The Good ol' days

[Fubsy]

My first experience of internet chat rooms were on AOL. 3 or 4 of us crouched around the screen chatting to strangers to like one in the morning at a mates house (only one with dial up at the time). Then one bright spark gave out my home number, and the other person called it. My mother came marching over asking who this woman was asking for her son.

Funny at the time, but terrifying looking back.

I was left alone with an internet connected PC in my room from the age of 12. Seen some absolute awful stuff over the years, but also learnt loads that I wouldn't have in the "real-world". That time was a big part of my education to the world of computers, including this place.

 

[DanTheMan]

My first experience of internet chat rooms were on AOL. 3 or 4 of us crouched around the screen chatting to strangers to like one in the morning at a mates house (only one with dial up at the time). Then one bright spark gave out my home number, and the other person called it. My mother came marching over asking who this woman was asking for her son.

Funny at the time, but terrifying looking back.

I was left alone with an internet connected PC in my room from the age of 12. Seen some absolute awful stuff over the years, but also learnt loads that I wouldn't have in the "real-world". That time was a big part of my education to the world of computers, including this place.

@West had his PC confiscated as his mum saw me on webcam and thought I was a paedo. I was only 13/14 at the time .

 

[Opisflap]

Capability of the internet is definitely better now

The mood of the people on the internet isn't

I think the problem is the general masses migrated to it, and like they do with most things...diluted and spoiled it.

 

[The Running Man]

Wireplay for Air Attack and Half-Life mods like the early CounterStrike betas.

Those were the days *dons pipe and slippers*.

Air attack (not AA2) was one if the best games! Along with Re-Volt

 

[Admiral Huddy]

I don't remember any specific websites in the early day. Barrysworld springs to mind... I just remember having to launch the dial-up and Netscape Navigator. Certainly don't miss those days.. By the time an image came a third of the way down, well... It was time for tea

 

[PlacidCasual]

I used the internet at Uni in the mid 90's but I didn't own one until 2001 bought in the first 2 months of my first graduate job. I remember using a download manager to install Jumpgate on a 56k modem. I think it took 16 hours to download or something daft. Certainly I had to start and stop several times. I used to love that game and the forums.Fewer games and people were really invested in them.

 

[The Running Man]

Redhotant isp

 

[JBeck]

Sorry but I was on the internet since AOL chat rooms and the internet is 100x better now, take off the rose tinted glasses. Waiting 20 minutes to download a 5mb MP3 vs instantly streaming 4k movies or playing virtual reality games online, programs like discord that allow live streaming of your games to friends, Twitch, Netflix, Amazon, etc. We all have fond memories of the internet being new and exciting but there were a lot of down sides.

Everything is just too convenient nowadays, it's easy, boring and predictable, it's as if all the 'character' of life has disappeared. Those 20 minutes of waiting of a 5mb MP3 to download were full of anticipation, now you just get what you want in seconds, then another, then another and so on.

It's for reasons like this that retro is on the up, cassette tapes for example are making a big comeback, as is vinyl.

 

[JBeck]

I don't remember any specific websites in the early day. Barrysworld springs to mind... I just remember having to launch the dial-up and Netscape Navigator. Certainly don't miss those days.. By the time an image came a third of the way down, well... It was time for tea

Netscape Navigator, totally forgot about that! (Thankfully). I used Barrysworld a lot and tried many different dial-up services, the best one I had (for gaming) gave me a ping of around 180 in UT99 which was pretty good in those days.

 

[Rroff]

Netscape Navigator, totally forgot about that! (Thankfully). I used Barrysworld a lot and tried many different dial-up services, the best one I had (for gaming) gave me a ping of around 180 in UT99 which was pretty good in those days.

Genuine on dial-up ping - I can't remember the setup now but it was some short-lived experimental game servers BT ran internally - you had to dial into a specific service which had no internet connectivity (not stuff like Barrysworld, etc.).

In the earlier days of the internet I had around 150ms ping on dial-up in stuff like Quake, etc. over the public internet until the internet became more popular and more people online and it increased to around 180-200ms.

EDIT: Whoever that top player was - they were ridiculously good compared to the skill average in those days - not sure how they'd compare today - I was a reasonably decent player and could barely touch them and it was a fully skill compliment they brought to the game not just someone with wallhacks and an aimbot (which didn't really exist back then anyway) - had timings down really well, using complex trick jumps, etc. etc.

 

[wolfie138]

i loved netscape navigator, was miles ahead of any other browser and the first to do tabs, IIRC. like some other things though, it seemed to reach a peak then suddenly just made more and more changes that made it more and more crap.
i started on a 33k modem, PAYG, had to wait to 6PM to surf so it was only a penny a minute oh, the joys of clicking on a pic link and watching it appear down the screen line by line.

 

[CaptainRAVE]

Finally getting unlimited dial up internet and sitting on MSN all night. No one ever being able to get through on the phone

 

[Deleted member 77746]

Finally getting unlimited dial up internet and sitting on MSN all night. No one ever being able to get through on the phone

I ended up having a second line installed because of this lol fun n games eh

 

[JBeck]

Genuine on dial-up ping - I can't remember the setup now but it was some short-lived experimental game servers BT ran internally - you had to dial into a specific service which had no internet connectivity (not stuff like Barrysworld, etc.).

In the earlier days of the internet I had around 150ms ping on dial-up in stuff like Quake, etc. over the public internet until the internet became more popular and more people online and it increased to around 180-200ms.

EDIT: Whoever that top player was - they were ridiculously good compared to the skill average in those days - not sure how they'd compare today - I was a reasonably decent player and could barely touch them and it was a fully skill compliment they brought to the game not just someone with wallhacks and an aimbot (which didn't really exist back then anyway) - had timings down really well, using complex trick jumps, etc. etc.

That's a cracking ping, never seen one so low on dial-up, although I was in the sticks at the time and was actually on a 28.8k modem.

I was an out-and-out NW CTF player, didn't really do DM, his trick jumps would have been scripts in the .ini file, pretty easy to do, we used to have hammer jump binds and with the correct timing and movement you could hammer across then hammer off a wall etc, fun stuff but eventually outlawed in cup matches.

 

[JBeck]

i loved netscape navigator, was miles ahead of any other browser and the first to do tabs, IIRC. like some other things though, it seemed to reach a peak then suddenly just made more and more changes that made it more and more crap.
i started on a 33k modem, PAYG, had to wait to 6PM to surf so it was only a penny a minute oh, the joys of clicking on a pic link and watching it appear down the screen line by line.

I remember the waiting for the 6pm thing, I also has one provider (AOL?) which made me redial/reconnect every two hours, the groans from my mates and the other team just before a cup match as I disappeared to reconnect was always priceless.

 

[Haze]

Redhotant isp

My favourite until they got took over

 

[Feek]

Can anyone still remember their old ICQ number?

10102260

1776683

/edit - given time, I’m sure my old Compuserve address would come back me.

 

[Narj]

I remember there was a virtual chat room thingy called Blaxxun at one point and they were so trusting that they would let you import your own avatar models. Cue me modelling dildos and all sorts of things in a hooky copy of 3DS Max and wandering around the world harassing people.

 

[Narj]

1776683

5757503. You got in early!

 

[Rroff]

Just found mine - 43647933 - looks like I was quite late compared to some.