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What we used to do online in the olden days

Started by 23 Daves, August 19, 2011, 08:34:48 PM

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23 Daves

I've been online at home for the last twelve years now, initially on dial-up, and eventually in 2002 progressing to broadband.  I felt dead posh when the little broadband server arrived in my houseshare in North London, I can tell you, though I tripped over the countless wires leading into the server from various people's bedrooms more often than I'd have liked to.

I'm reminiscing about all this for the pure and simple reason that I logged into Yahoo Messenger just now.  Yahoo Messenger used to be the chat facility I favoured above all else, and it doesn't really seem to have changed that radically in the last decade.  It looks the same, makes the same noises when people come online and go offline, and seems like a pleasant nostalgia trip to use.  It very rarely slowed up or went wrong back in the old days, although I would occasionally find myself hiding my online presence purely to avoid certain friends who were slow typists.  A simple conversation with them would end up taking an entire bloody hour. 

Just now, I logged in and my friends list was devoid of life.  Deserted.  A ghost town.  I'd be willing to bet that the last time any of my friends used it was probably at the tail end of the noughties, all now chatting via Facebook as they do.  The only sense I got that anything had happened since I last logged in (years ago) was a couple of friend requests from accounts I did not recognise.  In a way, it's a shame - Messenger was the method I used to chat to my wife with when she was stuck on one side of the world and I on another, and I also made many transatlantic friends through the service back in the days when I was connected to various Yahoo communities.  It feels faster, simpler and cleaner than Facebook, and it's just a shame nobody's there anymore.  It feels like a warm and comfortable place to be. 

Besides MySpace - which is another ghost town these days - what else did you all used to do on the Internet in the old days, and what do you oddly miss/ feel glad to see the back of? 

biggytitbo

When I first got on-line in 1999 I spent 90% of my time on the yahoo messageboards pulling teenage girls[nb]I was much younger myself in those days though, so it wasn't so seedy[/nb]. Ahh them were the days!

23 Daves

Quote from: biggytitbo on August 19, 2011, 08:38:31 PM
When I first got on-line in 1999 I spent 90% of my time on the yahoo messageboards pulling teenage girls[nb]I was much younger myself in those days though, so it wasn't so seedy[/nb]. Ahh them were the days!

Ah yes, I remember a "22-year old woman" from Scotland flirting with me on YM.  Then she went really quiet, and when I next checked her profile a year or so after her last contact, her age had mysteriously dropped to 16.  So either she was a 15 year old girl trying to pull a much older man at the time she first got in touch with me, or she spent time after that grooming on the Interweb trying to pull much younger boys. 

Makes me feel all nostalgic, it does. 

hpmons

Harry Potter forums and crap flash games.

Now its Chris Morris forums and crap flash games!

Subtle Mocking

Downloading one song by Linkin Park on Kazaa. It took almost an hour and my computer was riddled with viruses afterwards.

pk1yen


Ginyard

My first pentium used to take an ice age to pixel up some tits.

I remember a chat room myself and a few others used to meet in before the turn of the millenium. We'd discuss incredibly exciting stuff, like how to squeeze the entire Vitous orchestra into racks of akai S3200s, or optimizing windows 98 to accomodate Gigasampler  -  material that really gets folk moist. Its long gone now and, although some of us are still in touch, I kind of miss those early days when hardware was gradually beginning to be replaced with software and it all felt a bit new frontier. I don't think I've posted in a music tech forum in years.

I was, and remain, mostly a forum lurker on the net, but I used to post every now and then on TheForce.net in its infancy. I've just popped in for the first time in over half a decade and it still looks much the same, except its quite an empty tavern compared to its glory years.

Big Jack McBastard

Buggering about on Yahoo chatrooms for hours and hours and then getting the phonebill and promising not to do that again.

and then doing it again.

Then I stuck my nose in this neck of the woods and have been madly shouting from my tree since.

weekender

Glebe's Thrift Funnel.

