The Internet in the early 90's seemed great. Now... depressing and sad.

a reply to: servovenford

You are wise.

Those who don't know the all too familiar beeps and scratches of a 9600 baud dial up modem, trying like hell to log into AOL, and wondering how I'm going to justify spending $300 on 8 megs of ram, and $140 for a 14.4 winmodem, are missing out. (megs isn't a misspelling)

But once cable modems came around, and we could get 'up to 1.5mbs', T1 speeds, but without the guarantee, and Napster came out, it was on.

The net is still great if you use it to gain knowledge. Useful knowledge. Utility is beauty.
I have a hundred websites bookmarked. Literature, science, philosophy, you name it.
I also find fantastic stuff on youtube on a daily basis.

I do agree with you that there was a sort of internet Golden Age back around 1999 - 2005.


It's really sad how the average dumbass just wastes time, with all that info just a click away!

Case in point:
Cardi B. - 1 billion views



When they could be watching this:

a reply to: servovenford

Of course the technology only helped uncover and amplify pre existing human flaws, I.e. the desire for constant attention and validation as well as "keeping up with the joneses" syndrome. And more. That's just naming a few problems.

Well spoke. Well spoke indeed!
Your logic is unassailable, and your perspicacity is to be lauded.

More people are formally educated and have access to more information at their finger tips than anytime in history.... yet we are objectively dumber.

I've been online since the mid 80s. I was an early hacker and ran a BBS. It was definitely different as information was free and unencumbered. Porn. Klan sites. You name it. You could find it.

Heck, I even met my wife online back in 1995 when that would have been considered weird.

Now all the search engines and services are essentially crushing dissent and it is harder to find stuff.

a reply to: servovenford

Technology is just another vehicle for the exploitation of human flaws

Did you mean to say?
Technology is just another vehicle for the intensification of human flaws

How great was Prodigy dial-up? It was a visceral experience of 56k dial up was amazing. The sound of the modem, the 3 minute page loading, the boxy graphics, mom yelling at you about the phone bill.

Than came American online... free for ten years so long as you had a new credit card every few months. 19 M NY ... I met my wife in an AOL chat room.

Than the earlier days of broadband. Internet security? Non existent; you could get into your neighbors compute at a single click. And all the free music downloads you could ever wont. I paid for my first year of college making mix CDs for my friends and acquaintances. X2 speed writing.

Hell Messages boards were the first thing that piqued my interest, I was on the old Prodigy and Compuserve boards for various topics mostly sports and computer stuff.

a reply to: Stupidsecrets

Yup, I miss my old Motorola 28.8 Modem.

Good times, good times.

It all started to go downhill when the first banner ads began to appear.

a reply to: Stupidsecrets

I highly suggest reading Technological Slavery....it will explain a lot.

Monetization killed the original internet.
Everything was free, you didn't see ads because of the bandwidth.
BBS, Chatrooms, Napster it was the wild west in the 80/90's.
Now there's more ads than content.

Early internet in the early 1990’s? Ah Telnet, was eaten by a grue many times on many different MUX’s, MOO’s, MUD’s and so forth. I was still just AHAB then. The STAR wouldn’t come until 8 character usernames were required. You could Telnet directly to the FBI or CIA login prompt. Even try it, if you dared.

The NSA had a list of words that were monitored and once you used so many of them, your connection speed would slow as someone personally started monitoring to see the context o& the word usage. At the point you could either logout and run different accounts across backbone servers, try to chat with the spook (which made them stay longer keeping your speed down), bore them with sexting (they left soon enough).

Now the WWW side of things kinda sucked to be honest. Garish webpage designs that made future geocities webpages look good. Quasi-proto-blogs were common and were best read with a Playboy Bunny voice. I started with NCSA Mosaic but when Netscape 3.0 Gold hit...anyone could (and it seems like did) make a webpage.

originally posted by: Ahabstar
Early internet in the early 1990’s? Ah Telnet, was eaten by a grue many times on many different MUX’s, MOO’s, MUD’s and so forth. I was still just AHAB then. The STAR wouldn’t come until 8 character usernames were required. You could Telnet directly to the FBI or CIA login prompt. Even try it, if you dared.

The NSA had a list of words that were monitored and once you used so many of them, your connection speed would slow as someone personally started monitoring to see the context o& the word usage. At the point you could either logout and run different accounts across backbone servers, try to chat with the spook (which made them stay longer keeping your speed down), bore them with sexting (they left soon enough).

Now the WWW side of things kinda sucked to be honest. Garish webpage designs that made future geocities webpages look good. Quasi-proto-blogs were common and were best read with a Playboy Bunny voice. I started with NCSA Mosaic but when Netscape 3.0 Gold hit...anyone could (and it seems like did) make a webpage.

LOL....a couple of my old fave websites to make fun of. Not as old as others, but definitely a couple of the worst from the early days.

pixyland.org...

realultimatepower.net...

originally posted by: Ahabstar
Early internet in the early 1990’s? Ah Telnet, was eaten by a grue many times on many different MUX’s, MOO’s, MUD’s and so forth.

Ahhh yes. Telnet. My high school boyfriend introduced me to PernMUSH back in 1992-1993. Seemed crazy back then. I would sneak a long phone cord into my room and connect after everyone had went to sleep.

There are times in movies you will hear an old modem connecting and it brings back all those memories! Everyone from those days remembers trying to chat online and hearing your mom or dad pick up the phone right in the middle of something good.

originally posted by: MykeNukem
a reply to: Stupidsecrets

Yup, I miss my old Motorola 28.8 Modem.

Good times, good times.

28.8? That was lightening fast. LOL

My first modem was 300 baud! Then I got a 1200.... then 9600. Then 14.4...then 28.8.

I ran a Commodore / Amiga BBS. I remember when I got a couple of 3.5 inch floppy drives ran in series and I thought I had some serious storage.

remember. the Beeeeeeeeep. Shhhhhhhhhh. When the modem connected.

a reply to: Edumakated

That is oldschool. I must have been about 7 years old when you were doing that. Playing Jet Set Willy on my Spectrum lol.

It's incredible when you look back on this stuff.

originally posted by: Edumakated

originally posted by: MykeNukem
a reply to: Stupidsecrets

Yup, I miss my old Motorola 28.8 Modem.

Good times, good times.

28.8? That was lightening fast. LOL

My first modem was 300 baud! Then I got a 1200.... then 9600. Then 14.4...then 28.8.

I ran a Commodore / Amiga BBS. I remember when I got a couple of 3.5 inch floppy drives ran in series and I thought I had some serious storage.

remember. the Beeeeeeeeep. Shhhhhhhhhh. When the modem connected.

Ha...I was a 5.25 disk kid....

The thing that has changed the most about the Internet since I first started using it in 1988 is that people stopped seeking out a variety of sources of information and only concentrated on the sources that confirmed and encouraged what they already believed, even if it was utter stupidity and nonsense. You know what happens when all you see is information that backs up your beliefs? You get stupid. You get in an echo chamber where suddenly everybody "outside" of your circle is a fool and you're a genius. Which just shows how stupid you are.

Now if you try to have any kind of constructive discussion with these folks, you just get shouted down and belittled. A little of that goes a long way and it doesn't take long to realize that discussing stuff with them is a waste of time. It's become religion. Pointless to engage.

It's unfortunate that ATS has turned into one of these circle-jerk echo chambers, but I guess that's the way people want it. Which is why I drop in occasionally but now get out as quick as I can.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

My first disk drive was a cassette tape on a Commodore Vic-20.. Man when I got a 5.25 it was an amazing upgrade.