family got our iMac 400 DV. And then it wasn't until July.:D

[coumerelli]

I remember hearing about 'surfing the web' in (I think) late '93 early '94. I had no idea how though. My fam got AOL in '95 sometime and my older bro showed me what the internet was like. I think the one of the sites we went to that day was apple.com! All on a freakin' fast 9600 baud. How cool would it be to get a screen shot of that, huh?

And the rest, they say, is history. I've had highspeed access at home for about a year or two. Once I tasted the glory at work, we couldn't go back to a 56k modem. NO WAY!

So here I am, having started a web and print design company [shameless plug] brandedideas [/shameless plug] with my brother. Things are looking good for the future of the www. :p

[iT4c0]

I remember when i was 6th grade in Taiwan (94) using 28.8k modem to surf on the internet. My family had 386 and 586. windows 3.0? It was fun using photoshop and surfing on the net for the porn. However, I start using it regularly after i move to US in 97. quake 2 changed my life and I play it everday until 2002. gg quake2~!

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by iT4c0
I remember when i was 6th grade in Taiwan (94) using 28.8k modem to surf on the internet. My family had 386 and 586. windows 3.0? It was fun using photoshop and surfing on the net for the porn. However, I start using it regularly after i move to US in 97. quake 2 changed my life and I play it everday until 2002. gg quake2~! that's kind of disturbing, heh ;)

[zigzag]

Interesting curve on the results... very predictable :)

[zigzag]

Originally posted by iT4c0
I remember when i was 6th grade in Taiwan (94) using 28.8k modem to surf on the internet. My family had 386 and 586. windows 3.0? It was fun using photoshop and surfing on the net for the porn. However, I start using it regularly after i move to US in 97. quake 2 changed my life and I play it everday until 2002. gg quake2~!


Yes, quake 2 is still the best game of all time! :-)


:D

[farblue]

As part of a lecture on HTML and style sheets, I put together a potted history of HTML here:
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~rsg/HTML4-lecture/history.html

Being about HTML, I left out loads of interesting arpa net stuff etc :(

As for when I first started using the internet regularily, its a little hard to pin down. For a long time early 90's I used bbs's on my Atari ST (followed by Atari Falcon in 93) and, I think around 93 the BBS I used a lot developed a gateway for email so you could use email through the BBS. I suppose that was my first internet usage. I officially connected directly to the internet in 95 (again, on my Atari) when the Web was only just taking off and I spent most of my time on IRC.

They were great days but everything was moving so fast :( Like a previous poster said, you were away from IRC for a month or two and when you came back it would be like you had never been there before! But IRC was a wonderful little community of about 100,000 people around the world and it was one of the big casualties of the Web (and then ICQ which is nowhere near as good).

I first experienced broadband when I went to Uni in 97. We got home broadband (cable) late 2000 (I was one of the first in Birmingham, uk baving been pre-registered since the start of 2000!) and an Airport around the same time. I've been surfing wireless for 2 years :)

In case anyone is interested and can't be bothered to check out the potted history, Mosaic was developed on a NeXT Cube running NeXT OS - which was designed by NeXT Computers Inc., headed by Steve Jobs and now what we all lovingly call OS X :)

[scem0]

Originally posted by zigzag
Yes, quake 2 is still the best game of all time! :-)


:D

SC is sooooooo much better... ;)

That and pong. :D

[mim]

Originally posted by farblue
But IRC was a wonderful little community of about 100,000 people around the world and it was one of the big casualties of the Web (and then ICQ which is nowhere near as good).


It is a pity that irc in someways has moved out of mainstream netting - but then again maybe that's a good thing for the irc community. Like I/you said, it was originally a fairly small stable group (I'm guessing here, I haven't been on for years now). First news of the Desert Storm attach on Iraq came through irc. It was quite an introduction to the power of communication the net brought.

Another example of that was this guy who had a script that scanned almost every newsgroup at the time (15,000 odd I think). You could type a question to him in any news group, and he'd most likely respond. I can't remember his name, but he was a huge legend - the oracle of the net.

One thing that comes to mind about irc, was that you could crash just about >any< windows machine by typing "-w" or something in the message window. Such fun!

a.

[jwthomp]

I first accessed D/ArpaNet when I worked for Argonne Laboratories back in '89. I didn't much know what I was doing but it seemed cool at the time.

My first access to public networks was back in oh 85,86 (who can really remember that far back) on a 300 baud modem.

I remember when gopher was far more useful than Mosaic. Besides, gopher was faster

I remember when Yahoo had a competitor called Joel's Hierarchical Index. They weren't really competitors, neither of them mattered much. I was at uiuc when Mosaic hit it big, and a lot of people took credit for other folks work. They still are..

I remember when the way to find things was archie. I remember when archie started having too many matches.

A lot has happened in a few years. It's fun to think back on it, and interesting to read what others have seen. (Even if some of it is fairly obviously, um, made up :) )

Cheers!

Jeff