BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?

Subject: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 12:43 AM

From all I've read about most groups on the Internet, Mudcat is rather unique in that we are not a bunch of techno-kids brought up connected to everything and everyone from the gitgo. I know we have some members who were online, so to speak, before the general public really knew anything about an "internet."

Anyway, I think it would be interesting and fun if you share with us when you learned about the internet, what brought you to it and how.

The earliest connection we had was being on the Greenpeace Bulletin Board via telephone, long-distance charges applied(!) and a very old 386 around 1993 or 4. We even had two phone lines in order to dedicate one to the modem. When Roger's mother died, we used some of his small inheritance to buy our first real PC and went online in 1997 via broadband. A year later, I found Mudcat.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 12:45 AM

I was given a Compuserve hookup at work so that I could keep in touch with the users' group and listserve for our library's automation software. That was in 1992 or late 1991.

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 01:09 AM

In very late 96 I fell from a roof & broke my left ankle & smashed my right heel. I was laid up for 6 months. I had to sleep downstairs & the family agreed among themselves that they'd better get me a computer & get me online before they killed me. First thing I started researching was folk music & that took me to mudcat right away, been here ever since.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: Janie
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 01:47 AM

It was probably 1999 or early 2000 that our computers went on-line at work. My sister bought me a computer for Christmas 2001. I didn't do much other than read the news check the weather, and do research for my husband's herb business and my cut flower business.   Ii didn't find Mudcat - Mudcat found me. Dani occasionally mentioned this on-line place she she actually 'talked' to people on that was about folk music. Sounded awfully risky to me - talking to perfect strangers and all that.   Then, she persuaded me to attend this folk music thing called the Getaway in October of 2001. I persuaded my sister Annie to come for protection from all the perverted internet weirdos (Dani, being a mere child, simply did not understand the risk she was taking, meeting people like that:>) - So -I met a fair number of Mudcat folks up close and in person before I ever posted here - which I did as soon as I got home from that first Getaway.

It is still the only on-line group I participate in.

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: Amos
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 01:52 AM

I first hooked up a Hayes modem to an Osborne 1 and talked to another computer using ASCII in 1982, I think. But that was not "Internet" -- in the next decade I used dialup BB services of various kinds. Compuserve, which was not really inter-net either, followed.   Finally got enough data and found a host I could use in about 1993 or 1994, and discovered the joys of Mozilla. I have never stopped.


A

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: autolycus
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 05:10 AM

A friend who'd already discovered the net showed it in our local university (UEA), and I started to explore.

It was like when I discovered the reference section of the local library. In a flash I could see a vast array of info stretching ahead. And fun. Respectively an online biographical dictionary, and a site of lateral thinking puzzles.

Only got my own PC about 3 years ago, and could, in one parallel universe spend the rest of my days exploring online.

Found, well looked for, few fora - go to one about my heap number one composer.

Must be using oooooh a good 2.5% of my computer so far. "So little time......."


Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 05:34 AM

Got into it through WP's at various jobs and then we bought our own home PC. I suppose I sort of fell into the Internet via Email. Micca pointed me in the direction of Mudcat so it's all his fault. He's responsible for so much in this world... one day someone will call him up with the bill.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 06:38 AM

We were researching home computers in 1984, but couldn't afford one. Initially, my husband was drawn to it for Autocad, as he was a design/builder of energy efficient and solar homes back then.

We didn't purchase our own until 90 or 91, but I've been using them through my places of employment since god left for Chicago...late 70s maybe? Working as asst to VP for the Dayton Hudson Co.'s computer dept (which in those days meant me & the bosses had computers on our desks) while the rest of the dept was doing the team code writing thing, etc. for the retail POS side of the biz.

The web, I didn't have access to it consistently until 1994, and I've had it at home and work ever since.

What I can't believe is how little has changed in the US in terms of access to the Internet in that time, and how much the cost of high speed access has gone up, without much improvement in speed and reliability.

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: kendall
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 07:38 AM

My ex wife bought a new computer back in about '97, and she gave me her old one. Taught me how to use it, then she reconnected with an old college friend (via the computer) and that was that.
Shortly after that, a friend of mine, he called himself Jets, introduced me to the mudcat, and I've been here ever since.
I met Jacqui through the mudcat, and the rest is history.
I never did thank my ex.
She also drove me to drink, and I never did thank her for that either.

It's a long road that has no turns. We see her and her new husband a few times a year, and when I see her acting just like she used to, I just smile and give Jacqui a hug.

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: Bee
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 10:05 AM

I learned how to use a computer doing desktop publishing for a small publisher in the late eighties. Got our own computer about 1996, but didn't get online for a couple years after. Used it for a couple research jobs, for work, and for myself, email, looking up nature, science and art sites mostly. Joined one forum for socialising one winter when my husband was working for months out West. Faded out of that one when he came home.

