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Who on Anandtech can **PROVE** They were on the internet first?

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I got on the first time with my brand new Mactintosh Performa 405 in 1993 (price tag with everything, close to $2,000!). I remember using AOL - although I'm not sure which version. I am gonna pull that beast outta the garage when I go home for spring break and see if there is anyway to get some proof. I do remember it being totally awesome back then.
 
I would say 1993...possibly 1992. I had Compusrv, Prodigy and AOL (all at different times). I also remember Concentric networks.
 
I think the earilest I can claim was AOL 1.1. I had slew of old disks, AOL, Prodigy, etc. . . that I trashed about 3 years ago.

Although I worked with Ray Tomlinson, and he has the trump card on alot of people.
 
Heh my "computer class" in high school in 1973 used teletype to talk to a mainframe. IIRC those things ran somewhere between 30-60 baud. I still have some of the paper tape of my programs from that in a box somewhere.

Pretty bad when you can type faster than the data goes out!

It seems this way now as I type this only because of latency. Things we take for granted.
 
Well, I remember we had a 1200 baud modem for Mac. Used Compuserve. I found espn.com when it was text based. That ruled.

Probably 90-91 ish.
 
1990 or so is when I started BBSing on the c=64. 1200 baud baby! Not sure if that counts. Ran a BBS called "9th Nebula". I was even a l33t 'importer'.

Actual intarweb... I started with dialup service in 1994 I believe, in T.O. @ York U.
 
1996? Pfft! I was on a BBS system in '93 and on the net in '94. I must confess my first Email address was "DolphinRob@aol.com" and my wife at the time purchased an "Internet Yellowpages".

Also, my mother has a 6 digit ICQ number and I turned her on to ICQ so my original predates that by a little. Of course I forgot my number long ago. 🙁
 
Originally posted by: Phokus
***********I WIN****************

Reading through the thread, i can conclude that everyone is is a n00b 🙂

Now i don't have any proof, but i had access to the internet (telnet/rlogin, ftp, usenet, email access using commandline unix) through my dad's MIT account via a 2400 baud modem circa 1989/1990. I played some of the first MUDs/MOOS/Mushes that ever existed. SUCK ON THAT! 😀

<- first used the internet in 1986.
 
I have a post in Usenet that you can find on google groups from Mar 15 1994. I won't link it because it's not appropriate for this forum. 😉
 
Originally posted by: Jfrag Teh Foul
Started out in December of 95 with a Pentium 75 and a 28.8 modem.

No proof though.

I had a 486DX2-66 in '94 with a 9600 modem and 8MB of RAM. I think I paid $133 (computer show prices) to bump it up to a screaming 16MB RAM. I was on AOHell in '94 or '95...can't recall exactly when we got online. I've been on ever since though.
 
Originally posted by: hevnsnt
Ok all.. Lets see who really pwns anandtech..

Find your oldest PROOF that you were on the internet and post it here..

Oct 26th 1996
I know I can do better though..


Sep 20 1996

I was on earlier but that's the oldest I could find with a few minutes searching.

I have a 205xxx ICQ number and that was my second one. Had one under 120xxx but just grabbed a new one reformatting one day.
 
I have no proof, but I was using FTP on the internet during 1990 with some university profs. I don't think I came across any "web" sites though. anybody remember gopher? does that still exist?
 
I was on Prodigy in 1993. When I got to college in 94 I switched over to the college network...can't remember what it was...telnet or something...still dialup. In 98 my roommates and I finally got cable modem (while back home the folks finally got started on AOL 🙂)...the rest is history...
 
In the mid-90s I had a dialup Netcom account that billed like a cellphone: free off-peak, X peak minutes, $ per minute after. 😀 I could probably prove as far back as about '94 if I did more digging than I care to right now. Anything before that would've been mostly on BBSes which are long gone, some before some ATOT n00bs were born... hah
 
I went to school with a guy who moved just down the road from me in '85. I went over to his house and he had either a Commodore 64 or an Amiga (forgive me for not knowing, I didn't get my first PC until '89) and had crate upon crate of 5.25" floppies with all manner of pirated games on them. He and a few friends had a BBS offering up these games, which was so far above what I knew at the time .. I just marveled at how advanced this schoolmate had become, and here I was still trying to just get a date ! I always referred to him as the 'War Games' kid, hoping that I wasn't too close to true in that statement. It was a real eye opener to what was available in the virtual world of BBS and FTP lairs.
 
Originally posted by: tm37
I remember paying l8ike 1.99 an hour or something through compuserve

I was on prodigy also

And I was on like three BBS's in the day on my c-64

awesome! 😀 😎
i remember visiting my buddy in the USA and his bro would be on prodigy and i was all like wow what the hell is that and i never really understood it... a few years later after the internet became mainstream (our family was a semi-late adopter) i was like ohhhhhh 😛

i can't imagine what it must have been like with few real websites around and with ppl just acessing BBs all the time.. man that must have sucked! 😀
 
Well if BBS's don't count as the internet, then I guess I can't use my CoSysOp job on The Yellow Submarine BBS, but I used to use a cobbled together PPP/SLIP connection to my university's public Unix server (Called Jove, you figure out where it is, LOL) and ZModem to transfer pr0n from Usenet.

And my first BBS modem was an external Hayes 300 baud... Ouch was that slow...

91-92 timeframe... Now how the he|| do i prove that! hahaha ahh thanks for taking me back

QYB
 
You people with these 14.4 baud modems--that was blazing. 😉 I remember (don't have proof) when I used to dial up to my uncle's BBS with a 300 baud modem on our TRS-80. Man those were the days, I could type faster than the text appeared on the screen. That was probably early 90's.
 
Originally posted by: rh71
2400 baud modem on prodigy... I wish I still had the emails... must've been about '93. Still in touch with the first girl I ever met there. We were 15.

That's my first experience also. About the time I graduated college, which was '92.
 
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