Were you, like me, messing around with gopher when something called Mosaic came along? When did you first start using the Internet and web? Do you have any stories about the early days?
Submitted by softwarejanitor on Tue, 02/05/2008 - 1:18pm.
I was first on the "Internet" around 1985, before that term came into use. At that time NSF hadn't funded the centralized backbone and the various regional, education, research and defense contractor networks which eventually came together hadn't even all standardized on IP. I can find USENET postings of mine from that era if I search on Google groups.
Submitted by softwarejanitor on Tue, 02/05/2008 - 1:48pm.
I first was on the Internet through the university where I was living at that time and later went to school at. The first commercial ISP I used was called I-Link, and they've been out of business for a long, long time... I think they sold out to one of their competitors in 1993. I helped found an ISP in 1994 which although it has changed hands is still in business, but they don't serve this area.
Submitted by BrookeLyn on Tue, 02/19/2008 - 10:20am.
I remember gopher and mosaic. I had spent the summer at Stephen F Austin on a work program through my school . I worked as an assistant for the Computer Lab Manager and was introduced to Gopher, a communication program between two people through a computer. I belive that it was in '91/'92.
Submitted by softwarejanitor on Thu, 02/21/2008 - 1:14pm.
You either need a specific gopher client (if you use Linux there are a number available, if you use Windows or MacOSX, I would guess there are as well, but I can't name any specifics) or the browser method you describe. The Wikipedia article covers some of that, but not in much detail.
My first IP was called "Suger", out of Sugerland, TX. They were the first to hook into the internet via Rice University's connection. They were a basic BB format, with lots of chat and email (of sorts). Even had access to all the USENET forums. All this was in the mid 80's. I still remember the first time I downloaded a file via ftp from a MIT computer. Don't remember what it was, but I thought, how cool is this!
My foray was running the BBS for my high-school, back in the late 80's/early 90's. Yes, I suppose that information now dates me. Regardless, we had started publishing email packets with Bitnet; nightly dial-ups to/from a server transferred "Internet" email from our BBS to wherever it was destined. I didn't send much Internet email, as it took at least a day to deliver...but it was a useful feature to have at the time.
Very nice. What did it offer? I didn't know of many Apple BBS's back where I grew up.
The BBS I ran was on a 386, running PC-BOARD BBS software. Think the computer had a 40MB drive (hard card). Ironically, here I am 15 years later running essentially another BBS...
Submitted by softwarejanitor on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 12:28pm.
It was mostly a message board, although it did have some file downloads. Mostly the kind of stuff you would find archived at textfiles.com It was well before the 386 era, and BBSs where I lived at the time were common on a number of platforms, Apple, Commodore, PC were all pretty common in those days (1982-1989). The software I used was based on a system called GBBS II, but it was heavily hacked to the point it didn't really look like the original anymore. Later I wrote a BBS like system that was modeled on a lot of it in C on BSD UNIX for a place I was working.
I first got onto the Internet in 1984, when I was a freshman in college. We were using DEC PDP 11/70s with a whole 128KB of RAM (two 64KB banks), and UUCP connections to the outside world.
I had already been on BBSes for a while at that stage, with my trusty Apple ][+ computer (with 80-column card!) that I got as a high school graduation gift.
But I didn't really understand what it was or how to make use of it. I was a junior by the time I was posting to newsgroups, getting on mailing lists, contributing source code to comp.sources, etc....
A couple years later, and I became a professional Unix system administrator because I was the only guy in the office who had actually used Unix, and they had a new Unix box which needed an admin.
I was using TENET right as the phenomenon of networking networks started really taking off and the term "internet" started being bandied about. I was using Lynx as a web and gopher client around '92 not long after it was first developed, before Mosaic (which hit around '93 IIRC). Good stuff.
Lessee.... Started using e-mail about 1979 (internal to company where I worked). Same company finally gave us Internet access in mid-'80s. Got home connection to Fido (BBS network) about the same time using Atari 800XL. In late '80s moved to a company that had better Internet access and started using things like Gopher and Archie. In early '90s moved to Xenix machine and a free UUCP connection to the Internet at home. Switched to FreeBSD and a real ISP a few years later.
It's been an interesting ride.
Of course, for the REAL early days, we can discuss things like dropping a stack of unmarked Hollerith cards and having to resort them manually by knowing how to read the holes. (IBM 24 punches didn't print anything human-readable on the cards like the 26 punches did.) "Networking" back then meant carrying a stack of cards from one machine to another.
I was first on the "Internet" around 1985, before that term came into use. At that time NSF hadn't funded the centralized backbone and the various regional, education, research and defense contractor networks which eventually came together hadn't even all standardized on IP. I can find USENET postings of mine from that era if I search on Google groups.
