Can you remember life without the 'net?

[Texas Diesel]

I cant except for a few memories of my HAM days in the 70's, vacuum tubes and all. The 80's were a blur, 90's pretty much the same. Where has all the time gone??? What happened to me? Last time I remember I was young Now I'm becoming an old cynical grouch. I remember the first time I saw a bumper sticker, "re-elect no one" I was shocked, now I agree

 

[klenger]

How about dial-up BBS systems. One user at a time, long distance if it was't local, 1200 baud speeds, no email, no graphics, 360k floppy disks, Visicalc, TRS-80, 64K ram, $500 8 pin dot matrix printers, ... No wonder I don't have any money.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

1200 baud!? Man, I remember 110 baud!! I ran several dial up BBS's. I wrote the first BBS programs for the VIC-20 and Commodore-64 as a matter of fact. Just bought a TRS-80 Model 4 a few weeks ago for nostalgia (had one in the early 80's) and have it sitting on my desk right now. Remember this?

 

[KIseminger]

OMG Steve! Where did you get that thing from! I think I remember seeing those going out the door in school when I was a kid in the 80's.



And I thought the old macs with the 10" screens were old. Seems ancient to my iMac... ...



I remember when the internet was first getting popular when I was about 14 (1992 or so) and didn't really understand it. Now it's something that we count on all the time.

 

[Bill Lins]

I remember. I had spare time. Read books & went fishing. Saw my wife occasionally. Got enough sleep.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Originally posted by KIseminger

Where did you get that thing from!

Ebay of course. Now I just have to find the matching 5 Meg (Yes - FIVE Megabyte, not a typo) hard drive to go with it .

 

[Texas Diesel]

My first HD was 10 MB and sported MFM encoding :-laf

 

[TboneMan]

Steve,



I still have my first computer. A Kaypro Model 3, purchased in 1983.



A "luggable" all-in-one with 9" mono screen and dual floopy drive.



Ahh the good ole days when a software application fit on a single floopy disk.

 

[klenger]

I sold my TRS-80 for $1400 when I bought my first IBM PC in '84. There was a company in Denver by the name of Aparat that made an operating system for the TRS-80, but I don't remember the name of the OS. I think TRS-DOS was the one from Radio Shack.

 

[RamThatStroker]

Steve,



I've never seen one of those before but it looks kinda cool. My first computer was a P-75 Micron with a 2GB hard drive and a 56K modem running widows 95. The interenet was real sloooooooow back then... but I can't remember life without the internet so I guess I must be one of the younger fellas around here





Joe

 

[ladyjaine]

I started out using Kermit to send files around the world back in the early 80's.



I remember downloading the First Version of Netscape. It took all night. The net did not contain graphics at that time. Usenet was pretty much it. Gopher was useful for the few files that were out there that were not usenet or mail.



I remember losing all my bookmarks when we upgraded Netscape and deciding that Microsoft's browser was better because you could FIND the file with your bookmarks in it and make a backup copy.



I remember trying to show the workings of usenet to some friends, who were so not interested it is scary in retrospect.



Jean

Who now makes her living as a Web Developer.

 

[BV]

Ahhh - The days without the "net" were spend playing a dungeon and dragon type came on an Apollo DN400 then there was Solitaire on the Mac's.

 

[BCook1]

K-Pro

I had the K-Pro "Portable". Had about a 5 inch monochrome screen (green) dual disk drives (whoooeee) and the keyboard folded up into the screen area and latched on. Solid metal case thicker than my truck fenders. Weighed at least 20 pounds. Had a spell checker that only pointed out words it did not recognize - you do the rest. what a riot. Yeah, I was on the net with early AOL at 1200 speed. It sort of worked because of no graphics. As for before the web, Apple IIe programming in high school. Sure glad they moved the ON/OFF switch to the back of the case instead of on the keyboard - or maybe that was some other brand. Before the web - there wasn't much cable either. VHS was fairly new. Those huge DVD type discs were around. I think everyone spent a lot more time outside drinking.

 

[klenger]

Does anyone remember the computer game Zork. All text, no graphics at all. The game would tell you what the surrondings were like, and then you told the computer what to do or where to go. Up, down, left, right, pick up sword, etc. I doubt that kids today would be too impressed. Many of them probably aren't literate enough to be able read it.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Yes, klenger - I've got it for the PC and for my Model 4. It's one of the things I'm using the Model 4 for - Zork I, II, and III

 

[E7mack96]

My first PC was a TI 99-4A ? I still have all the software to it.



I remember 8 " floppys for the IBM mainframe too.

 

[nickleinonen]

my first computer is sitting in the basement right now... it is a 486-66mhz with 4mb ram [i upgraded it with a 16mb chip] and a 480mb harddrive. it was a compaq presario 420 or something like that, the montier and pc case is all in one... my current pc is begining to be out dated also. it is a P3-500mhz 128mb ram [upgraded with 256mh chip] 12gb internal HD [80gb external HD] 19" crt moniter...

 

[TPCDrafting]

When I worked for an engineering firm, we used 8" floppy disks on an Olivetti. They had a few old engineering programs on it they still used now and then. Not sure what model it was, but it was an "all-in-one" complete with keyboard, monitor and printer. They told me they paid $20k for it new. The thing weighed a ton. It was a total junker from day one I gathered. I guess the Italians weren't as keen as others when it came to hardware design.

 

[klenger]

Just imagin what our kids will be saying about the stuff we are using now when they get to be our age.





"... and you had to push these buttons on this thing called a keyboard, and there was this thing called a monitor that just sat on your desk and you just looked at it... "

 

[Scot]

I remember showing up at the Atari users group meeting with my shiny new 300 baud modem that -get this- plugged directly into the phone line. You had to stick the phone into the top of most of the others at the time.