When did you get an internet account and what made you do it?

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - When did you get an internet account and what made you do it? (Page 1 of 2)

Posted: 1/2/2006 7:29:57 AM EDT

I'm not talking about free access at school or work. Or a subscriptionto a local BBS.

When did you first get an internet account and what made you decide to do it?

For me, it was 1995 and I had a free trial of AOL.. I Was telling somone I knew about it and he told me to skip the AOL crap and get a real internet account because it was so much better. Luckily I listened and didn't become one of those AOL people.

And bonus points for listing your first modem speed. I was at 14.4. Woo!

Posted: 1/2/2006 7:33:07 AM EDT

[#1]

Year: 1998-ish.

Reason: Porn

Quoted:
I'm not talking about free access at school or work. Or a subscriptionto a local BBS.

When did you first get an internet account and what made you decide to do it?

For me, it was 1995 and I had a free trial of AOL.. I Was telling somone I knew about it and he told me to skip the AOL crap and get a real internet account because it was so much better. Luckily I listened and didn't become one of those AOL people.

And bonus points for listing your first modem speed. I was at 14.4. Woo!

Posted: 1/2/2006 7:34:27 AM EDT

[#2]

1-00, and I did it because i bought a computer to use the net.

Posted: 1/2/2006 7:34:28 AM EDT

[#3]

1991, when I started working for CompuServe, and it wasn't the internet back then.

Posted: 1/2/2006 7:35:52 AM EDT

[#4]

Quoted:
1991, when I started working for CompuServe, and it wasn't the internet back then.

yeah, I consider compuserve to be more of a national type of bbs. Up to a certain point when they added internet access. Don't remember when that was though.

Posted: 1/2/2006 7:37:50 AM EDT

[#5]

Got my first dial-up account in 1998...

Back in those days, you could meet a chick online, she'd be banging on your front door within two hours, and you'd be banging her back door in another two

Posted: 1/2/2006 7:37:53 AM EDT

[#6]

I miss the days of BBSs. I ran one for about 4 years in the early 90s.

Posted: 1/2/2006 7:38:02 AM EDT

[#7]

I started with the interner back in 98 mainly for pornography.

Posted: 1/2/2006 7:38:47 AM EDT

[#8]

I ran a dial-in BBS starting in about 89. We started with 2 lines and grew to over 40 with over 1000 paid subscribers. We pirated a lot of goodies and traded porn. Also met my first online sex on the BBS.

I got my first dial-up account in 94. Why is obvious... because I am a total geek.

Posted: 1/2/2006 7:42:08 AM EDT

[#9]

Well, if you discount college, where I got my first internet account in 1986, then it would've been in 1989 just after I graduated.

Email and USENET. W00t. You young whippersnappers don't know how good you've got it.

Posted: 1/2/2006 7:42:30 AM EDT

[#10]

Quoted:
Quoted:
1991, when I started working for CompuServe, and it wasn't the internet back then.

yeah, I consider compuserve to be more of a national type of bbs. Up to a certain point when they added internet access. Don't remember when that was though.

1994-1995, after they bought Spry Mosaic.

Posted: 1/2/2006 7:43:32 AM EDT

[#11]

300 baud was top of the line when I started surfing.
A little thing called telnet to the local university and we "found" after some looking, a gateway to MIT.
They were working on some cool stuff. More or less the pre-cursor to the WWW.

Posted: 1/2/2006 7:44:22 AM EDT

[#12]

AOL, do not remember the date, but, AOL listed their modem speed at 4400 and we could only hook up at a blistering 2400. At that time a good deal on RAM was $45.00 a Meg. We had a 286 with 8 Meg and a 80 Meg HD. Was a kicka** system for that time, now, my kitchen stove has more power.

Posted: 1/2/2006 7:45:45 AM EDT

[#13]

Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
1991, when I started working for CompuServe, and it wasn't the internet back then.

yeah, I consider compuserve to be more of a national type of bbs. Up to a certain point when they added internet access. Don't remember when that was though.

1994-1995, after they bought Spry Mosaic.

Yeah that sounds about right. I remember an old boss with compuserve about that time, and he was trying to figure out how to use it to connect to the internet.

Posted: 1/2/2006 7:57:56 AM EDT

[#14]

1994 from home. Porn.