Who was your first isp? Mine was real/time unfortunately.
I first was on the Internet through the university where I was living at that time and later went to school at. The first commercial ISP I used was called I-Link, and they've been out of business for a long, long time... I think they sold out to one of their competitors in 1993. I helped found an ISP in 1994 which although it has changed hands is still in business, but they don't serve this area.
What was it called? Was it in Austin?
No, it was not in Austin and I am sure you've never heard of it.
Cool
These are still the early days of the internet, it's still just a baby.
Thanks for making us old folks feel like Geezersaurs... :-)
I remember gopher and mosaic. I had spent the summer at Stephen F Austin on a work program through my school . I worked as an assistant for the Computer Lab Manager and was introduced to Gopher, a communication program between two people through a computer. I belive that it was in '91/'92.
Is gopher still an active protocol?
Yes, but the number of servers running gopher is tiny compared to what it once was... and it was overshadowed by http a long time ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol)
I would have no clue how to access a gopher. From the command line I suppose or maybe in the address bar of a browser? gopher:// ????
You either need a specific gopher client (if you use Linux there are a number available, if you use Windows or MacOSX, I would guess there are as well, but I can't name any specifics) or the browser method you describe. The Wikipedia article covers some of that, but not in much detail.
I'll give it a try for fun just to find out what this gopher thing is.
You may be somewhat underwhelmed.
Probably.
My first IP was called "Suger", out of Sugerland, TX. They were the first to hook into the internet via Rice University's connection. They were a basic BB format, with lots of chat and email (of sorts). Even had access to all the USENET forums. All this was in the mid 80's. I still remember the first time I downloaded a file via ftp from a MIT computer. Don't remember what it was, but I thought, how cool is this!
My foray was running the BBS for my high-school, back in the late 80's/early 90's. Yes, I suppose that information now dates me. Regardless, we had started publishing email packets with Bitnet; nightly dial-ups to/from a server transferred "Internet" email from our BBS to wherever it was destined. I didn't send much Internet email, as it took at least a day to deliver...but it was a useful feature to have at the time.
I ran a BBS on an Apple II back in the mid 1980s...
Very nice. What did it offer? I didn't know of many Apple BBS's back where I grew up.
The BBS I ran was on a 386, running PC-BOARD BBS software. Think the computer had a 40MB drive (hard card). Ironically, here I am 15 years later running essentially another BBS...
It was mostly a message board, although it did have some file downloads. Mostly the kind of stuff you would find archived at textfiles.com It was well before the 386 era, and BBSs where I lived at the time were common on a number of platforms, Apple, Commodore, PC were all pretty common in those days (1982-1989). The software I used was based on a system called GBBS II, but it was heavily hacked to the point it didn't really look like the original anymore. Later I wrote a BBS like system that was modeled on a lot of it in C on BSD UNIX for a place I was working.
I first got onto the Internet in 1984, when I was a freshman in college. We were using DEC PDP 11/70s with a whole 128KB of RAM (two 64KB banks), and UUCP connections to the outside world.
I had already been on BBSes for a while at that stage, with my trusty Apple ][+ computer (with 80-column card!) that I got as a high school graduation gift.
But I didn't really understand what it was or how to make use of it. I was a junior by the time I was posting to newsgroups, getting on mailing lists, contributing source code to comp.sources, etc....
A couple years later, and I became a professional Unix system administrator because I was the only guy in the office who had actually used Unix, and they had a new Unix box which needed an admin.
--
Brad Knowles brad@shub-internet.org
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/bradknowles
I was using TENET right as the phenomenon of networking networks started really taking off and the term "internet" started being bandied about. I was using Lynx as a web and gopher client around '92 not long after it was first developed, before Mosaic (which hit around '93 IIRC). Good stuff.
-- eof
I started using the "internet" around 92 in High School using mainly Lynx.
Lessee.... Started using e-mail about 1979 (internal to company where I worked). Same company finally gave us Internet access in mid-'80s. Got home connection to Fido (BBS network) about the same time using Atari 800XL. In late '80s moved to a company that had better Internet access and started using things like Gopher and Archie. In early '90s moved to Xenix machine and a free UUCP connection to the Internet at home. Switched to FreeBSD and a real ISP a few years later.
It's been an interesting ride.
Of course, for the REAL early days, we can discuss things like dropping a stack of unmarked Hollerith cards and having to resort them manually by knowing how to read the holes. (IBM 24 punches didn't print anything human-readable on the cards like the 26 punches did.) "Networking" back then meant carrying a stack of cards from one machine to another.
The WELL was probably the first place I accessed the Internet, via dialup. They had some kind of uunet connection early in the game.
I remember getting email from people on The WELL back in the mid 1980s. They had a lot of prominent users back then.