HI!

[vixalicious]

Looking for a quick, completely unscientific poll here:

When did you first go online, and what was it like?

I got my first laptop in 1998 and that's when I went online. It was all AOL chat rooms, complete with skeezy guys trying to have cybersex.

Comments

[aubieturtle.livejournal.com]

For me it was 1983. Hard to have cybersex since there was only one woman in about a hundred men online in Montgomery. AOL didn't exist, nor did it's predecessor, Quantum Link. Guess I could have had gay cybersex but I was only eleven so I wasn't into anything sexual at that point in time.

Everything was very slow (300 baud modem) and there was no interactive chat. One person would call into the bbs at a time.

[vixalicious]

Why were you online?

[aubieturtle.livejournal.com]

That's kind of like asking a kid with a new bike why he's riding around. We got a modem for our computer and there were a couple of BBSes that we could call and play on. Boredom or intellectual curiousity would be the most accurate answers.

Or to put it in the language of the Mango "Can you catch a falling star without burning your hand? Can you put the sky in your mouth? Can you say to an earthquake...'Hey hold still for a second'? No!" We had a new toy, we had to use it. That was all the reason that was needed.

[vixalicious]

Sorry, I worded that badly. What is a BBS, and what did you do on it?

[krazycat.livejournal.com]

Bulletin Board System. My brother was way into that, and the phone bills were obscene as you dialed into computers in different countries and it cost as much as phone calls.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system

I too logged into a couple in 1991, so I guess you could say that was my first experience with the internet, although it wasn't called so at the time.

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

I think it was 1999. The local Records Office down the road from me had a room where you could just go and use their computers and go on the internet for half an hour for free. Someone showed me how to set up an email address and type things you were interested in into Yahoo. One of the things I typed in was 'Eddie Izzard'. There were these crazy people hanging out on something called a 'message board', talking random crap. I thought 'I could go for that'. So when I acquired a stone-age computer in 2000, I looked them up again. Since then my existence has been largely computer-based.

[mrsquizzical.livejournal.com]

it was about 2003? my hubby had been online since it existed since he's a gaming nerd. i finally got with the programme when i discovered the natural parenting forums. *blush* then i found potter fandom. then bandom. :~)

it was pretty funny cos i'd always teased him mercilessly and haggled over every computer related expense. now i'm the one saying 'is this the best modem we can get? can we get more hard drive?' heee!

[krazycat.livejournal.com]

First time? 1995, I believe. By 1996, my 18th birthday, I was already addicted. I remember searching for band websites and waiting ten minutes for pictures to download.. It was so difficult to find anything proper! And I was on IRC and the firefly chats. Firefly was bought by yahoo and then disappeared. OH well..

[purple-hazed.livejournal.com]

Did the LJ 10th birthday prompt this post? I was thinking along similar lines as well!! My brother gave me my first computer, it was one that he built with Win 95 on it. I got it in 1998 and I joined you guys in Eddie land!

Chat rooms scared me. They still do!!

[vixalicious]

No, research for my novel. Thanks for the info, and for the LJ virtual gift!

[cherryscott.livejournal.com]

I think it was 1994. I don't remember much, just that we had AOL and all I did was hang out in Star Wars chat rooms, lol. I was only 12 though, so there wasn't much for me to do except chat and IM my friends from school.

[fangirlsays.livejournal.com]

Hmm...it was when Ron and I were living in New Jersey and got our first computer, so somewhere around 1991 or '92. We got the computer specifically to get on the internet, which back then meant the Prodigy boards. I got into the Star Trek boards at the time, then X-Files. So, I suppose you could say some subconscious search for like-minded people led me to get online.

[yellow-oranges.livejournal.com]

I went online in 1991 and used Prodigy. Tried a version of online dating...didn't work very well. My friends were scared for me--I kept talking to strange men on the telephone. Now we know that is how it's done!! Establish contact, move from cyberspace into meat space! Right? Right. (Never did actually meet anyone in person.)

[shirecreature.livejournal.com]

I was at work - didn't have a computer at home yet. Spent all my time on Eddie Izzard's message board (which was a lot more lively in those days).