Before that, BBS systems and long distance charges, starting in 1988 or so.

I put our company onto the internet back in 1995 with a dedicated T-1. My modem was 1200 baud after I flashed the ROM. Before that it was 600 baud and was a Hayes modem. Lots of money for that equipment. Our T-1 was almost $1000 per month. We later installed a T-3 circuit.

I remember when the internet was newsgroups and confined to universities. My first graphical browser was Mosaic. I remember when there were other operating systems besides DOS.

I remember a time before personal computers.

My first was a Commodore 64 bought from Sears in 1984.

BTW, the internet started as a comm link for DOD to talk with bases and forts way back in 1962. To be used as a back up to phome links in time of nuclear war. It was developed at DARPA.

ETA: AOLand Compuserve were not the internet. They were a community and gave you access to the internet, kind of.

Posted: 1/2/2006 8:01:02 AM EDT

[#15]

1996, AOL free trial on my old 14.4 modem on a 25MHZ Compaq non-tower desktop that cost me ELEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS. Signed up mostly to get sports news.

Posted: 1/2/2006 8:05:21 AM EDT

[#16]

Early 90s, when Compuserve offered internet access directly from their BBS.

Compuserve was very pricey for internet access. Soon after, I joined a local ISP and am still with them today.

Posted: 1/2/2006 8:05:39 AM EDT

[#17]

All the talk about mosaic reminded me of this:

Internet in a box. Spry mosaic, and iirc, a news reader and mail program...the names of both I have long forgotten.

Posted: 1/2/2006 8:07:03 AM EDT

[#18]

Quoted:
...
ETA: AOLand Compuserve were not the internet. They were a community and gave you access to the internet, kind of.

Remember the infamous 'net splits' ???

Posted: 1/2/2006 8:08:06 AM EDT

[#19]

1997

Ebay

Posted: 1/2/2006 8:10:32 AM EDT

[#20]

Quoted:

ETA: AOLand Compuserve were not the internet. They were a community and gave you access to the internet, kind of.

CompuServe had its own network that was part of the internet (later bought by WorldCom). AOL had to lease its internet connection.

Posted: 1/2/2006 8:11:59 AM EDT

[#21]

I think it was around 1994 or 1995. I kept hearing the buzz about the "World Wide web". I listened to Rush and Michael Reagan talking about how you could get news and info unavailable from the MSM.

My first computer was am IBM clone ITTxtra with no hard drive and dual 5 1/4 floppy disks. It cost almost $3000 in 1985 we only used it for games and word processing.

I bought a Compaq 486 SX 66 mhz with a 14.4 modem (fastest modem available at the time) I had Compuserve, AOL 2.0 and Prodigy internet service for the free 30 day trials. I still have AOL along with Comcast hi-speed.

The internet, it's not JUST for porn anymore.

Posted: 1/2/2006 8:12:44 AM EDT

[#22]

september of 96. I got AOL becuase it came with my new computer. I havent had aol since 01.

Posted: 1/2/2006 12:03:22 PM EDT

[#23]

95 28.8
I wanted to keep in touch with people back in Florida with out spending $600 a month on the phone .

Posted: 1/2/2006 12:06:57 PM EDT

[#24]

January 20thish, 1996

A relative of mine in NY was doing VoIP* to someone in NC.

I just though that was neat.

*It was very crude and not like anything anyone would use, but it was a stable Proff-Of-Concept.

My first computer was am IBM clone ITTxtra with no hard drive and dual 5 1/4 floppy disks. It cost almost $3000 in 1985 we only used it for games and word processing.

You should have stocked up on registered receivers. Roughly 10 m-16 receivers at $300 each. ($100 for part and the $200 registration fee.)

Posted: 1/2/2006 12:13:34 PM EDT

[#25]

Early '94 was when there was a company around here offering real internet access. 9600baud modem.

Before that, I'd been on BBS systems since '89.

Posted: 1/2/2006 12:13:53 PM EDT

[#26]

email and usenet (newsgroups) in college....took a few years off until I got a free email addy from juno in 94 or 95.

Posted: 1/2/2006 12:18:43 PM EDT

[#27]

1986 ... GEnie. 300 baud dial-up.

