Everything You Needed To Know About the Internet In May, 1994

harrymcc writes "On Saturday, I picked up a copy of a book called How To Use the Internet at a flea market. It was published in May, 1994, and is a fascinating snapshot of the state of the Net at that time — when you had to explain to people that it wasn't a good idea to say 'thank you' when issuing commands to a machine, and the World Wide Web was an alternative to Gopher that warranted only four pages of coverage towards the end of the book. I selected some choice excerpts and wrote about them over at TIME.com."

Poignant

[Gumug]

FTA: E-mail: “Never forget that electronic mail is like a postcard. Many people can read it easily without your ever knowing it. In other words, do not say anything in an e-mail message which you would not say in public.”

Let us not forget

[fred911]

Archie and Veronica.

Re:Misty watercolor memories

[Anonymous Coward]

In the days before DNS when you could download a hosts file that had all of the known IP addresses in it - well the public ones anyway.

Re:How quaint

[cold fjord]

The phenomenon known as Eternal September [wikipedia.org] was new and little understood back in those days.

Though the ruin of Eternal September blotted out the sun in the memory of those who endured it, it is a relic of the Second Age of the internet.

The First Age of the internet also saw its battles and flames, though they are now but a distant memory and few speak of them. A record of one of the notable battles follows:

THE "GREAT RENAMING" [eff.org]

In 1986-87, Usenet underwent a thoroughgoing shakeup and reorganization which has come to be known as the "Great Renaming." At its inception, Usenet had only top-level hierarchies, mod and net. This was later expanded by the addition of the "fa" groups as well as some domains with only local distribution. When a complete reorganization of Usenet was proposed, a massive and now-legendary "flame war" (online discussion/argument) commenced.

The most significant flame war of Usenet history was over the "Great Renaming" when the seven main hierarchies {comp,misc,news,rec,sci,soc,talk} were created and the old groups {net,fa,mod} were all moved around. There was great gnashing of teeth as groups were sorted and tossed around and relegated to their polities. -- [Woodbury, 1992]

more [eff.org]

Re:Also LaQuey's book, 1993

[Anonymous Coward]

Down, boy. Gore didn't claim he invented, that was a misquote spun by Republicans to do anything possible to make him look bad. And he *did* have a pivotal Senate role in early funding and federal sponsorship, so he was actually a good choice for an introduction.

Re:How quaint

[cold fjord]

The War Between alt.tasteless and rec.pets.cats [wired.com]

Re:Poignant

[Anonymous Coward]

While that is technically true, it is simply part of how sorting and routing mail works. I work for a private mail processor and our sorters do the same thing (we presort down to carrier level before we tender to the PO), There is no central storage or organization of images, or much retention, but we can get the images off the individual machines for troubleshooting purposes up to maybe a week later.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/02/postal-service-photos_n_3694589.html

Re:Poignant

[Prof.PatPending]

Heck, I've found myself walking near people (in downtown Philadelphia) who were on their phone GIVING THEIR CREDIT CARD INFO! The first time I heard it I thought the person was just some random idiot, but I've since heard half a dozen other people doing the same thing!