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

[Chez J]

What a fun thread! My hubby, then my fiance, had a friend who was working on the IPO for NetCom. He told us how to do it, and I think sent us a floppy with the software. (LOL a floppy!) We loaded it up. We had to click on a map of the world to go where we wanted to go. So, we chose Russia and found ourselves looking at a collection of art from a museum in Russia!

 

Two years later I staked my career change on riding the technology wave and succeeded beyond my expectations.

[QueenCat]

We bought our first computer in 1989. Can't remember when we got online but I remember researching for medical info for my younger son somewhere in the early to mid '90s.

[AvasMom]

It was 1998 for me. I'm a late bloomer I guess. lol! We got internet when dd was just a baby and once it was hooked up and running I had NO idea what to do with it. I couldn't figure out how people got so hooked on "surfing" it. So I typed in MarthaStewart.com just because I had seen it on her show. From there I discovered that clicking one thing led to another and so on. lol!

 

This is my contribution to the "internet graveyard": http://vafvic.com/ It was a website for our old vaccine info group back in the day. I designed it totally using old school html baby! Haha! I still love the logo and little buttons though. :D

[TrixieB]

Mid-1995 my now-DH moved in with me. He brought his computer and dial-up modem. At the time I already had an email account, but I'm not sure whose computer I had used to access the account -- probably my dad's computer. I know Dad told me I should get the email account. I still have the account, but haven't used it in years because I forgot the password.

 

DH and I got high-speed Internet connection as soon as it was available in our neighborhood, in 1999.

[cathmom]

I first used email at grad school in 1994. The first time I really got on the Internet was just before the birth of my third child in 1998. I didn't use it regularly until the summer of 2000.

[amyable]

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.

 

 

:iagree:

This is my experience too. My university was one of the first to require computers (and give them) to every incoming freshman in 1987. I remember the BBS and ....oh I forget the names.... places that would help you solve advanced math and physics problems. By the time I was ready to graduate they were giving (huge) laptops to the incoming freshmen and I upgraded.

 

I'm so glad I had those opportunities because I met my dh in Junior year and we had a long distance relationship for 3 years. I don't think it ever would have been as easy without us emailing every day!

[ocelotmom]

Around 1993 or so, a friend of mine had CompuServ, and we'd go on the message boards sometimes.

 

In 1995, a guy showed me a website where you could shoot Barney. I thought it was idiotic. That was my introduction to the web.

 

I also got into BBSs in 1995, and I think found ways onto the internet around then, too.

[justamouse]

Yup. I was 19. And I would tell you what year, but I've had a lot of wine and can't count right.

[amydavis]

Yup. I was 19. And I would tell you what year, but I've had a lot of wine and can't count right.

:D

[Peela]

We got our first computer in 1996 and while I cant remember if it was the first time I ever saw the internet, it was certainly the first time I had access to it.

I joined an attachment parenting forum and a spiritual forum- and I remember getting up in the middle of the night for a pee and having to turn on the computer to see if anyone had responded to my posts, or to follow a thread that was exciting.

 

My dad had a computer when I was in my teens, for work, but I dont think it had the internet, and it didn't have WIndows either- it seemed very complicated to me and I had no interest in it back then. The internet....wow, that really opened things up for me- and the world.

[KAR120C]

Before it was The Internet... :)

 

My dad is a geek (we had a Kim-1.... google it! LOL), and his sister sold modems.... so we had one pretty early. That was back when you paid by the minute. And there were already creepy guys online!

[FO4UR]

It was in the 80's, but I couldn't tell you the year. My Grandpa had one of those old modems and we all marveled that he was talking to someone else through the computer.

 

I used the internet regularly in high school (graduated in '97), but really began using frequently (for both personal email and work) in college.

[TracyR]

Yes, for me it was about 2001 or so. So I was a bit late in the game. My dad gave us his 'old' computer which was a Compaq Pressario. I did have a computer growing up in high school , but we didn't know about the internet evidently. We just used it to play games. We didn't have computers in high school. I graduted in 1994. We still had the bulky type writers to learn keyboarding. Ugh.

