Online Services: The Internet Before the Internet 387
jfruh writes "The Slashdot readership is probably split pretty evenly into two groups. There are those for whom full-on Internet access has been available for their entire computer-using lives, and then there are those who wanted to use the Net from home before 1991, and who therefore had to use a BBS or an online service. Here's a tour of some of these services, including Prodigy, Compuserve, and of course AOL. This should be a nostalgic trip for the oldsters among us, and a history lesson for Gen Y readers."
Re:Oldster? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Oldster? (Score:3, Funny)
They're like hipsters but they've had hip replacements so they prefer a non-hip term.
I had full-on internet access when I was a kid... (Score:5, Funny)
...well, my dad did. So, I had the experience of playing the "Star Trek" game on a printing terminal connected via an acoustic coupler. It was the Arpanet back then, and not the Internet, and we wore an onion on our belt, a big yellow one, because that was the style.
What was I saying? Oh, right, "full on" internet access wasn't so good in the days before BBSing was popular.
Re:Third and fourth groups (Score:4, Funny)
What about my group? I didn't grow up with computers, Computers grew up with me. [kuro5hin.org]
I was online in 1983. It was CumpuServe and it really sucked. At 300 baud it was text-only and there was little there.
BBSes were better. They were 9600 baud and FREE!
I wasn't on the real internet until 1997. 33k modem, WOW What speed!
Man, it was primitive...
Re:Oldster? (Score:5, Funny)
14.4?
Whipersnapper! Get off my lawn.
We started at 300 baud, and were lucky to get that. The long period of dead traffic right in the middle of the message taunted you to hang up and dial again, only to have it sputter out another few characters.
Re:Oldster? (Score:5, Funny)
That 30 years figure must be outdated!
Oldsters are always at least 15 years older than I am.
Re:Oldster? (Score:5, Funny)
That's nothing. Back in the day, we had to get our internet via semaphore flags. One person would work the computer and another would be the spotter, using a pair of binoculars. It would take all day just to draw the screen,
Re:Oldster? (Score:5, Funny)
Excuse me, Mary Sunshine, but this was my first time.
And who appointed you the joke police? I was getting +5 Funny mods when you were still jerking off to the Power Puff girls.
Re:Oldster? (Score:4, Funny)
But it was still such a step up from the older IP over smoke signals.
And it had the advantage of being immune to the early malware of some net.troll stoking the signal fires with poison ivy.
Re:Oldster? (Score:4, Funny)
"I would sit with my back to the cave's opening and watch the shadows cast upon the inside wall."
And then that bastard Socrates stole the idea, and Plato wrote it up.
And I bet you didn't even get royalties.