Remembering Cyberia, the World's First Ever Cyber Cafe (vice.com) 27
An anonymous reader quotes a report from VICE: It's early on a Sunday morning in late 1994, and you're shuffling your way through Fitzrovia in Central London, bloodstream still rushing after a long night at Bagley's. The sun comes up as you come down. You navigate side streets that you know like the back of your hand. But your hand's stamped with a party logo. And your brain's kaput. Coffee... yes, coffee. Good idea. Suddenly, you find yourself outside a teal blue cafe. Walking in is like entering an alien world; rows of club kids, tech heads, and game developers sit in front of desktops, lost in the primitive version of some new reality. Tentacular cables hang from the ceiling. Ambient techno reverberates from wall to wall. Cigarette smoke fills the air.
Welcome to Cyberia, the world's first internet cafe. Which, if you're too young to remember, are basically cafes with computers in them. It all began when Eva Pascoe, a Polish computing student living in London, crossed paths with Tim Berners Lee and other early internet mavericks at the dawn of the 90s. "I was very interested in cyberfeminism and wanted to figure out how women could reclaim tech," she recalls. The internet was still in its infancy. Diabolically slow dial-up modems only emerged around 1992; the World Wide Web was a pipe dream until 1993 and hardly anyone had the internet at home. But there wasn't just a lack of javascript; Eva remembers there being no good java, either. "There were no coffee shops in London," she says, which today seems ludicrous. "Just greasy spoons and everyone drank tea. I wanted a European-style cafe."
Linking up with like-minded pioneers David Rowe and husband and wife Keith and Gene Teare, Eva found a spot on the corner of Whitfield Street and launched Cyberia there in 1994. With Hackers-style aesthetics and futuristic furniture, it was based around a U-shaped layout that meant visitors could see each other's screens. "I wanted women to feel safe, because a lot of the stuff on the net was dodgy," she explains. Many of Eva's mates chipped in to help out -- architects, interior designers, graphic artists, publishers, and ravers among them.
And then there was the Amish community in Pennsylvania. Eva had to fly out there to negotiate for the "Cyberia.com" domain name they had bought. "It was a proper barn with horse carts and a wall of modems as they were running a bulletin board and an early ecommerce company. Apparently, there was always one family nominated to be the tech support," she remembers. Back in London, Cyberia quickly became a hotspot. "Virtually the second we opened, we had three lines deep around the block," she says. It's hard to imagine, but nowhere else in the world was doing what they were doing. It was the world's first cybercafe. "If you wanted to collect your emails, we were the only place in town," Eva says. Cyberia opened around 20 cafes worldwide, including branches in Bangkok, Paris, and Rotterdam. "For a fleeting moment it became like a sexier version of Richard Branson's Virgin empire: there was Cyberia Records, Cyberia Channel (a pioneering streaming service), Cyberia Payments, the Cyberia magazine, a Cyberia show on UK TV -- even a Cyberia wedding," writes VICE's Kyle MacNeill. He attended Cyberia's 30th birthday party in September and spoke with some of the cafe's original innovators, "shooting the shit about the good times and the not-so-good coffee."
Welcome to Cyberia, the world's first internet cafe. Which, if you're too young to remember, are basically cafes with computers in them. It all began when Eva Pascoe, a Polish computing student living in London, crossed paths with Tim Berners Lee and other early internet mavericks at the dawn of the 90s. "I was very interested in cyberfeminism and wanted to figure out how women could reclaim tech," she recalls. The internet was still in its infancy. Diabolically slow dial-up modems only emerged around 1992; the World Wide Web was a pipe dream until 1993 and hardly anyone had the internet at home. But there wasn't just a lack of javascript; Eva remembers there being no good java, either. "There were no coffee shops in London," she says, which today seems ludicrous. "Just greasy spoons and everyone drank tea. I wanted a European-style cafe."
Linking up with like-minded pioneers David Rowe and husband and wife Keith and Gene Teare, Eva found a spot on the corner of Whitfield Street and launched Cyberia there in 1994. With Hackers-style aesthetics and futuristic furniture, it was based around a U-shaped layout that meant visitors could see each other's screens. "I wanted women to feel safe, because a lot of the stuff on the net was dodgy," she explains. Many of Eva's mates chipped in to help out -- architects, interior designers, graphic artists, publishers, and ravers among them.
