Reminiscing...

I was thinking today about how much the Internet has become such a part of our lives.  It's mind-boggling to see the changes over the past twenty years.  Sorry Al Gore, but I was surfing way before you 'invented' the Internet!

I first logged onto the Internet around 1987 from an IBM-PC clone by telneting to a  UNIX box via modem and using LYNX, a text-based browser (similar to the photo to the left).  There wasn't much to see back then, but I was immediately taken by the experience.  Being able to link to computers around the world was just amazing to me.  Now we take it for granted.  It's too bad because, even now, every time I bring up my browser I still feel some of that amazement. 

Shortly after my first Internet experience, I started seeing [picture] in the midst of all the text.  What the... there are supposed to be pictures?  Then I started hearing about browsers that would actually display those pictures.  I obtained a very early version of a Mosaic browser and was off and running and never looked back.    Most of us were using DOS3.3 and Windows 2.x was the GUI then.  Internet Explorer didn't even exist back then.

I put up my first website in the early 90's.   My dial-up host at the time was some local company that doesn't even exist anymore.   At least they gave me a few K-bytes of disk space for my site!  It was pretty simple and very boring.  I soon realized that fresh content was the key to getting people to come back.   I tried out lots of stuff, but my hit-counters kept telling  me that I was pretty much the only person interested in my different sites!  I'd read about the need for interactivity, but in was difficult to pull it off in the dial-up days.

Hi-speed Internet was a milestone and IMHO the saving grace for the Internet.  The day it became available in my neighborhood I was signed up for it.  I didn't care how much it cost... I had to have it.  I got it and entered a whole new dimension. 

I immediately began exploring forum software and learning about registering a domain name.  GoToGeek.com came into existence and then I fired up Milstid.com in the late 90's.  Both sites  were and still are a lot of fun and INTERACTIVE!

The Internet has become a social network and a big part of our lives.  I've had conversations with people all around the world and have made some good cyberfriends in the process.  I've even met a couple of them and we felt like we'd known each other for years.  I don't think that cyber-relationships will replace real-time relationships in the near future, but I do know I have many more cyber-friends than I do real-time friends. 

Is that bad?  There's a lot of discussion going on about that very topic.  Personally,I don't think it's all bad, but I also believe that spending a too much time in front of the screen can definitely get in the way of  your real-time life... including important relationships!

Comments

[Steel]

I was talking in real time on a TTY machine all around the world AND doing the same on a voice circuit in '66.

Sent my first fax in '74.

But I didn't get a computer until '99.

And even then, I had to be dragged kicking and screaming onto the internet.

I has changed my life.