I too had AOL and thought it was really neat. Way before high speed internet. LOL I'd never go back to dial up if someone paid me too. LOL

 

The first website I ever found was Vegsource. I had found it looking for vegetarian recipes for my 2nd daughter. She was a self born vegetarian at the time. So I was trying to find good recipese for protein. Then one day I saw on the website a tab that said "homeschool" , and well the rest was history. The only way I found websites is if I had heard about them, or read about them, or came upon them in another link.

 

I did't figure out how to google though until 2006 though when I had my 4th child. I'm thankful I did because I had found the world of medical support groups! LOL

 

Now I have high speed internet. Am on the computer a little to much sometimes and have a laptop Compaq Pressario. :>)

Edited July 5, 2011 by TracyR

[pie]

late bloomer here... 2004 ... and I still don't know much about this computer! I do talk to my sis, and my 3 big kids that have all "grown and flown" the nest on Facebook. I do email, when I have to. I google everything! and I read ya'll's threads almost every day. I love hi speed...hated dial-up, but we live in the boonies and that's all we had until about 2 years ago.. I told my dh that I can not homeschool with out internet though, because we use it daily. Either for school, for entertainment (my dd draws/paints/reads/makes videos/chats/plays games), and I NEED support from other homeschoolers, like you. I may be late to the scene, but I'm here!

[Amy in NH]

In 1990-1991 when I went away to college I had Prodigy. My Dad got it for me so we could keep in touch by email.

 

But I've been using computers since 1979-1980.

[Lady Florida.]

I used computers in the 80's but not the internet until I met dh in 1992. He used Prodigy and showed it to me when I was at his house one night (yeah, that was a geeky date). Shortly after that I remember Mosaic which I thought was really cool. I started using the internet regularly when AOL came along.

[Momling]

Around 1988, my high school had a computer in the library with a modem. During lunch, we would connect and talk with the other high school in town. I think that year, we got Prodigy at home. In 1992, I went to college and I remember using the actual internet... It was probably a year or so later when we would use a text web browser called Lynx.

[jelbe5]

It was around 1997. I visited a friend who had dial-up internet. I was so fascinated by it . . . I remember asking her what was happening when I heard the dial tone and the dialing and beeping, etc. We finally got online around 1997 or 98 It was a great help to me with regards to homeschooling and autism education.

[sbgrace]

It was around 1992 or 1993 I think and I was given a tour of library resources on campus. I don't remember ever using it so it couldn't have been every computer or much access. I don't remember when I used the internet for the first time but it had to be much later. I was married and teaching at my second school I believe.

[Halftime Hope]

I married dh in 1985, and he was a bonafide tech geek, however, he was a very astute, business-savvy one, who "played nice with people" and often knew more about the business data than the execs did. He was a systems analyst/programmer for a Fortune 500 co., working at their corporate HQ with a *really powerful* (now nearly defunct in the US) programming language that all the Cobol, Basic and Fortran programmers down the hall wished they were using. He and his four man Decision Support group programmed all the corporate databases and cool systems for his company. The best part about his job was getting an occasional call to the boardroom, being asked to crunch some data, and then being able to support the VPs with the figures they needed to make their case within a couple of hours. He did more in his 15 years there than most guys get to do in a career (36 systems, 3 corporate-wide databases) as those were the wild and wooly days when you could do extreme programming (in that language) and not everything was PC, off-the-shelf boxware.

 

Sigh!

 

Up through 1986 or so, he use to bring home a terminal (w/ keyboard) that connected to the mainframe at work through our phone line, with the phone receiver connected to rubber cups. By 1987 or 1988, we had our own PC, a PS/2 I think, through which we could connect to work and send emails, as we had a Compuserve email address. The email came in 1990 or so. I also remember playing several EA games on the computer (Leisure Suit Larry anyone?) and doing freelance work on systems documentation for DH's company.