Found Mudcat when I started trying to learn how to play a guitar a couple years ago, looking for a song, I think.

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 10:48 AM

I'm a late-adopter. I wanted to know the lyrics for "Old And In The Way", a song I'd heard of but never heard. I went to an internet cafe, logged on, and eventually found the words on a chat forum called Mudcat Cafe. When we finally got internet at home it took me several weeks to find my way back here.

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 11:48 AM

My Rog had a TRS-80 when I met him in '79. The kids and I loved playing games on it...all text, no graphics. Then I got into computers in 1987 when I went to work at a place where no one had really figured out how to use the Word and other programs, so I did. Traded out my work for an old one they let me take home. It was the 386 I used for BBs until we bought our first "real" one as notd above.

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 12:05 PM

I bought my first Eagle (8088) back in 1984. It was high-end--used a dual floppy (5.25" single density) and had an interface into a SilverReed typewriter for letter-quality printing (many publishers I was sending articles to wouldn't take dot matrix). Slow, but it worked.

Computer number two was a Packard Bell 286 bought through DAK. We put it online when my spouse brought home a 2500 baud Hayes modem in the early 1990s. You'd think we'd just invented radio! I didn't do much online until I started I went back to school and could log on to the university modems. I remember sending my first email back then. The university used LYNX for searching. My first orders at Amazon, that new and revolutionary book seller (I learned about them when my Dad sent me a newspaper clipping) was via a text interface, clicking through various slow screens.

Many computers have come and gone since then. And when I think of how much that first 8088 cost. . .

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: DebC
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 12:14 PM

In 1993, I, along with a few other teachers were given CORE (California Online Resources in Education) accounts after completing some pro.dev. courses in science, math and technology education.

I received my letter along with a username, a password and a phone number (I already had a Mac computer). I dialed the phone number, but got a very annoying sound. So I rang up one of my colleagues who I had attended the courses with. He laughed and then said "You'll need a modem to access the CORE directory" he then brough over his modem, we connected it to my Mac and my world was changed forever.

BTW-I met my husband online which is another story altogether :-)

Debra

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 12:19 PM

When my late wuife, Judy, was diagnosed with breast cancer and told to stay home her empoyer, Xerox, bought her a computer so she could work from home...

After she died they never came for it and it just sat in her office for the next 3 years until my son, who was living with my x convinced me to hook it up to the internet so he could play on it when he was staying with me...

That was in '99...

Couple years later he taught me how to turn it on and the rest is history...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: ranger1
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 12:19 PM

My step-dad had moved back to Germany and he told me about free e-mail, so I went to the public library and they showed me how to go on-line. It was an easy, free way to stay in touch with the guy who raised me, as well as all my other long-distance friends and relatives.

As for Mudcat, someone I met at a concert some friends of mine were doing told me about it.

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 12:34 PM

My wife knew computers...but that was mostly mainframes. A friend did bulletin boards in the early 90s, but I didn't see what he got from it. I actually started reading about the WWW and how that was different from the internet...(it is, you know!)...so we had an old 386 beefed up and got AOL in Fall of '95...with a 14400 modem! *gasp*...AOL drove me crazy for several months until a new server offered REAL access to the WWW, and I started exploring. A few months later, Mudcat was born.

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: number 6
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 01:17 PM

The various homes we have lived in, our food, my son's university education, our clothes, our cars have all been acquired from the rewards of my labour in the IT industry ... much of it in the design of applications using FTP, EDI, ASCII, EBCDIC, or what ever formats ... my whole work life has been involved in data sourced from computers ... there has always been a computer, or a computer terminal in our house for at least 25 years. It was the evolution of e-mail that open doors for non-work related information sharing, allowing us to initiate (quick/cheap)communication with friends and family from 'away'. This ulimately led the way for us to access the WW around 1995. We have not subscribed to a newspaper since around 1996, as they have been replaced by various news sites accessible on-line.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 01:27 PM

At some point I made the jump from the offline desktop PC to the online desktop PC...but can I remember when?

Nope. I think it may have been in the mid-90s, but I'm not even quite sure about that.

I have never made the jump to cellphones or portable telephones.

I don't even know exactly what a "Blackberry" is (aside from the edible kind), and I don't care.

I have no Ipod in my possession and I never will.

I shrug in the face of all this stuff. I am not going to miss it any when I'm "gone".

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: number 6
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 01:38 PM

Geeez LH .... ya mean i won't be able to text message you in the afterworld ??

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 01:46 PM

MCP helped me set up a Pipex dial-up account for him to use for work. Tyke took me to a Mudcat BBQ at Whitby, and I joined Mudcat the day after I got back home. It took until 2006 to get onto broadband though!

kitty

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 01:51 PM

Ha! ;-) No, Bill. We will instead talk there by direct thought and in first person, face to face. Far better than text messaging.

