IN OTHER NEWS

[dpnash@c.im]

@blogdiva

The first large-scale network I used was BITNET in 1988. So, not even “the Internet” yet, to be pedantic. Email and a rough BITNET equivalent of IRC were available immediately; Usenet newsgroups had to wait a year or two until I got an account on the system that was plugged into the “actual” Internet.

[rk@mastodon.well.com]

@blogdiva

I…uh…borrowed an account from a university in southeast Texas around 1992 and telnet’d all over the damn place for months before I was caught.

[blogdiva@mastodon.social]

@geolaw gopher was really simple and elegant. we had better metadata for documents back in the day. it was called the Dewey Decimal System and Library of Congress archiving standards.

[mlrife@mastodon.social]

@blogdiva @jf_718 Also, Usenet flame wars were legendary.

[deadinside@but.still.drinkin.coffee]

@blogdiva UUCP.

[infrogmation@mastodon.online]

@blogdiva

Youngsters: Dial-up era internet wasn't just slower, it was full of esoteric protocols one needed to learn how to navigate.

[darth_hideout@mas.to]

@blogdiva

My gmail account is 21 (old enough to drink).

[smellsofbikes@mastodon.social]

@blogdiva email with dad in the uucp days of the early 80s. It was absolutely magical that he received email in a mere two hours after I sent it and I didn't have to pay long distance phone bills to actually talk.

[apples_and_pears@mastodon.world]

@blogdiva Internet: Gopher, Archie, Usenet, FidoNet.

Networks other than Internet: Teletype, TWX, dedicated data line, and DECNET.

There are still a few gopher servers in service and BBS is having a renaissance.

[feloniouspunk@beige.party]

@blogdiva I have that. I once found a stash of recordings of vintage beatbox and rap battles on an FTP server in France. I still have them. That famous rap battle between Busy Bee and Kool Moe Dee is in there.

[cyanautik@infosec.exchange]

@FeloniousPunk
@blogdiva

we printed the list of ftp sites on high-speed line printers with greenbar and then made handwritten annotations.

that sound...

[feloniouspunk@beige.party]

@cyanautik @blogdiva KrEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[nxskok@cupoftea.social]

@blogdiva nntp mainly in those days. At some point in the late 80s the university I was at installed a Unix operating system.

[rlonstein@social.stonetools.tech]

@blogdiva 300/1200 baud dial-up to a local university for BITnet, BBS-es, daemon-dialing, tymnet, phreaking. Whitney Houston, The Bangles, The Pet Shop Boys, and Madonna were on the radio.

[nuintari@mastodon.bsd.cafe]

@blogdiva It was either SMTP or NNTP, forget which I used first.

But it was all via UUCP!

[rusty_shackleford@colorlessgreenvoid.com]

@blogdiva
Http like 99% of the population you fucking protocol hipster lol

[pinskia@hachyderm.io]

@blogdiva slip

[wcbdata@vis.social]

@blogdiva Pre www, I had my first .edu email address in 1989, so SMTP 37 or so years ago? Also pretty sure I used finger & telnet a bunch around the same time. No Gopher, but we were using NCSA Mosaic for HTTP to the real live www by 1991 or 1992, before it was officially released...

[mxchara@seattle.pink]

@blogdiva I first got online in 1993 and while I definitely remember Gopher, I didn't actually use it that much. Telnet, FTP, Usenet, and console web browsing with lynx were my first taste of the Internet

[skleefeld@retro.pizza]

@blogdiva Got my first 300 baud modem in 1985/86. Mostly used for logging into hyper-local BBSes. (One of them was actually run by a friend of mine who lived maybe 2-3 miles away.) The largest forum I visited back then was the Sierra Entertainment BBS, looking for game hints and such. That didn't last long, though, because that was a long-distance call to California and there were a couple of pricey phone bills that came in shortly afterwards.