Do you remember the first time you saw or used the Internet?

[Michelle My Bell]

I do! It was 1995 and friends of mine (who always seem to be 1 step ahead of me :glare::)) had us over. My friend Vicki was telling me about her computer and wanted to show me something. We didn't have a computer and I don't think many people did.

 

She took me to these things called "Bulletin Boards". As far as I know, she didn't have normal Internet at this time. We would go to the boards, post a message and wait for someone to respond. It could be quite a while. We would post controversial stuff just to get noticed and also because we were new Christians and were overly enthusiastic. :lol: I remember being amazed that we could talk to other people this way.

 

Not too long after that we got a computer and where I lived, everyone had America Online. You had to connect using your phone line through America Online but not for too long as they charged for how long you used the service for. I remember seeing news reports about people getting addicted and going into major debt. Now nobody knows if you're addicted! :tongue_smilie:

 

My older daughters and I joke about the "old Internet" websites styles. I designed a website for my homeschool group back then in the old style. Here is the website. I have no idea how to change or delete this website anymore so it lives in the Internet graveyard.

 

Do you remember the first time you saw or used the Internet?

[lapsetmom]

I was an exchange student in Finland in 1994. A cousin of my host family was in technical school and was anxious to show me this new thing called the web. It didn't make much sense to me at the time, and to be honest, did not really interest me at all. To think, now, how it has changed the world!

[Just Kate]

When I went away to college in the fall of 1994, my parents sent me to my dorm with a COMPUTER!!! I was one of the only girls on my floor to have my very own computer and I was quite popular because of it! I got AOL and spent most of my time there. I do remember that there was a little button that said INTERNET, but I never clicked it because I was able to find all that I ever needed to know on AOL! My friends and I would play around with it...but we never really did anything useful, as we didn't even know what to do.

 

I started grad school in the fall of 1998 and I remember a professor taking us into the computer lab and explaining YAHOO to us. He told us to just "search for things." I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be "searching" for! By the time I finished grad school, I was using the Internet way more.

 

How funny!!!

[The Girls' Mom]

Don't really remember the first time per say, but it was around 1993. My dh and I had just bought our first PC together, and entered the world of AOL..lol.

 

My dh on the other hand, was into the whole BBS scene long before we got married. Way back when he was on a Texas Instruments computer. He was an early computer geek.

[Imprimis]

The first time I used the internet was in 1997 when we got our first pc. I made an account on America Online (still have my original screenname, btw), and promptly found the bulletin board called Mom's Online.

 

I even remember my first post on Mom's Online---it was in a thread about nursing. My oldest was 17 months at the time.

 

I also spent a lot of time browsing the AOL boards Writer's Online and Walt Disney World :)

[Kathleen in VA]

A lightning strike took out our old computer and printer in 1995 - we used the insurance money to buy a Mac Performa. I remember getting on eWorld and searching for information about bluebirds. We had a brood in our bluebird house at the time.

[Wheres Toto]

1987-1988 when I went away to college. I remember it being very text heavy, little to no graphics, slow and of limited use. Things have definitely come a long way.

 

I started working as a secretary in 1991 - on Word 5 for DOS. Anyone else remember the little template that told you which function key to hit to do various things?

[RoughCollie]

It was 1996. DH had internet access on his office computer. We went over there one night and he showed me the Advanced Book Exchange website. I sent him home and stayed there all night, looking up books to buy. We had a nanny who lived in M-F, so the next day, I did have help with the kids (ages 2 and infant) the next day.

 

We got a computer for me to use at home ASAP -- a world of books awaited me, so it was Necessary! DH and I were like opium addicts who found themselves in a poppy field.

Edited July 4, 2011 by RoughCollie

[Annie G]

In 1992 we moved 800 miles from our families and dh bought us a computer. We chose Prodigy for our service and immediately found a bb for babies born July 92. For years we bonded...we visited each other, exchanged holiday ornaments, etc.

Changed my life.

[Nature]

It was 1997 and dh brought home a computer. I remember him talking about the internet and being so amazed with email. We also had a dial-up connection and used AOL.

[kewb]

I think it was '92. Shortly before or after we were married. Dh has always been a techie. The job I had required me to use a computer but I was not high enough on the food chain to warrant internet access. I recall thinking it was useless or me when dh showed it to me. I had been living life just fine without it and never used it even though dh used it all the time. I started making my way into the internet world when pregnant with my oldest in '97/98.

