When did it all start for you?

Computer club after school, one evening the teacher arranged a game of 'star trek'. He hooked one of the teletypes to a modem -this was in the days of pressing the phone receiver into a couple of round cups - and dialled up some mainframe a long way away.
And the amazement as we typed in our moves, and after a second or so, the teletype rattled off another line in reply.
That must have been in the mid-1980s!
 
Honestly can't remember exactly how old I was, however ... I remember getting an amstrad CPC464 though, took tapes and 5½ inch floppy disks. Then moved onto a PC with a 14.4k modem and remember playing Diablo 1.

Good ol` days. I swear gaming has never been that good since.
 
56k modem on a 486-dx2 pc for me, I played on a custom half-life map and it blew my mind.

I then got into Barry’s World etc and had £300+ phone bills until isdn and inclusive online time.
 
We had a PC in the house, with DialUp (Clara?) when I was 7/8 - 1999/2000.

Then we got a new PC, with our first broadband connection in 2003 when we moved here. Incidentally, this was my first year of Secondary School and have been hooked with computers ever since, and there are now quite a few computers in this house - probably, because of me!

Edit - just realised it's been 10 years since we first got a computer, as I'm now 17! How time flies...
 
Bought a PC back in the summer of 2000 but didn't connect to the internet until 2004, now I use it I sometimes find it hard to imagine life without it.
 
We got the net in about 2000, it was 56k and really slow and annoying my main use was msn messanger and porn. I was never into computers too much at school it wasn't until i built my first one at 16 (because a mate was and I though it would be fun, thats over 6 years ago now) that I really started. I discovered OcUK then as it was where I ordered my parts from; but felt that forums were geeky and a bit pathetic at the time.

It wasn't until uni first year when I had way to much time on my hands that I got into using forums. Also it was when I really started online gaming, I purchased cod2 as my computer was immense I thought I might as well get a game to play on it! It was also a few months before I went to uni that I managed to convince the parents to sign up to NTL broadband. It took long enough convincing them to get the net in the first place.

For about 2 or 3 years I was a regular poster on an old DFI support forum based in the US but then that eventually crumbled due to the forums being owned and run by and individual that fell out with the company.

I ended up joining OCuK forums whilst working for Intel in my placement year after lurking for a year or so, mainly because of links posted from a water cooling forum and I had heard that the MM here was awesome.

And I guess I've been in limbo ever since.

EDIT: 1800th post :)
 
I was about 12 in 1996 when I got a Wang i386sx/4Mb Ram (upgraded from 1!)/40Mb HDD - with no CD rom. My parents got me it as I wouldn't let up about playing sid's civilization and colonization at my own house instead of having to go to my cousins for weekends on end. The machine ran DOS 5.0, I stuck 3.1 then 3.11 then workgroups on it. Machine was always stand alone.

That was replaced with a 486dx 50, 8mb ram and a 200-odd-mb HDD. This came with Windows 95, and I started to play more doom style games.

Wasn't until I got my cyrix P150 system with 32mb, that had dedicated graphics in the way of a rubbish PCI effort, that I got onto the internet with a 56k modem and freeserve. Eventually moved over to a pay per minute dial in number, and raised my mums BT standing order from £60 a month to nearly £700. :eek: It was around this time in late 98-99 that I found OcUK, and discovered downloaded MP3's at 12 minutes a time!!!

lol

As soon as broadband was available, I had my 512kb Telewest Modem blazing for months. this was when Counter strike was 1.6 iirc, and the two coincided very well. I lost literally years probably to CS/CSS/ and Civ IV. :/

rest is history, rarely use the computer and net like I used too. Waste of time, there is far more to life than 0's and 1's.
 
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Second hand ZX81 (with external tape drive), a monochrome television and a 1200 / 75 modem.

I remember looking at a few BBS' before thinking it was boring and going back to playing Dizzy The Egg. :]
 
I remember wanting a VTX5000 modem to plug my Speccy + (then a Speccy +3) into the wonderful world of BBS's, but never really mentioned it to my parents as I knew the modems and connection were pretty expensive asnd I don't think they would've entertained it! First proper PC internet connection I saw at upper school on a 486DX2/66 in about 1996/97 I think (maybe a bit earlier). Not long after, the first proper connection I got was at home after spending about £50 on a 56.6k modem to plug into my 486 DX2/50 (either that or it was my Pentium 75, can't remember now)! I can't remember for sure, but I think I got a dial-up BT connection where you paid by the minute, then tried dial-up Freeserve till it was no longer free! Then went with NTL dial-up, where you paid a set monthly fee and had as long as you wanted online. We even had a second phone line put in for it! My sister had started working at NTL and we got a full TV package with a discount and I got broadband (maybe 128kb connection) not long after they brought it out. Had NTL/Virgin broadband till last year when we moved house to a non cabled area and I'm now with Sky.
I've still got all my old computers, the Spectrum + (2 of them actually!), Spectrum +3, NES, etc. I won't be getting rid of them - the newest console i've got a is an XBox! Newer games don't seem to have the same attraction for me as the older ones did, indeed, i've got a couple of arcade machines (one standard one you can put any PCB in - i've got about 150ish, and a proper Sega Hang-On machine), I prefer using these and emulators on the PC than any new games you get now! :)
 
was 95 and aol was the chosen isp, for some reason! started off on faceparty, delta force c&c moved to teentoday then to msn then more delta force
 
In fact if I recall correctly, the length of time I was on the internet and resultant screams from mother dear about getting a clear line, I had my own phoneline in my room within the year.

Paid by them! hahaha
 
Biohazard said:
In fact if I recall correctly, the length of time I was on the internet and resultant screams from mother dear about getting a clear line, I had my own phoneline in my room within the year.

Paid by them! hahaha
Click to expand...

O I forgot that using the internet used to tie up the phone line!!!! aahahahahahahahaha
 
[TW]Fox;15326104 said:
1995, at school.

'This is the internet'
*dials into AOL*
*waits 5 mins for it to connect*
*is welcomed to AOL by female voice*
*moments later the connection drops*
*repeats the above several times*
*visits AOL keywords and Yahoo.com*
'Whoa'
Click to expand...


Fixed with my experience.
 
It was 1999 with freeserve oh the bills were massive. I got BT broadband in 2001. Going from 512k, 2Mb, then adsl max 4Mb, Then LLU 8Mb and then Virgin Media 2Mb and then 10Mb and then 20Mb and now back to 10Mb
 
Biohazard said:
In fact if I recall correctly, the length of time I was on the internet and resultant screams from mother dear about getting a clear line, I had my own phoneline in my room within the year.

Paid by them! hahaha
Click to expand...
Same here. Was fun when I was 12, having my very own entry in the yellow pages. Cue all my friends being able to find my personal number and ask me for help with English homework, though :(
 
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