How long have you been on the Net?

Just wondering...

[Sinner_G]

I was asking myself how old (errr, I mean how young ;)) people are on WW and found the age thread [webmasterworld.com]. Although it's nearly 1 year old, it gives an idea. There are very young people and errrrr, some wise people.

Now the next question is, how long have you WWers been on the Internet?

I started with usenet and telnet back in 1992, so this year is my 10th net-anniversary. :)

<edited>
Mac, I said ON the net, not IN the net (or the matrix) ;).

[edited by: Sinner_G at 1:12 pm (utc) on Aug. 3, 2002]

[nutsandbolts]

93ish with my Amiga - but it was all text. Rather funky connecting up to Walnut Creek in America from Cheshire in England! Didn't come back to it until 1997..boy, had it changed in those years!

[Jill]

I've been on since 1992 started with tel-net and went on from there and probably have been connected permanently since that time. ;) My husband started in the 80's from college. He's the real net head here.

[nonprof webguy]

First time on the net was in 1981, when visiting my older brother at his college and he showed me how to log on to a dumb terminal and then connect to computers at various other universities where one could find games to play. While my brother went to his classes, I got hooked on a game called Trek, and some other wonderfully primitive ASCII games. Then in college myself in '87 I learned how to procrastinate with usenet and relay.

My first personal web page went up in April 1994, and first professional web site was up in January 1997 [web.archive.org].

[copongcopong]

1996 - had my first computer P 233MHz, 32MB RAM, using someone else account given by my friend. =)

Well the pc is still running and still connecting ....

[Sinner_G]

New stats

1981: 1
1982: 1
1983: 0
1984: 0
1985: 3
1986: 1
1987: 1
1988: 1
1989: 1
1990: 1
1991: 1
1992: 2
1993: 2
1994: 2
1995: 1
1996: 4
1997: 2
1998: 0
1999: 0
2000: 0
2001: 1
2002: 0

Average gone down a bit to 9.92. Not sure whether nonprof_webguy's ASCII games really justify him beating richlowe at net wisdom, but I put it on the list anyway.

No one here first went on the net 1998-2000? Can't believe that.

[Earth]

Started browsing in ~1995. Email as my main form of correspondence since 1997. Internet as my main (only?) source of research since 2000. So not too long, but intensely since then! The number of times a week I say "I'll just ask Google"...

[namniboose]

1997 I was studying aromatherapy in college and was allowed 1 hour per week on the internet. No one really noticed if I lost track of time and stayed on there 4 hours, however......and I was hooked.

Made sure I enrolled on a course the next term, just so I could get my fix!

[smokin]

1996 was my first time and have been hooked ever since ;)

[smokin]

1996 was my first time and have been hooked ever since ;)

[Hawkgirl]

I was dialing in to Comupserve ... 18 years ago?! What year was that ... 1984? Is that possible? Wow. On my Apple IIe.

I suddenly feel very old.

[Sinner_G]

1981: 1
1982: 1
1983: 0
1984: 1
1985: 3
1986: 1
1987: 1
1988: 1
1989: 1
1990: 1
1991: 1
1992: 2
1993: 2
1994: 2
1995: 2
1996: 5
1997: 3
1998: 0
1999: 0
2000: 0
2001: 1
2002: 0

Average: 9.79 years

[mivox]

Been using computers regularly since 1989, graphics and desktop publishing since the early 90's... but didn't bother with that newfangled internet stuff until 1997.

[Jack_Straw]

1970 - began programming and working with computers at the university.
1980 - 300 baud modem for remote access to minicomputers.
A couple of years later I became one of the first users of some obscure dialup service called CompuServe.
About 1984? (a guess) Telnet and FTP to unix boxes all over the country.
1985 - Developed early hypertext application (in MASM and C) to run on IBM PCs and marketed it nationally.
Early 1990's for first web access. Soon after that, my first web page.
1994 first commercial SEO activity.

I started programming computers in 1970 at UC Berkeley working mostly with large mainframes. While I was there, members of the Computer Sciences department (my major) developed seminal versions of both unix and Unix and early predecessors of the internet, but I was, at best, only peripherally involved. Designed first microcomputer application for an apple in 1974. Bought my first IBM PC on the day they were released (costing over $4000 with 128KB RAM and 2 120KB floppy disk drives running at 4.7Mhz). Thought I was in heaven because I could develop software without submitting punch cards and in my house. Paid $2000 for a 10MB fixed disk drive when they came out a couple of years later and thought I was in heaven again because I no longer had to swap floppies in my compile/test loop.

Kept a mini-computer in my basement for several years in the early 1980s. It was about the size of 4 large refrigerators) and made enough noise to bother the neighbors. It sounded like a rocket ship taking off when I booted it up.

I started on 300 baud modems for remote communications, migrated to 1200 baud and then to 2400 baud (thought I was in heaven yet again with such high speed access).

It is difficult to give an exact date to the discussion question because the term "net" is a bit ambiguous. So, I guess I get to interpret that to my best advantage. So, I'll say 1990 because I can discount the other stuff as before the internet as we know it today and 1990 makes me sound younger than 1970. :-)

[Sinner_G]

Sorry to make you not older but wiser Jack, but in my book, Telnet definitely belongs to the net, so you will be counted to 1984. :)

[mona]

Spring of '99 - I joined the game late, too. I remember waiting outside the library at 9:45 AM almost every day (they opened at 10) so I could get on right away, too.