Also have an accoustic coupler for you ubergeeks out there

Posted: 1/2/2006 12:27:09 PM EDT

[#28]

1993, packard bell 486, AOHell, the only local phone line I could get access to with a 14.4 modem

Posted: 1/2/2006 12:44:14 PM EDT

[#29]

1994, I was in the army and a guy in the room next room bought a computer and got internet access, I saw porn, and knew this whole interweb thing was for me. 9600 or 14.4 were probably high speed at that time. Two years later I go tmy first "high-speed" connection, an 128K 2B+d ISDN line, hooked up to an external Eicon Diva TA. The only thing better than free porn, is free porn fast!

Posted: 1/2/2006 12:52:17 PM EDT

[#30]

1977, when it was still known as ARPANET (Before Al Gore changed the name).

Posted: 1/2/2006 12:55:42 PM EDT

[#31]

Well, my brother had a Delphi account in about 1992/1993 that he showed me some cool stuff on.

Other than that, I had access to a mainframe account via dialup from the beginning of college, but you discount that. I guess the first internet account I paid for at all was the "Internet @ Home" that my universtity started running in about '98 to replace the (free) mainframe accounts, and that was a once-yearly fee that was pretty low ($20 or so). I used that until I could get DSL, and then bought a (monthly) subscription in 2002.

My historical connection rates:

1988-1990: 300bps
1990-1994: 1200bps
1994-1999: 28.8kbps
1999-2002: 56kbps
2002-pres: 2mbps

Jim

Posted: 1/2/2006 12:57:18 PM EDT

[#32]

1991.

I started with Prodigy (which sucked) and moved to Promenade, which later became AOL.

Been online in some capacity ever since.

Why? <shrug> I dunno.

Posted: 1/2/2006 1:24:41 PM EDT

[#33]

'95 @ 14.4. I was part of the beta test group when the company I work for rolled out dial up for our customers.

We now offer 3mb DSL.

Posted: 1/2/2006 1:28:04 PM EDT

[#34]

1995 dialup

pron

Why else would I?

Posted: 1/2/2006 1:33:55 PM EDT

[#35]

Mom and Stepdad had Prodigy back about 1994-1995 ish. 14.4 I think was our speed. Maybe it was lower, I don't remember.

Convinced Dad to get AOL by late 1995. 14.4 I think also?

Posted: 1/2/2006 1:39:48 PM EDT

[#36]

We were on Prodigy around 94-95 as well, but I think our first internet connection was sometime around 1990. Both were quickly given up, and we signed up with AOL right before when 4.0 came out. We signed up for Roadrunner probably in 2000 or so, and have stuck with it when it became Cox High-Speed Internet around here. Then we switched from AOL as our browser to IE, occasionally using Netscape. I convinced everybody in my house to switch to Opera, and now my Father's gone back to AOL, my brother and mother use Firefox, and I'm on Opera.

And that's the history of the internet as far as I'm concerned.

Posted: 1/2/2006 2:36:47 PM EDT

[#37]

1999, reason: to surf stuff at home I couldn't at work (porn), post to usenet groups, etc without fear of getting fired for using work resources. Had work internet access ever since there was an internet, first usenet posts are from 1995, vaguely remember browsers and stuff around 1992-3

Posted: 1/2/2006 3:35:35 PM EDT

[#38]

1986

Commodore64 witha 300 baud modem.

I guess that would translate to about 0.03 Kbps now

Posted: 1/2/2006 3:41:01 PM EDT

[#39]

Registered my first domain in 1989, so I'd guess I was dealing with the net starting around 1987. Started running BBS systems around 1979, so I've been a technogeek for quite a while

Posted: 1/2/2006 3:41:20 PM EDT

[#40]

Quoted:

1986

Commodore64 witha 300 baud modem.

I guess that would translate to about 0.03 Kbps now

what was there to surf back in '86?

Posted: 1/2/2006 3:45:40 PM EDT

[#41]

Quoted:
When did you first get an internet account and what made you decide to do it?

mid '98, I could wait to get online and start bashing manufacturers anonymously

Posted: 1/2/2006 3:49:02 PM EDT

[#42]

I had prodigy in 1990. Parents got it for me.

Shortly after I got an account on a college mainframe through my high school.

