How did you discover the internet?

[Memnoch]

Seems like the internet's been around forever, and it's become such an indispensible part of people's lives now - forums, communities, following sports, catching up on news, doing research - it's almost like we can't live without it now. But there was a time when it wasn't in our lives, right?

What I want to know is:

- when did you first discover the internet and start regularly using it
- how did you discover it
- why did you decide to check it out

My case, I think I discovered it around 1998 or 1999, my sis bought a laptop that had a dialup modem (my previous PC was a 486 and I never bothered to connect my modem). I started just surfing around Yahoo!, took about 3 months before I worked out what Google was. Then I slowly started to learn more about it, it was a pain because things were so slow, but when I discovered Google my knowledge increased substantially. Now I'm pretty much joined at the hip with the internet.

What about you guys? When, how and why?

[Bozos of Bones]

I think it was around 1995-6, when I was at a friend's house and he needed to know a cheat for a game. He just went online, and he had the cheats listed in a notepad file within a few minutes(22k was warp 10 at the time). I got my first net capable PC in 97 and I just got hooked. I had to know who, what, where and why about the internet itself. Next, I focused on the 'how'. And the rest is history.

[Nightwing]

I invented it with my friend Al Gore. J.K. I used to go on bulliten boards on my Apple IIE and kept thinking there was something more. I went to the library and saw all these people using computers and signing up for time. They were all using the internet so I jumpped in.

[aleph_null1]

I dailed into the local BBS's with my 286 we got back in '90. I hopped onto the Internet in '93 when the university started offering free dial-up for faculty (my mom was a professor at the time), and spent most of my time looking for Doom editing tips and downloading custom *.wad's

That was a good game...

[dplax]

It was in 96-97 I think that my brother showed me hotmail, and I have been on the internet since. In the beginning I only used hotmail, then discovered flash games on the net, then google then after I got Wiz8, I got stuck searched on google, came up with IW and the rest is history...

[Grojlach]

In high school, I bluffed my way through a 40 page essay on the Internet without even spending a single minute on it in my entire life up to that point, getting my info from newspapers and magazines. True story.

I didn't really "discover" the Internet until a few years later, when I went to University. It took me about 15 minutes to learn of the existence of mp3s, IIRC. [img]graemlins/heee.gif[/img]

[ 09-16-2004, 02:15 PM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]

[pritchke]

1995 in University at least that is pretty much similar to how it is today. I started using the internet before that in 93 but it was a bit different and I think I would just as soon forget.

[ 09-16-2004, 02:22 PM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

[Jaradu]

Hmm... '99 I think. I was playing some online games on our school computers at lunchtime. I literally knew nothing about computers back then. But, when my family bought a computer with a dial-up modem a few months later, my skills eventually improved... 5 years later and I'm an uber-l33t h4xx0r! P|-|34r my 1.1MB sk1llz!!

Jokin', I hate all that stuff - I only say it for a joke to poke fun at those hackers who thing they own the internet [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[ 09-16-2004, 03:30 PM: Message edited by: Jaradu ]

[Xen]

Hmm I really can't remember. But AFAIK it was on my Pentium 266 system. I got 56k modem back there and had it about 5 years. Then I switched to Cable modem. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[johnny]

Well, there was that funny icon to click on when i got my first PC. Seriously, i can't even remember when exactly that was, but i do remember that i was on dial up, and that i only went online for about 5 minutes a day, to check out the latest news in the NBA and MLB. And besides checking out my e-mail, that was all i did on the internet. Then i discovered messageboards and all hell broke loose.