What was it like when the internet became a house hold item?

Question

I wasnt born when the internet 1st came out. So when i 1st started using the net it was already in almost every house. What was it like for others when they 1st got on? how'd they got online back then (im sure AOL couldnt have been around that long ago) What kind of websites were there? How much did it cost? I know i can do research on the web about it but i wanna know what it was like for real people not read about it in new articles.

Answer 1

I remember those days...

I was in high school when the Internet started to become popular, but only the kids with tech savvy parents had it. I wasn't one of them.

Homeworks research required reading books from the school library and local library. There was always a fight to get that one book in the library that had all the answers! Encyclopedia's were multi-volume books, or on CD-ROM - most people didn't even have a computer then neither!

You still needed to use those large telephone directories to find phone numbers, and you could only call or find out from other people what a certain business did.

Buying CD singles was pretty popular too, as well as albums. People carried around CD walkmans with anti-skip.

I remember writing letters on paper and receiving letters (also on paper!!)

When it started getting popular, I received a lot of free coasters (also known as AOL CD's) as they were given away in newspapers, magazines and in your letter box.

I first signed up to the Internet in 1999 - it was dial up. 200MB a month for $24.95. I had to install a second phone socket in the house for the modem (sharing the same line of course). I went with iPrimus (Australian ISP) because a friend had it.

It was cool. Altavista was my search engine of choice, and I played a lot of Yahoo games like Hearts and Blackjack. I also used Netscape Navigator 4.6 as that is what my university used. So, I never actually saw or used the Internet until I graduated high school and was six months into my Computer Science degree and realised that this 'Internet' thing is probably important to have!

Answer 2

In 1983 My first computer was a commodore 64, dialup onto bulletin board 300baud,no web pages yet, few graphics. used Quantum link. the precursor to AOL. cost was $5/mo with 5 hrs free and $5/hr after. I paid $96 for lifetime membership so i wouldnt have monthly dues. Now AOL is free. Since most everything was text based, things were fairly fast until some idiot decided to start adding graphics. Modems got faster every couple of years so had to upgrade alot. and do my own repairs because there wasnt alot of computer techs around.

Answer 3

Before the internet, there were various use net groups and bulletin boards. Slow speeds, 300 baud. I remember getting on line with Compuserve in those days with a Commodore 64. Hardly any graphics, mostly text layouts. Not web pages as you know them today.

Answer 4

I was kind of a late comer to the net (was 38 yrs old) and have been hooked ever since! What really amazes me is more the fact that the first computers took up entire rooms and had less memory than most of today's laptops! Good luck in your quest for answers!

Answer 5

Definitively a rip-off. If no longer that, its in simple terms information it quite is already available for unfastened. there is money to be made in ecommerce, whether you do not have that lots to take a place. Ebay, Amazon and others supply boards for sellers to charm to clientele. yet you are not getting all started via seeing an information superhighway advert. You get all started via interpreting the industry and springing up a company technique.