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       Thread[.post]: 36.4
       TACKER:  secretdecoder (secretdecoder)
       SUBJECT: .. How you were using the Internet in the 90's?
       DATE:    24-Jan-22 15:26:15
       HOST:    sdf
       
       I had started on BBS via a 1200 baud modem and was into that scene.  I 
       definitely remember FIDONET.  Then I got to college in Fall 1993.  They had 
       monochrome green or amber terminals all over campus.  Some were VAX but 
       most were BSD unix.  Everyone could get an email address if they wanted.  
       Of course I did!
       
       Quickly figured out how to use email, gopher, & lynx.  Archie.  Veronica.
       
       Gopher did indeed have the most content.  But it was a bit of a treasure 
       hunt.  Linking through and trying to find stuff.
       
       Lynx at least had some sort of search feature as I recall.  I agree that 
       there was less content available then.
       
       People were very into IRC though - Internet Relayed Chat.  That was a great 
       way to find other people with similar interests and links to great 
       resources!  I had a buddy that dropped out of college and moved to CO to 
       snowboard with buddies he met in IRC!!  He came back later and finished his 
       degree and then right back out there.  Some very real connections were 
       formed.
       
       I remember some security aspects were more lack in Unix then.  I used to 
       prank my buddies by copying random text onto their screen:
       
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       cat prank.txt > /dec/tty##
       
       They didn't have it blocked!  So I would put random things like "Get back 
       to work!" or "The NSA is logging your activity" on their terminals.  I'd 
       let them in on the joke.
       
       We used to have to use the "finger" command more to see if people at other 
       universities were online.  Like my girlfriend was up the road.  After we 
       "fingered" each other (juvenille snickers) we would use the talk program to 
       chat realtime.
       
       Usenet:  Yeah, great for disucssion and of course pr0n.  UUdecode.... 
       Compared to the dialup days of waiting 40 minutes for one picture it was 
       pretty spectacular.  Kids today don't know how easy they have it! ha... ;)
       
       There really was a good discussion scene though.  ASCII art was just that: 
       an art.  There was a misplaced panglossian join that it would usher in 
       freedom of information & access to all kinds of people.
       
       Finally, Mozilla launced - the first http browser with inline graphics on 
       pages!  Everyone had the raindbow banner divider on their homepages to 
       break up sections.  You learned to handcode stuff because there was no 
       WSSIWYG editor.  The best computer lab on campus got a bunch of machines 
       running Xwindows on BSD with Mozilla and became very popular.  People that 
       loved IRC would still hang out in the library monopolizing the "card 
       catalog" terminals.  Lots of chatting... very little book looking up. haha  
       Actually pretty frustrating when you had real work to do.
       
       
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       an art.  There was a misplaced panglossian join that it would usher in 
       freedom of information & access to all kinds of people.
       
       Finally, Mozilla launced - the first http browser with inline graphics on 
       pages!  Everyone had the raindbow banner divider on their homepages to 
       break up sections.  You learned to handcode stuff because there was no 
       WSSIWYG editor.  The best computer lab on campus got a bunch of machines 
       running Xwindows on BSD with Mozilla and became very popular.  People that 
       loved IRC would still hang out in the library monopolizing the "card 
       catalog" terminals.  Lots of chatting... very little book looking up. haha  
       Actually pretty frustrating when you had real work to do.
       
       It was a whole generation that suddenly knew about cd, cp, ls, mv, ~, pwd, 
       etc.  Pretty cool how many 40-somethings have that knowledge lurking back 
       there and would be fine in the terminal of a Mac or in Linux.
       
       Final memory:  I recall the first time I FTP'd a file from overseas.  It 
       was the installer for Castle Wolfenstein 3D.  The machine was in Germany.  
       I just couldn't get over how incredible that was.  You could tell there was 
       a delay in the machine echoing back to you.  But I knew that my packets had 
       gone halfway around the globe and a harddrive in Berlin was actually 
       spinning up and serving me DATA!!  And it was FREE FREE FREE FREE!!!  No 
       long distance fees.  Back when it really cost money even to call 60 miles 
       away.
       
       Cueing up the song "Memory" from Cats.... ;)
       = sd =
       
       
       
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