I was posting a message on Google Groups (more on this later) today and it got me to thinking to my "history" on the Internet. Believe it or not, I'm been using the Internet in one form or another for EIGHTEEN (18) YEARS!
How I got onto the Internet is an interesting story. After I had graduated from high school in the early 1990's, I went to a junior college. One of good friends went to a four year university in the East Coast. My friend and I wrote (!!!) letters and chatted on the phone fairly frequently. Among the things I found out from my friend was something called email. My friend told me it was a fast way of sending messages electronically. I don't remember if I understood the concept at the time. However, it did fascinate me to the point where I looked around my junior college to see if I could find out more. Alas, I didn't know anything at all about email or the Internet so I never asked anyone.
When I transferred to a four-year university a couple of years later, life was easy. The school advertised that people could sign up for an e-mail or Internet (forget what the school said) account. After registering for classes, I signed up quickly for an account and I was now officially "on the Internet and using email".
Initially, I couldn't login from home as my computer didn't have a modem (what's that you ask? A device you connect to your phone line to get your computer to get online ). So I spent a great deal of time at the school computer labs playing on the Internet. I was reading news, chatting online and participating in group discussions.
Does it sound like what a lot of young people do today? Yes, but there are some major differences. While computers were out with mice (Windows 3.1 / MAC), you had to establish a connection to a school server to actually get your email (telnet or dial up from home). The server is UNIX (a computer operating system) drive, which did not have a graphical interface. Thus, you had to be very comfortable with typing commands to get around the UNIX system.
I used an application called PINE to read my email. These days everyone is using some form of web email (Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, etc) or Outlook. Back then, PINE was the primary choice though I think you could use some email clients though I don't remember exactly.
At school, I had a choice of using Mosaic (an early web browser) or later Netscape 1.0 on the school computers to get on the Internet. The Internet back in 1995 was primarily text with STATIC graphics. No YouTube, Amazon or even ESPN. There were no MP3's, Flash or any type of streaming video.
After a while, hanging out at school all the time proved tiresome so I eventually got a modem to connect my Apple IIe to the school UNIX system. I used a 300 baud modem initially but upgraded to a 2400 baud (!!!) modem later on. I was now able to get my email at home. Alas, I could not use a Mosaic or Netscape in this manner. I was limited in what I could do. I could get online using a text browser called Lynx.
Later on I started using something called Usenet. Usenet is a discussion group that focuses on a specific topic. Think of anyone of the online website forums you may participate in today, except my groups were all text based. I participated in many groups from basketball, TV shows, music, and a few others.
Usenet, for many reasons I won't cover here, has lost popularity as the modern Internet has grown. However, Google Groups allows people to use the Usenet via a graphical interface. Thus, I have been able to continue to participate in a basketball and computer group that I first started using back in 1995!
It was a discussion on the BASKETBALL (not the computer) Usenet group that convinced me to write all of this. There are a few people on the Basketball Usenet group that have been on there with me for the past 18 years. We had some good discussions about the years we have spent in the group.
The Internet has grown by leaps and bounds in the past 18 years. While a lot of the advancement is great for everyone, a part of me missed the innocent old days. Those were definitely some interesting days.