Chris Morris w@nk.

Ah, memories.

pk1yen

Quote from: Ginyard on August 19, 2011, 09:35:03 PM
I was, and remain, mostly a forum lurker on the net, but I used to post every now and then on TheForce.net in its infancy. I've just popped in for the first time in over half a decade and it still looks much the same, except its quite an empty tavern compared to its glory years.

I used to hang around in a Star Wars chatroom called The Holocron (I think it shut years ago). I remember being amazed at the option to buy other people a virtual drink at a virtual bar.

Then I spent a much longer time over at outpost10f.com -- which is still much the same as it ever was I think. I pop in every few years -  after spending 15 minutes trying to remember my password from when I was about 14.
I was actually head of the video game area of their website for a while, thinking about it.

The rest of the time was spent on MSN (which I still use to talk to my girlfriend because it's easier to appear offline on that than on facebook chat).

biggytitbo

Everything was better in the old days, an intrepid wild frontier of discovery where everything seemed possible even if it was very very slow.

hpmons

Quote from: Subtle Mocking on August 19, 2011, 09:12:46 PM
Downloading one song by Linkin Park on Kazaa. It took almost an hour and my computer was riddled with viruses afterwards.

Oh god yes.  And we got about ten links to porn sites on our desktop, which made my mother very confused.  I kept deleting them but they came back.  Used to get loads of porn pop-ups as well, stupid kazaa.  Put me off genitalia for life.

Ginyard

Quote from: pk1yen on August 19, 2011, 09:54:52 PM
I used to hang around in a Star Wars chatroom called The Holocron (I think it shut years ago). I remember being amazed at the option to buy other people a virtual drink at a virtual bar.

Ha. That'll be 50 republic credits for some blue milk and a fumble with a Twi'lek, thanks.

23 Daves

When they first used the internet, was anyone else on here utterly fascinated by people's personal webpages?  I was.  The very fact that I could view the production diary of an amateur dramatics association in Idaho or some photographs of somebody's street in Phoenix utterly astounded me.  In my defence, the first time I went online it was in 1995 through the one computer terminal at my university that was equipped to handle it, and you used to have to "book yourself in" a special slot.  To me, all those little websites seemed like actual evidence that the world was steadily getting smaller, and it was exciting stuff - even though they'd seem like utter self-indulgence now.

I also spoke to loads of awkward, nerdy people online who were desperate for friends, and all the ones I'm still in touch with (through Facebook) are married with kids now.  Not exactly a newsflash, but it does act as a reminder of just how long we've had the benefit of online communications for now. 

biggytitbo

I remember in 1999 when I first got a computer playing the curse of monkey island, half life the exclusive free demo, kingpin, using yahoo chatrooms to chat up girls and downloading old mame games I loved as a kid.


Jesus, having the internet was just the most exciting thing in the world, in a way it just isn't today. Probably like the telegraph, very exciting in its infancy, but taken for granted  by the late 1800s.

Subtle Mocking

I remember downloading some talking monkey thing which ended up killing my Windows 98 PC. I'll never forgive the little bastard.

EDIT: Bonzi Buddy! That's the little cunt!

pk1yen

I also remember playing Spy Hunter a lot on the Shockwave website.

And spending a LOT of time over at the Odyssey of Hyrule: http://vgchat.info/vgx/ (looking for the Triforce I think).

mobias

I do remember downloading my first pornographic image, it came very very slowly and I came really quite fast. I think it must have been the novelty of it. It would have been circa 1993/94. My parents got the internet really early because my dad needed it for work. Reasonably early on in the grand scheme of things. I survived for a frighteningly long period of time on dial up. Its amazing how you were just used to everything taking ages. I remember downloading a single song off audiogalalxy took a good few hours sometimes. You could start downloading a track and go off to the pub and come back it would still be chugging away.