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: number 6
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 02:00 PM

I agree LH .... I would much rather interact (argue, debate, share info, laff and just plan converse with everyone here in the CAT, face to face, in the first person.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 02:08 PM

Been using "computers" since the late '70s -- proprietary computerized typesetting equipment. Switched to personal computer (Mac) production in 1991 and got online from work in 1995, I think. (AOL -- longtime before my employer got their own website.)

Jeri's responsible for insisting I get involved here at Mudcat. 1996 or thereabouts, I think. For a couple of posts I was Linn the Thanatolithologist, but quickly became Bat Goddess.

Of course now I'm totally lost without email and the convenience of looking things up in the biggest library in the world (even though my house is stuffed to the rafters with reference books and other media).

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: Jeri
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 02:40 PM

I got on line with Prodigy and Compuserve in '94 or '95, then on to AOL. I think I first got on like at work to send/receive reports back in '87 or thereabouts. The computers didn't have hard drives, the programs had to be loaded when we used them, and the modems were blunt objects with flashing lights.

I remember I was trying to get onto an Air Force message board around '89 and a guy at HQ USAF called me up to 'help' me. (Equal parts 'What the *%^& are you trying to do?!' and 'OK, now just type in your user name'.) The computer was in another office and somebody from my office came in and said 'Col. So-and-so wants to talk to whomever is trying to get onto his message board'. I felt special.

Found Mudcat in '97, but didn't join until May 1999, then told Linn (Bat Goddess) about it. Before Mudcat, I'd been on a few Usenet newsgroups and a couple of mailing lists.

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 03:07 PM

Have been with AOL since, I think, 1995, but back in the eighties (I think it would be 85 or 86, I was subscribing to the UK "Microlink" service which was horrendously expensive, around 180 GBP per quarter IIRC (or it may have been per annum)

nonetheless , it did enable you to send messages to other subscribers who had similar interests.

primitive, looking back at it now, but exciting at the time ...

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 03:39 PM

Jeri, I think I was wrong above, but I think you might be, too -- I don't think it was '96 that you introduced me to Mudcat, but I think it may have been '98. I'm pretty sure we both were members before 1999. (I'm remembering where my computer was at the company I was then working for -- and my "office" was in three different places.)

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: Jeri
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 03:48 PM

Linn, it was 3 Aug 99.

I know I didn't join before May 99 because I joined due to a conversation with Sandy Paton in May. I was in Dover DE, still in the Air Force before January, and I KNOW I didn't hang around at Mudcat before then.

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 06:06 PM

..AOL drove me crazy for several months until a new server offered REAL access to the WWW, and I started exploring. A few months later, Mudcat was born.

Wow...that must've been some kind of harmonic convergence to have birthed the Mudcat after all that craziness!**bg**

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: Joe_F
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 08:04 PM

I bought my first computer (a Sun 3) in 1985 because I thought it would be useful in my business. In 1991 I went to a lecture by Mitch Kapor at which there was a stack of cards advertising The World (Software Tool & Die), a very early (perhaps the first ever) ISP. I signed on to it in May 1992. There was no Web in those days, but there were BBSs, IRC, Usenet (including rec.music.folk), & email mailing lists, and I got into them heavily.

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 08:41 PM

I got on line with Prodigy and Compuserve in '94 or '95, then on to AOL

The IP companies are as bad as banks when I look back at the history. I didn't want to join AOL, I knew enough about the Internet that I didn't want all of their interface stuff. I found Sprynet, a subset (probably an acquisition) of Prodigy, and joined in the mid-90s. Sprynet and Prodigy were gobbled up by AOL for a while, and then AOL spit out the folks at Sprynet who didn't want to use all of the AOL nonsense. We knew how to get there from here. So sprynet was sold to Mindspring out of Georgia, and that was where the most pain was inflicted over the years. There were some big hardware and software changes that required calling Techs and going through steps over the phone. Then a few years back Mindspring and Earthlink merged. Ironic, that I first tried to join Earthlink before getting to Sprynet, but for whatever reason the logon just wasn't working and I bailed.

I've had "DSL" for a number of years, but it is very slow. I found out how slow last month when I inquired about keeping my email for a few dollars a month if I switch to a cable access. They want to keep customers so the tech guys looked into it. I was getting about 350kps upload and download instead of 1.5mps as is advertised. They were able to get it boosted to about 750kps but can't go any faster because we're too far from the telephone switching station and it would be unstable. I've had this for nearly five years like this. The tech suggested I speak to customer service about a refund. Yes, I will, but I'm probably also going to go to cable for Internet only. I hate their television offerings so won't do that, but I can get 10 times the speed by switching, so I probably will.

Sorry you asked? ;-D

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: What brought you to the Internet & how?
From: Beer
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 08:41 PM

WORK.
Had no choice and I could hardly wait.
Beer (adrien)