And then there was the Amish community in Pennsylvania. Eva had to fly out there to negotiate for the "Cyberia.com" domain name they had bought. "It was a proper barn with horse carts and a wall of modems as they were running a bulletin board and an early ecommerce company. Apparently, there was always one family nominated to be the tech support," she remembers. Back in London, Cyberia quickly became a hotspot. "Virtually the second we opened, we had three lines deep around the block," she says. It's hard to imagine, but nowhere else in the world was doing what they were doing. It was the world's first cybercafe. "If you wanted to collect your emails, we were the only place in town," Eva says. Cyberia opened around 20 cafes worldwide, including branches in Bangkok, Paris, and Rotterdam. "For a fleeting moment it became like a sexier version of Richard Branson's Virgin empire: there was Cyberia Records, Cyberia Channel (a pioneering streaming service), Cyberia Payments, the Cyberia magazine, a Cyberia show on UK TV -- even a Cyberia wedding," writes VICE's Kyle MacNeill. He attended Cyberia's 30th birthday party in September and spoke with some of the cafe's original innovators, "shooting the shit about the good times and the not-so-good coffee."
bummer (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There was another thing around at that time called Alphaworld [wikipedia.org].
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I thought we were going to talk about this Cyberia https://64.media.tumblr.com/708de4ace617229f04f08ceb591c9cb5/tumblr_p34toknHwE1vfhgp6o1_1280.pnj [tumblr.com]
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nah the article is about one from 30 years ago
the one you linked is present day, present time
early internet cafes (Score:5, Interesting)
In 1998 in Silicon Valley two friends and I launched one of the first internet cafes there, featuring a few computers and ethernet ports available to every table against a wall for laptops. This pre-dated popular adoption of 802.11b so everything was wired. The router was programmed with codes and a timer, so if you bought a coffee or other item, you could get a one-time-use code printed on a small slip of paper that would allow your MAC Address. It was a big hit with the San Jose State students. It was served by a T1 connection.
Alas, it barely lasted a year (80% of all new restaurants fail within their first year, and we were no exception.) but it was still cheaper than an MBA from stanford. I wouldn't do it again, but it was fun and a learning experience.
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Re: early internet cafes (Score:2)
A friend of mine added 8 bit ISA slots onto some C64s which were used for some Internet cafe kiosks around the same area, so they could have Hercules cards and do high resolution text.
Cyberia was an FMV game (Score:2)
Cyberia was an FMV game
yes i remember and i want them back. (Score:2)
Yup (Score:4, Interesting)
Allie the manageress was cute and friendly with pink dreadlocks, tank girl like
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not sure why this is modded off-topic.
Repeat customers will stay for employees with sass and, obviously, good coffee.
Prudes with mod points?
Re: Yup (Score:1)
Saying a woman is cute goes against the mantra of "cyber feminism" which will prevent women from "reclaiming" tech. ...Or so I assume.
Re: Yup (Score:2)
Not that confusing. Dr John Money invested them in the fifties for spurious reasons.
Sex is also not very confusing either.
Feminists very much are so, but that's mostly hypocrisy and ignorance.
Re: Yup (Score:2)
No idea, there's even a photo of her and a colleague in the linked article, towards the end...
Cyberia (Score:3)
Did their competitors tend to die from polonium poisoning or defenestration?
"cyber feminism" (Score:1)
What tech specifically required cyber feminism in order to reclaim for women from men?
Certainly neither computers nor the internet?
Envy (Score:1)
What tech specifically required cyber feminism in order to reclaim for women from men?
dongles [slashdot.org]
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What tech specifically required cyber feminism in order to reclaim for women from men?
Certainly neither computers nor the internet?
This is what I don't get. Sure, the internet is full of fuckwits telling others that they are worthless, should kill themselves etc. But those are equal-opportunity fuckwits, who troll men, women, kids, bots and anything in between. What the internet did give us was something approaching a meritocracy. The internet doesn't care if you are neurodiverse, gender diverse, physically disabled, a teenager... All the internet has is a screen name. If you do good work, nobody gives a shit who you are IRL. Of course
Modems were not invented in 1992. (Score:3)
"The internet was still in its infancy. Diabolically slow dial-up modems only emerged around 1992; the World Wide Web was a pipe dream until 1993 and hardly anyone had the internet at home."
Speaking of ways to tell me you did not live through this time...
I can remember 1200 baud modems for C64's (advertisements). Our first 2400 baud v42 bis modem was for my Packard Bell 286 (with turbo!). That was back in the local BBS (because long distance calls are expensive!), AOL, and Prodigy days. And Compuserve, and...
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There were definitely modems in the '80s.
No Coffee Shops in 1994 London? - BS (Score:2)
"There were no coffee shops in London," she says, which today seems ludicrous. "Just greasy spoons and everyone drank tea. I wanted a European-style cafe."
It is ludicrous - her statement is ludicrous. London has had coffee shops at least since Dr Johnson's time. I guess she means there were no Starbucks in 1994 London, but even Costa did by then, and there were other chains like Carwardines, as well as independents.
Anyway, for non-UK readers, the idea that we just drank tea all the time is a misconception. I was around in 1994 and everone I knew drank much more coffee than tea, which was and still is mainly a mid-afternoon drink.