[Technology] Happy birthday Internet, 50 years old today

[Gwylan]

Has there ever been a technological advance that's had such a low-key beginning? A technology that has completely transformed the way to work and live began on 29 October 1969 with a simple two-letter message "lo" - it was meant to be "login" but there was a computer crash.

NSC owes its life to this humble start.

 

[Badger]

Has there ever been a technological advance that's had such a low-key beginning? A technology that has completely transformed the way to work and live began on 29 October 1969 with a simple two-letter message "lo" - it was meant to be "login" but there was a computer crash.

NSC owes its life to this humble start.

Did BG post it?

 

[Easy 10]

Back in the 90's I remember hearing about this "Information Superhighway" that was coming, and how it was going to change the world completely. "yeah yeah" I thought, and dismissed it.

Got that a bit wrong.

 

[Raleigh Chopper]

Always been split right down the middle 50/50.
Both brilliant and extremely dangerous and unpoliced in equal measures.
Take social media away from kids of school age and the huge problems that parents and teachers face on a day to day basis would reduce by 75% overnight.

 

[Justice]

I remember first logging on on a dial up connection about 25 years ago. My overall thought at the time was this is proper shit.

 

[AmexRuislip]

Always been split right down the middle 50/50.
Both brilliant and extremely dangerous and unpoliced in equal measures.
Take social media away from kids of school age and the huge problems that parents and teachers face on a day to day basis would reduce by 75% overnight.

It's a good job the boffins switched right, instead of left, as who knows what might've happened.

 

[Easy 10]

Ahh, AOL dial-up. Tying up the landline all night, and waiting half an hour for a picture of Jo Guest to download.

 

[Stat Brother]

 

[A1X]

Which also means it's 49 years, 364 days since the first cat picture was posted.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Anyone remember all those AOL CDs that swamped the market? They made excellent drinks coasters. They still do.

Anyone of the same age remember TINY computers? Really really cheap by the standards of the day. Used to have a shop in North Street. Geeks used to say it was called TINY due to complete lack of customer support and was acronym for Take It Now Yours. Bought one, obviously.

 

[Badger]

Ahh, AOL dial-up. Tying up the landline all night, and waiting half an hour for a picture of Jo Guest to download.

Ah, those were the days. Halfway through loading a jpeg of Sarah Michelle Gellar and my mum would pick up the phone downstairs. "Muuuuum, I'm on the internet, put the phone down!"

 

[Sussex Nomad]

30 years this year since I first stumbled across this strange conception, actually it was downloading information via a phone connection, but nevertheless it had me extremely interested. Shame I didn't have the brain and foresight to be a Google or Amazon, or buy up domain names early doors.

 

[Gwylan]

Yeah, it was about 30 years ago that I first used it - pre-WWW days.

Anyone remember Archie, Veronica and Gopher?

 

[Gwylan]

What's truly incredible about the Internet was that, from the late 60s to the late 90s. all the domain addresses were held by one man. It wasn't until 1997 (I think) that Jon Postel relinquished control of the addressing system: he gave it up just in time - he died in 1998 at a young age

I thought those days were behind us but, last week, I found out that Ofcom's number allocation system for the UK was administered by a Yahoo group - the mind boggles at that one

 

[BBassic]

Anyone remember all those AOL CDs that swamped the market? They made excellent drinks coasters. They still do.

Anyone of the same age remember TINY computers? Really really cheap by the standards of the day. Used to have a shop in North Street. Geeks used to say it was called TINY due to complete lack of customer support and was acronym for Take It Now Yours. Bought one, obviously.

Yep!

My mate Marc was the first one of our friend group to get a TINY computer and six of us would pile around his house before and after school playing demos of games. Carmageddon was a popular choice.

Side note, he was also the first to get a Nintendo 64 and we'd take turns playing four player multiplayer GoldenEye on a crappy 14inch TV. Unthinkable now, a quarter of a 14inch screen to call your own.

 

[Brovion]

Yeah, it was about 30 years ago that I first used it - pre-WWW days.

Anyone remember Archie, Veronica and Gopher?

I remember Gopher (and Kermit), but not the other two. Yeah, my experience goes back to pre www days as well, back when comms programming was a real skill. (Remember using X.25?) I also remember the first time I downloaded a piece of software from a bulletin board rather than waiting for a floppy disk to arrive in the post. Wow!

And the first modem I used had a thing called an acoustic coupler, where you actually put the phone on the modem and the telephone receiver transmitted (and received) the handshaking and data as sound. I think it ran at 300 Baud! (Mind you I also remember using 80 column punch cards).

Blimey I'm old.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Strange but true...

 

[bobbab5]

Anyone remember all those AOL CDs that swamped the market? They made excellent drinks coasters. They still do.

Anyone of the same age remember TINY computers? Really really cheap by the standards of the day. Used to have a shop in North Street. Geeks used to say it was called TINY due to complete lack of customer support and was acronym for Take It Now Yours. Bought one, obviously.

I still have the remains of my Tiny pc. Case, motherboard and processor.

 

[GREASED WEASEL]

The French minitel system was good

Seemed so advanced at the time

 

[nickbrighton]

Anyone remember all those AOL CDs that swamped the market? They made excellent drinks coasters. They still do.

Anyone of the same age remember TINY computers? Really really cheap by the standards of the day. Used to have a shop in North Street. Geeks used to say it was called TINY due to complete lack of customer support and was acronym for Take It Now Yours. Bought one, obviously.

My very first PC came from there. I unpacked it, put it together, turned it on, only to be confronted with what became known as The BSD (Blue Screen of Death). I rang customer support who talked me through dismantling the tower, taking out the memory chips and putting them back in again. Given that I have trouble opening the box the compter came in, I did tell the guy that asking me to do that was probably not a good idea, and IF (when) I broke it for ever would my warranty still cover it?. He said "as long as I've told you to do it, if you throw it out a top floor window you will be covered."Anyway I performed surgery on it, put it back together and much to my (and my husbands) complete amazement it worked fine. Kept it for years. Great machine. Probably more computing power in one of those musical Birthday cards that were all the rage a few years later!