 

We were rather late adopters of all out internet access at our house, though, I don't think until 1996 or 7. That was several computers later, too. We did a lot of work on the computers, as I continued to support dh by writing the user documentation for some accounting programs he wrote and for the modeling environment he created based on his work at the F500 company. When he moved to his Big Corp job, he used that modeling environment to program several systems for them that run on a laptop and have been running now for 8 years. Without those systems, they would not have been able to make a deadline for a system conversion that took their manufacturing-floor instructions to a paperless system, and they would have had to pay a cool million ($) in late fees for continuing to run and maintain the mainframe that they were moving away from. All with $600 dollar software, a laptop, and dh's gift. It also saved over a million dollars in man-hour costs vs. doing those compare and replaces by hand. Technology in the right hands is a gift, and his company had zero ability to do that with their own in-house IT resources.

 

End of shameless brag.

Edited July 5, 2011 by Valerie(TX)

[mazakaal]

The first time that I remember using the internet was when we were missionaries in Moscow in 1994. We had one of those compuserve e-mail addresses that was all numbers, 87593928389@compuserve.com, or something like that.

[Annie Laurie]

I think 1996 was the first time, but I laugh when I remember that in '97 I signed up for an online course at college, but was so confused about how to communicate on there that I decided to make time to take the course on campus instead, and quickly withdrew from the online course. :lol:

[Oak Knoll Mom]

We had Compuserve when I was in high school, so it was sometime in the late 80s. I actually got my own computer and started using the internet in 1996.

[mcconnellboys]

We didn't get an internet connection until we moved here - so sometime in late 1998/early '99. I knew that it existed before that, and we had a computer before that, but only used computer programs. I don't think I ever used the computer at work, either....

[Stacy in NJ]

We've come a long way, Baby. :001_smile:

[Ginevra]

I do remember the first time I saw the internet and also the first time I actually used it to do something.

 

In the first case, I was pg with dd14 (1996) and was over my SIL's house. They had a new computer with AOL. My nephew was showing me how to search for things like cribs and carseats.

 

We got a computer with internet connection around 1998. I remember looking around for parenting topics and finding Parent Soup, an on-line parenting community back then. I would read messages on PS for a while before I used the web to do much else.

 

(Does anyone else remember Parent Soup? There was a forum for every imaginable parenting situation: Infants with Foreskins, Lesbian Parenting, Extended BF, Spanking, Non-Spanking, Cry-it-Out, Co-Sleep Foreverandever...you name it, there was a forum.)

[bairnmama]

I was in my sophomore year in college and had a friend convince me to get a modem for my computer. I waited 3 months for the new "high speed" 2800/800 KB version to come out so I could open up my computer case and manually install it. I didn't have a browser, just a local phone number to call which didn't cost me anything. Because I didn't have a browser, there were no pictures. I looked up virtually everything using only script based searches in green text on a black screen.... basically from a DOS prompt. I thought it was soooo cool, lol!

[mama2cntrykids]

It was while I was a senior in HS (1996) and my good friend had AOL. We just messed around in chat rooms though, I'm not sure we knew *what* else to do lol.

 

Then, my mom got internet later on in 1997. All I did then was look at dog breeds and look at a Johnny Cash bulletin board/website lol. Nerd? YES!

 

In 1998 my husband at the time and I got our own computer with slower than molassas internet connection. I again just checked out chat rooms.

 

I remember we had some friends back in 97/98 that had AOL were you paid by the amt of time you were on. Yikes, that could get hefty!

[DarlaS]

Probably around 1998. I remember someone mentioning eBay and I was not impressed when I went to go see what it was. It just seemed to be a jumbled up mess all on one page (You just scrolled and scrolled and scrolled.) and it was kind of hard to find things.

 

That's what I remember anyway. And early forums. Those were tricky to navigate compared to today.

[LostSurprise]

While reading this I remembered that in 1980 we moved next to a family where the husband was an engineer. He did have a modem and also designed deaf telephones in his spare time. However, weren't allowed to telnet on his computer so I don't really count this.

 

In '95 (the year I graduated from college) I did some training on computer searching at my college library. Later that year my roommate's boyfriend (who had just graduated and had a computer science job) let us bum around on chat rooms. My husband has owned a computer and modem since 1990 and spent a ton of time on BBS's when he was in high school.

 

It wasn't until my first son was born in '99 that we got a home computer.