[Granny_Weatherwax]

It was in 1992. I was a nanny for an engineer who worked for a NASA subsidiary. Their house was built to have internet access in each bedroom, the kitchen, the den, the family room. I thought it was the coolest, most innovative, and privileged house a man could design.

 

I, unfortunately, was not granted access to the internet at that time. My job was to care for the children and the home. I would try to peek at it, though, whenever it was on.

[dangermom]

1990-91 my brothers and I had a modem and could spend time on the one BBS in town. It was pretty much a giant chatroom.

 

92-95 I was in college and spent a lot of time emailing, but not much else. Had a boyfriend who downloaded things, etc.

 

1995 my friend told me that if I wanted to be a librarian I should learn this new thing called Mosaic.

 

After that the Web was everywhere, and I went to library school and learned HTML, and so on.

[justasque]

I had my first email account in about 1984. Obviously, I only had a few friends I could email, as very few people had email back then. I was looking at forums (a breastfeeding one, some home improvement, some cooking, etc.) as early as 1988-ish.

[G5052]

I've been using it since 1981 or so, when it was all about Usenet, email, and ftp sites.

[Dobela]

When I went away to college in the fall of 1994, my parents sent me to my dorm with a COMPUTER!!! I was one of the only girls on my floor to have my very own computer and I was quite popular because of it! I got AOL and spent most of my time there. I do remember that there was a little button that said INTERNET, but I never clicked it because I was able to find all that I ever needed to know on AOL! My friends and I would play around with it...but we never really did anything useful, as we didn't even know what to do.

 

I started grad school in the fall of 1998 and I remember a professor taking us into the computer lab and explaining YAHOO to us. He told us to just "search for things." I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be "searching" for! By the time I finished grad school, I was using the Internet way more.

 

How funny!!!

When I went to college in 1988 we took electric typewriters. By the time I graduated in 1993, my roommate had upgraded to a word processor that we loved since we could catch errors before finishing our papers. Oh, those dot matrix printers LOL. I had taken computer programming classes in high school and done some word processing but those computers were way to expensive for me to buy and have at home. All our research though was done the old fashioned way with books and searches and requests in the library.

 

In 1994 I began teaching and our librarian had a class to show us the new internet. We were stunned to day the least. And email, wow. I remember the day the school told us all teacher memos would come by email so we could save paper. Of course, many still printed it out every day LOL. I was a special ed teacher and didn't have internet connections in my classroom (it was considered to be an enrichment tool in regular classrooms and there was no funding for my class since it wasn't regular). I had to beg and plead to get the school to buy me a computer.

 

In 1997 I moved to a new city and the school I was in didn't even have internet. Not a single computer.

 

In 1998 I decided to go to grad school and it was then that my dh bought us a computer. We lived an hour from the university and I could only use the internet for 30 minutes at the local library. That very middle of the road cost us $4000 at the commisary and it was the cheapest we could find. I ended up doing almost all of my research for grad school on the internet. At that time there were very few pay for use sites or password protected sites and I had access to pretty much everything I needed.

[kpnick in nc]

Fall 1995, when I went to college. I remember feeling overwhelmed when I learned that I would be assigned an email address.

 

I remember spending some evenings in the computer lab just amazed at all the info at my fingertips!

[Michelle My Bell]

So what year was the Internet available to the public?

 

Oh, I forgot to say that this year I finally made it to the REAL world of computers when I got a Mac. :lol::tongue_smilie:

[Rhonda in TX]

The company I worked for back in 1990 (actually, late 1989) had email. DH asked me out for the first time through email. :) When I left there in 1996, I think we were still just using email. I don't remember getting on the internet for much of anything, if we even had it. I remember participating in a cross-stitch bulletin board in 1997. DH created a bulletin board for pilots (he had just gotten in pilot's license) about the same time and actually got a small write-up in the paper about it.

 

We never did AOL or anything like that.

[Ksol]

I know our family was one of the first in our area to have internet and I think it was around 1990-1991. We had Prodegy. :)

[missiemick]

While in a transition we lived with my husband's grandmother for a couple of months -- SHE introduced us to AOL. I think it was 1999.

[Granny_Weatherwax]

Oh, I forgot to say that this year I finally made it to the REAL world of computers when I got a Mac. :lol::tongue_smilie:

 

My first computer was a Mac. I loved it!

[Margo out of lurking]

My sister worked for a venture capitalist and introduced me to the idea of the internet.

 

I remember searching realtor.com from my library back in '96-'97, and using the internet to plan an out of state vacation. I found the info online and then called everywhere to make arrangements.The librarian showed me how to search using Alta Vista.

