What was the internet like in the 90s?

inf1nity

Golden Member
Mar 12, 2013
1,191
3
0
I recently discovered the interesting world of internet message boards and forums. Ever since I've started to find things like Facebook and twitter boring and restrictive. I want to ask some of the computer veterans, what was the internet like in the 90s, with those 56k lines, large computers and IRC.

What were those days like. Do you miss them? Why/why not?
 

Svnla

Lifer
Nov 10, 2003
17,999
1,396
126
Slow and slower, speaking about the 80s and 90s.

Any of you remember CompuServe and the old BBS boards? Good time, hehehehehe.
 

IronWing

No Lifer
Jul 20, 2001
69,543
27,851
136
56k was blazing fast. 12k was the fastest modem my IBM XT would support (8 bit port).
 

Fern

Elite Member
Sep 30, 2003
26,907
173
106
I don't miss it.

When I started using it there were no graphics, just text. IIRC, I was using WAIS and Gopher.

I think it was the later introduction of Mosaic that allow for graphics. At that point the race for faster modems and higher bandwidth was on. IIRC, the best modems were made by US Robotics. We were updating almost constantly.

And PC hardware much more expensive then.

The thing I think kind of funny is that most people were America Online (AOL). They used to give out free discs at grocery store checkout lines. You seemed to get one in the mail every week/month. The funny part to me is that AOL wasn't the web, it was an intra web. Sort of like a little WWW within the WWW. But if you were using AOL, you really weren't on the web. Took a long time for many people to realize that.

The only really good thing I remember is that there weren't any viruses at first.

And was interesting to watch all the new business models that people invented, and watch them evolve or get run over like road kill. (A lot were simply purchased and gobbled up by the big players like Microsoft. Gates was blowing money like crazy to get into, and try to carve out a big position in the internet.)

Fern
 

Eureka

Diamond Member
Sep 6, 2005
3,822
1
81
I remember the age of dialup (I started with 56K). We had pictures and videos, but anything more than pixel art you had to wait to download, so you made sure your pictures were worthwhile. Videos took on the order of hours so you definitely made sure you wanted to see that video.

Porn was interesting.
 

Engineer

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
39,234
701
126
56k was blazing fast. 12k was the fastest modem my IBM XT would support (8 bit port).

You actually had internet on an XT? I had CompuServe but no internet until the mid 90's. Had much better than an XT by then.
 

ImpulsE69

Lifer
Jan 8, 2010
14,946
1,077
126
Local BBS's, gopher chat rooms, got actual internet in our area in 1994. I had a blazing P133 with a 26k modem at the time I got it (1995). Those were the days...amazement, and no jaded thoughts. I remember when I finally convinced my wife to try browsing I went to bed, and got up the next morning and she was still on it, and she just says "it just goes on and on". lol.
 

biostud

Lifer
Feb 27, 2003
18,407
4,968
136
I brought 3,5" disks to the library to download game patches and driver upgrades. And Netscape was the best browser
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
67,931
12,383
126
www.anyf.ca
We got our first computer in year 2000 or so and the internet had come out around that time. Maybe a year before give or take. Good ol' win98 days with dialup. Part of me misses it, another part of me doesn't.

Lol and yep, Netscape. Though if I recall it did not support frames, so most people used IE because back then frames were very popular. Thankfully, that popularity went away.
 

MaxPayne63

Senior member
Dec 19, 2011
682
0
0
AOL was the only ISP in my area when I first had internet. It was very, very scary, and permanently dimmed my view of humanity.
 

wirednuts

Diamond Member
Jan 26, 2007
7,121
4
0
back in like 97 there was a website called download.net and it had about 100 of the most popular windows apps... it was awesome at the time because there really wasn't more then 100 windows apps, so it was like an all in one stop shop

then download.com came around and ruined everything
 

mcurphy

Diamond Member
Feb 5, 2003
4,150
8
81
It was fun and exciting because it was so new. But yes, it was very slow. Waiting several seconds, sometimes minutes for pages to load. Downloads could take forever, as in days.
 

Eureka

Diamond Member
Sep 6, 2005
3,822
1
81
good.. but i am talking about the forum culture.. that used to exist back then..

Same as it is now, except with less liberals and atheism and with more productive discussions (about non-productive topics).
 

nageov3t

Lifer
Feb 18, 2004
42,816
83
91
good.. but i am talking about the forum culture.. that used to exist back then..

not much different, as far as I can recall.

I feel like there was more drama back in those days just because communities were smaller, but that's also probably influenced by the fact that I was a teenager back then (and "adult" Loki doesn't have much patience for that kinda stuff anymore)
 

Sonikku

Lifer
Jun 23, 2005
15,752
4,562
136
I remember back in the early 90's I found my first chat room. "TV chat"! It was pretty lame though. I'd be trying to talk about Ghostbusters and all they'd ever want to talk about was tucking this or stuffing that. Then I realized they were all a bunch of fucking cross dressers. What in the hell were a bunch of cross dressers doing in a chat room dedicated to television?, I thought.

Oh to be young again.
 

Eureka

Diamond Member
Sep 6, 2005
3,822
1
81
I remember back in the early 90's I found my first chat room. "TV chat"! It was pretty lame though. I'd be trying to talk about Ghostbusters and all they'd ever want to talk about was tucking this or stuffing that. Then I realized they were all a bunch of fucking cross dressers. What in the hell were a bunch of cross dressers doing in a chat room dedicated to television?, I thought.

Oh to be young again.

Took me too long to realize what TV chat was.
 

Scouzer

Lifer
Jun 3, 2001
10,359
6
0
back in like 97 there was a website called download.net and it had about 100 of the most popular windows apps... it was awesome at the time because there really wasn't more then 100 windows apps, so it was like an all in one stop shop

then download.com came around and ruined everything

Also Tucows! The poster below you reminded me
 

Baked

Lifer
Dec 28, 2004
36,152
17
81
Takes me an entire night to download a movie. Ripping a CD takes an hour. Dial-up for turn based PC games like Civ is very doable though!

Ps. And resolution for porn is very poor. Anything that's over 800 pixel is considered huge! Imagine d/ling an entire photo album shot in "high res" over a dial-up modem. LOL /wrists
 
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