I miss the simplicity of it all back then. Things aren't as bad now but for quite a while all websites seemed to have to have stupid flash animations and novelty cursors. There was a real craze for it but people soon realised how naff and distracting it all was. I feel quite privileged to be part of a generation that has really witnessed it come of age and evolve into what it is now but crucially I can remember what it was like NOT to have any internet. Part of me does miss the days of when I would spend more time simply doing other, probably more constructive, things. I certainly watched a lot more movies, read a heck of a lot more books and possibly valued and enjoyed music more in the 80's and 90's.   

 

Absorb the anus burn

Glebe's Thrift Funnel / Talking-Heads.net / searching using Altavista... It all seemed so exciting and fresh then.

Talulah, really!

Quote from: biggytitbo on August 19, 2011, 10:48:05 PM
Jesus, having the internet was just the most exciting thing in the world, in a way it just isn't today. Probably like the telegraph, very exciting in its infancy, but taken for granted  by the late 1800s.

When Peregrine Worsthorne came on board,  with his "Racing tips for the city gent and a humourous horoscope for the lady of the house" column.

hpmons

The first time I used the internet at home was secretly, as it was pay-per-minute dial-up.  But I just HAD to find out when Prince of Persia 3D would come out.  It had 3D in the title, it must be good!

biggytitbo

It was only through the early internet and Napster in particular that one realised that Daytime Nighttime Suffering was not just an obscure b side but one of the best pop songs ever made.

papalaz4444244

I remember when you would be hit with, no exaggeration, 40-50 popups sometimes if you were unfortunate to click on a dodgy link.

Left you with no choice but to reboot the machine.

pk1yen

Coincidentally, I found a print-off of my Lycos.com registration page today.

My mum and me had actually printed off a copy of my username and password for my newly-created star wars fansite (presumably because it said something like "keep this information in a safe place" at the bottom).

I still have the fact that I have "designed and maintained 4 separate websites" or something on my CV.

placeholder

I'm all about Usenet, AltaVista, The Amiga Web Directory, Digitiser and BearShare.

shiftwork2

Finding foreign radio stations (ok US ones) through windows media player, and marvelling at hearing a San Francisco radio station playing in our basement office when we couldn't even get FM in there.  Sounds trite now but this was jaw-dropping at the time.

Endicott

Quote from: 23 Daves on August 19, 2011, 10:35:48 PM
When they first used the internet, was anyone else on here utterly fascinated by people's personal webpages?

Very much so. I was first online with any regularity in about 97 probably, in my lunch hour. You'd find one quirky site, and then spin off to others through their links. Or you'd do a search on Altavista and something only vaguely connected but weird looking would also come up, and having a peek was irresistible.

And I got into Usenet about then too. Anyone remember Deja News? I never used web forums back then, I only migrated to them when the Usenet groups I really liked dried up or became overrun by idiots.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Go on steakandcheese, stileproject, bangedup, ogrish, rotten, veronicamoser etc, to adolescently squeal variously in delight or disgust at the newly unearthed pits of humanity.

Hang around on the DreamOn chatroom (had a Dreamcast) or play Quake III.

Go on MSN chatrooms and try and chat up people. Got talking to a fair few women, made a few actual physical pen pals (we were friends with the same pen), and that was all quite nice.

Unsuccessfully try to download things we had no right to- though I'm still doing that today.


PaulTMA

I was telling someone just the other day about memories of "printed out porn" and hiding it inside a 12" vinyl edition of 'Mama' by Genesis, surely the last place my brother would find it.

Until, of course, in many years later in 2005 he had to move back home for a year to recuperate from pretty serious surgery and I honestly think he may have been bored enough to have uncovered said record and looked inside.  Fortunately we just don't talk about these things.  They have since been destroyed, but not forgotten.

Viero_Berlotti

I know I'll sound like some old prick, harkening back to a golden age, but the internet felt a bit more wild and limitless 10-15 years ago. That hasn't changed really, the possibilities are still there, but for a lot of people the experience has become homogenised, the internet is facebook.