[Punchie]

1994. I discovered Telnet and MUDDing. MUDDing is pretty much all I did online for the first several years.

[JoyfulMama]

We had a home computer with a modem in our house around 1980-1981. Sometime between then and 1984, we were able to dial into the library, search the catalog and reserve books. We then moved, and the new library system was searchable via computer only if you were in the library and the librarian typed for you. :glare:

Around 1991-1993 I dialed into BBSs from home. My dad had an email address, but there weren't too many people to email outside of his work. I went to college, and they finally issued email addresses in 1995, once they got internet access. It definately decreased my phone bill to my parents, and was a fabulously easy way to have my mom proof some documents for me.

[JessieC]

Yes, I remember in high school I was listening to the news and it said something about a future "information superhighway" and I was creeped out.

 

I didn't use the Internet or email almost on principle until my junior year of college. I guess I have Luddite tendencies. I'm totally on board now though!

[Pamela H in Texas]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RteLVPHHs1w

 

This is what I had as a young teenager. I played games, did "bulletin boards," etc. My parents told me not to give out personal information, but I didn't listen. I talked with several guys on the phone after talking to them online. I met a couple in real life. I even got engaged to one a few years later!

 

I had a computer (in addition to the above) as a teenager and I know we did certain things online in the early 90s; but I don't remember surfing the web regularly until 1995.

Edited July 4, 2011 by 2J5M9K

[Night Elf]

Me: late 1992 as a secretary in the Math department at UGA. I accessed Usenet newsgroups, which incidentally is where I met my husband a few years later. :)

 

DH: 1984, when it was really called the Arpanet, the predecessor to the modern internet. He worked for a defense contractor. He said it was back when the net was flat and there were no domain names. I love hearing stories like this from my geeky DH! :lol:

Edited July 4, 2011 by Night Elf

[Night Elf]

1994. I discovered Telnet and MUDDing. MUDDing is pretty much all I did online for the first several years.

 

Oh goodness, I didn't even think about that! :lol: It's so fun to think about those days. My games were Valhalla and Pixie Mud, and now I'm on World of Warcraft. Sometimes I miss the very small environment of a MUD game.

[Mrs Mungo]

My uncle is a computer engineer. I remember when you had to use your old-fashioned rotary phone receiver. It wasn't technically the internet then, and only the serious geeks knew anything about it.

 

I was regularly posting on list-servs, email loops and the early version of forums by 1995 when eldest was a baby.

[nukeswife]

It was 1997, I had finally talked my parents into buying a new computer with a modem and getting a 2nd phone line installed so we could get AOL. About 2.5 months later I met my dh in an AOL chatroom (we married 4 months after that first chat session, see the spin off post for the whole story)

[Plink]

I've been using it since 1981 or so, when it was all about Usenet, email, and ftp sites.

 

I remember when you had to use your old-fashioned rotary phone receiver. It wasn't technically the internet then, and only the serious geeks knew anything about it.

 

I remember that!

 

My first experience was in 1980. I remember dialing an old phone, hearing the connection static, and pushing the heavy handset into what looked like giant suction cups. The computers were huge, the screens were either green or orange, and once we were online the only real thing to do was chat with college students . . . I was in Kindergarten.

[Mona100]

My dad bought a computer for Christmas of 93. We had Prodigy. I also found BBs for teenagers and boy I had a fun time with that. No one in my high school knew anything about it. I also remember being on a group of Duke basketball fans and the guy would hold trivia contests. I won one of the trivia questions and sent him my home address and he sent me an autograph of Coach K on some Duke paper. It was cool. We had to get a 2nd phone line due to the fact that I got stuck at work one time and I tried to call home so my parents could pick me up but the line was busy. My dad was online. I finally had the operator cut the connection. Boy was he mad, then he made the decisions to get a 2nd phone line dedicated solely for the internet.

[TravelingChris]

I know we had internet of some type in 1989. I think it was emails and bulletin boards. We had an Amiga then.

[carlamom2ansnm]

Hmmm...I wish I knew what year it was that we first got the internet. I graduated high school in 95 and I know it was long before that. My dad was always a computer nerd, having to have all the latest and greatest. We had an old TI computer way back in the day, when I was literally just a kid, but it wasn't on the net. I know we were the first ones that got the internet when it came to our town (grew up in a small town). Anyone remember ICQ?? We would call my aunt & uncle in Kansas (we were in California) and could talk to them on microphones over ICQ - it was free long distance, and amazing ;) LOL. I'm going to have to ask my dad what year all of this would have been. I'm guessing 91 or 92. My dad also had a cell phone (a big giant bag phone LOL) long before anyone even knew they made them.