[jeremy goodrich]

Read about it in 93 - some article in Time, about interactive I think they were trying to name it before anybody else - didn't take, I guess, because I started hearing about the internet in early 95.

Then when I got to college in late '95, I started using email and thought that Netscape (forget which version) was the coolest thing in the world.

'97 Copied / pasted my business 101 home page to become my first personal site, and learned how html worked, and also a bit about Unix.

Looks like I'm less a 'net veteran' than I thought :)

[CromeYellow]

Extensive ineffectual efforts with BBC Micro 'B' and big rubber phone modem thingy in 1985. WWW in 1997.

[Jack_Straw]

ha ha. "big rubber phone modem thingy". Made me laugh out loud. I had forgotten about them...

Reminds me of my first big career embarassement: Trying to save desktop space (of the physical, not virtual variety) by putting the phone and "rubber phone modem thingy" on top of a reel of tape containing some important data...

[lioness]

This is a little bit embarassing and I wasn't going to share, but here goes...

I first went on the net around 1993/94. I vividly remember having to print out some homework from the web, and a co-worker printing it out for me, showing me how to do it. What's embarassing is that I was I was pursuing my master's in computer science.....

[ScottM]

1994 was my first year...after that...

My highlight was guessing the name of the chatroom Matt Drudge was opening and chatting with him alone for 20 minutes and realizing he had set the IRC to 'invite only'.....so I slowly explain to him he has to change his settings on his chat room...BOOM...300+ people...

[crash]

Let's see.. we moved into our new (old) house in 88, my senior yr in HS.. soon after my dad was hooked up (a programmer) I recall logging into Sierra to play games soo guessing 89/90 progressivly more at mom & dads then work until I broke down and got AOL in .. um.. 95 now.. there's still an outside world???

[creative craig]

wow, some people been playing with computers before I was born.. not mentioning any names (...err rich ;))

I been online about 5 or 6 years!

[Xoc]

Well, I started programming in 1978. I first logged into CompuServe in about 1980. Started using UseNet in 1988. First Web access, I don't really remember, sometime in the 1990s.

[Sinner_G]

1980: 1
1981: 1
1982: 1
1983: 0
1984: 2
1985: 4
1986: 1
1987: 1
1988: 1
1989: 2
1990: 1
1991: 1
1992: 2
1993: 3
1994: 3
1995: 3
1996: 6
1997: 4
1998: 0
1999: 1
2000: 0
2001: 1
2002: 0
Average: 10.59 years
And the wisest person here seems to be Xoc.

[Brett_Tabke]

My first brush with computers and phones was way, way back freshman year of hs (umm 76). We got to dialup the university and download "career" information to a 150 baud accoustic couple teletype machine with a line printer. The thing was as huge as a desk. The counselor let us set and read the manual to the thing during study hall. Since it was a loaner worth about $50k, we could only use it with supervision. It was a hoot using the teletype with full duplex and only echo, where you typed a character and 5 seconds later it finally showed on the printer.

My second brush was with a Pet2001 in 79 where we got to play for a whole semester with Basic 1.0. I had split second thoughts about selling my car to buy a computer. Latter I would learn this was the first sign of addiction ;-)

In late 82 as a starving college student I drooled over Commodore VIC 20's that were still over $700 apeice for an 8k machine. A history proof just loved to have us into his office and show off his baby (an actual IBM XT with a 5 meg hd). I sat for hours on his dialup line to the schools Vax.

In early 84, Jack Tramiel (top ten on the all time heros list), slashed the price of the new Commodore 64 to a staggering $250. I used food money. Later that spring I got a modem. I took one year off in 89 (seriously trying to break the addiction), and have basically be online every day since.

First real brush with "the net" was back on The Well and in those heady amiga days on UseNet (United States Echo Net) in 86-88. However, I stil think that "the net" is best descrbed as anything with a modem - so, I'm claiming 1976 since it was to a university involved in the early arpa projects.

[Macguru]

OK, I picked the red pill back in 1984.

[mwafJK]

The first time I used the Internet was probably when my sister's friend connected his laptop to my sister's modem (which she used for Telnet access). I was online for about five minutes and I really didn't know what to do so I ended up just visting something like AltaVista and Yahoo. I believe this was early 1996 or late 1995.

The first time I was online for real dates from August 1996 when I had started 7th grade. Since early 1997 I've been able to access the Internet from home.

My first website went online on May 23, 1997. (It's still online, although the title and the URL has changed.)

Sinner_G, regarding the statistics, put me on 1996. (If you intend to update that list.)

[Sinner_G]

1980: 1
1981: 1
1982: 1
1983: 0
1984: 3
1985: 4
1986: 2
1987: 1
1988: 1
1989: 2
1990: 1
1991: 1
1992: 2
1993: 4
1994: 3
1995: 3
1996: 7
1997: 4
1998: 0
1999: 1
2000: 0
2001: 1
2002: 0
Average: up to 10.74 years
And the wisest person still is Xoc.

Mac, are you the ONE? Who will save us from the machines? ;)

<edit> edited because I am too lazy to make a whole post just for blobfisk ;) </edit>

[edited by: Sinner_G at 12:54 pm (utc) on Aug. 13, 2002]

[BlobFisk]

You can add another hit to 1993 for me!

[KodeKrash]

Was on the 'net in 1988 with a 300 baud modem, and an 8086 with (2) 360kb 5.25in drives - no hard drive.

Hit the web in 1997 - been making a living at it since 1998.