Posted: 1/2/2006 3:58:48 PM EDT

[#43]

My boss gave me his old computer(my first, it was an IBM 386 PS-2) in '96 so I hooked it up and got an AOL account because it was already on there. I didn't know any better, but as soon as it expired I dumped AOL and got something better, a small local provider.

When I bought the 386 into a computer shop for upgrades, the guy almost laughed at the prospect of upgrading it, the insides were full of dust when he took the cover off. I was a little insulted because I thought it was a very good machine. So I walked out and just got a faster modem and some memory at another place. The first guy was right, it wasn't worth it at all.

Posted: 1/2/2006 4:05:04 PM EDT

[#44]

Around 1982 I used an old LSi ADM-3A and a Racal-Vadic 300 Baud external modem to connect with a DEC pdp-11 with a shell account and a full Usenet newsfeed 40 miles away. When that wasn't available, I went long distance to "Dallas Public Access UNIX" to read news. In 1984 I built an XT-compatible with an NEC V20 CPU that ran at a blistering 8 MHz in "turbo" mode and a Seagate ST-225 20 MB HD!!. w00t!!!!

In the mid 80's I was getting ready to make a field service trip to Eastern Europe, and I saw an article some Dutch guy wrote in rec.motocycles (it was only one newsgroup then) about touring through Poland on his Honda Interceptor, so I dropped him an email and he replied with details about where to stay, where to avoid, etc. I remember telling friends and relatives about this kewl thing called "usenet" where you can type stuff and people all over the world will respond within hours. I got nothing but blank stares.

Then the '90s came with AOL, and the net has been fucked ever since. Before then it was customary to post to public newsgroups with your real name, address, and even your work and home phone numbers in your .SIG line. Now you don't dare even let your real first name out to anyone.

Oh, how I long for the days when you told people you worked with computers and their eyes would glaze over and they'd change the subject. These days the lusers corner me at social events and want me to rid their PCs of all the malware they stupidly installed. Progress is the process by which Usenet has evolved from smart people in front of dumb terminals to dumb people in front of smart terminals.

Posted: 1/2/2006 4:11:13 PM EDT

[#45]

Quoted:
Well, if you discount college, where I got my first internet account in 1986, then it would've been in 1989 just after I graduated.

Email and USENET. W00t. You young whippersnappers don't know how good you've got it.

I remember those days. People now all equate the internet with the World Wide Web, back then that was just a part of the net. they don't remember Gopher, usenet, irc, etc. And FTP is pretty much integrated into web pages now, back then you had to know what you were doing to use the net.

Posted: 1/2/2006 4:25:29 PM EDT

[#46]

First paid account was set up in October 2000. Same day I bought my first real computer (first computer was a Tandy in 88). I bought the computer so I could write game reports for a website I did some work for.

We got online at work in August 99. Which is how I became involved with the above website.

I remember seeing something about Compuserve and Prodigy in the Sears Wishbook in the early 90s. I always wanted to get into it, but never did.

First I ever heard of dial-up BBS is in my AP US History class in 93. VA had a BBS set up for teachers across the state. I had procured an old old system that was donated to my mother's school. I remember dialing into the teacher's BBS and a couple of other BBS that were already on the computer. Didn't know what the hell I was doing.

First time I ever accessed the true internet was in college in late 95 early 96. I remember signing up for every damn email list out there. Got to the point I had to drop that email address. First email addy I ever had was from either Hotmail or Bigfoot.

It's been a long trip in a short time. Boggles my mind just how quickly things have moved over the last 15 years.

Posted: 1/2/2006 4:40:55 PM EDT

[#47]

1995, I think. AOhelL. That lasted about a year, then I switched to a local dialup ISP. I went to broadband cable modem about eighteen months ago.

Why? I'm a geek.

Posted: 1/2/2006 4:55:46 PM EDT

[#48]

I used BBS's since the early 80's using a 300 baud modem and my IBM PC. I'll never forget the joyous day I soldered a 12 MHz crystal onto a switch so I could "turbo" my 4.77 MHz PC. Within a few months I bought a used 1200 baud Us robotics modem for $300.00.

Oh yeah, Compuserve was a text based service and there were no other services beyond private BBS's.

Around 1994 I got a SLIP account onto the web and never looked back.

Why? Because I am a geek.

Bob