[Thea]

My step father brought home a Commodore 64 and we connected to "Quantum Link" (Steve Case's precursor to AOL). I chatted in rooms with other Q-linkers and my Mom use to go to Q parties to meet other Q-linkers.

 

I had my first date with someone I met in a chat room. His name was Frank.

 

So, that was '85/'86 ish.

[Princess Peach]

I remember in college, probably 1995/96 or so and using it to look up grad schools. I also communicated via email then, though in very limited form. We did not get home internet until 1997/98 or so. And we, too, had dial-up and AOL.

[Mommy22alyns]

1996. AOL, time limits, mailing lists (not message boards)... 14.4 K being a "great" speed! :lol: That modem sound!

[abbeyej]

Prodigy in ... 1991?

[JessReplanted]

My mom got us an HP during my Sr. year of high school - 95/96.

We were connected to AOL, but could not get on the actual internet. :lol:

I remember that it cost a fortune, and she didn't want me on the computer

for more than an hour at a time. So glad those days are over!!

[Daisy]

It was 1995 for me also. I was working at Seattle Pacific University and someone introduced it to me so I could check for traffic updates (it would take me 2+ hours sometimes to ride the bus to work).

 

We still didn't have a computer at home though. I would just check it at work on the "fast" computer.

 

DH and I got our first hand-me-down computer in 1997, two years after we had graduated from college and gotten married. I used a Brother typewriter/processor all through out college. LOL.

[specialmama]

1992 or early 1993. My dh brought a laptop home from work and connected to the internet. At the time, we were interested in adopting from Haiti, and I found a great website from a lady in the US who adopted 2 (or 3 or 4?) kids from Haiti and is involved in an orphanage there called The Rainbow or The Raven (which inspired her youngest dd's name, Raven). We emailed back and forth for days and I was so amazed to find this lady and learn so much from her.

Edited July 4, 2011 by specialmama

[Sputterduck]

I think it was 1991ish maybe '92. We had Prodigy and so did my junior high. They switched us at some point early on from unlimited time to a limited plan and my mother didn't tell me. I ended up spending 400 or so dollars in a couple weeks. HAHA

Edited July 4, 2011 by Sputterduck

[Tap]

I remember using it a bit in college in 95. We had internet in the house in 96-7ish but our computer was pretty slow so we didn't use it much. I worked for a company that had internet in 97, so I think some of my first times using it 'for fun' was at work. It was allowed during down times.

 

I didn't get dependent on it until I started homeschooling. Then it was a major part of our life.

[BarbecueMom]

Prodigy, 1993-1994?. My dad is a systems analyst (DH a security engineer, FIL systems manager... lots of IT in the family), and I got to use his work computer. I was 10 or 11 at the time. I went on to use AOL in high school, where I spent waaayyy too much time on the "Public, Private, Homeschooling?" board defending public school. If any of you were on there, thanks for converting me!

[Quiver0f10]

The first time I used the internet was in 1997 when we got our first pc. I made an account on America Online (still have my original screenname, btw), and promptly found the bulletin board called Mom's Online.

 

I even remember my first post on Mom's Online---it was in a thread about nursing. My oldest was 17 months at the time.

 

I also spent a lot of time browsing the AOL boards Writer's Online and Walt Disney World :)

 

I was a chat host on Moms Online. HOST MOM Tasha and AMOM Tasha :D

Edited July 4, 2011 by Quiver0f10

[Quiver0f10]

It was 1996. My husband had gotten an older computer a few years earlier that didn't have internet. One day we bought a new (used computer) and then Dh wanted internet. I remember asking him what we would need the internet for? HA!

 

It wasn't long until I became a chat host in the Moms Online forum and then a few years later on a teen forum.

 

Boy have times changed :D

[Imprimis]

I was a chat host on Moms Onlime. AMOM Tasha :D

 

That sounds familiar to me. I was sad when MO (and all the original AOL boards) went defunct. I can still remember the little push-pin backgrounds!

[Quiver0f10]

That sounds familiar to me. I was sad when MO (and all the original AOL boards) went defunct. I can still remember the little push-pin backgrounds!

 

That's where I became Quiver0f...I think I was 0f6 when we started with AOL. There is a group on us on Facebook :)

[Luckymama]

During the summer of 1986 I worked in an university chem lab studying xray diffraction patterns. I had to transmit my data to a mainframe government computer!