Thursday, July 29, 2004
Ten years online.
I just realised that this month marks my 10 year anniversary as an internet addict. I think that makes me a relatively early adopter. I remember for sure that in the run up to purchasing my first modem (which could handle a dazzling 9600 bits per second, i.e. 60,000 times slower than my present connection), I had a hand written list of sites I wanted to visit. The only available browser was Mosaic, which was less than a year old, and Netscape was just a twinkle in Jim Clarke's eye. I booted it up on my father's PowerMac, and the first website I checked out was oddly enough the Klingon Language Institute. It looks pretty much the same today as in '94. Back then you had to have a whole host of programs for getting the best of the internet. Mosaic couldn't handle FTP, nor access the Usenet. In fact most webpages were very static, so the majority of the online dialogue took place over Usenet. There were so few people hooked up worldwide that the whole grunge scene was discussed in a single alt.music newsgroup. People who don't "get" the antipathy toward Internet Explorer, probably never experienced the web via Mosaic and then Netscape. I certainly felt a strong loyalty toward Marc Andreasson and Jim Clarke. I was incredulous that the tools that they had provided were free, and that they directly enabled the information revolution. There's a great recap of the chronology of the birth of the web here, and I would love to hear other people's stories about battling with the early internet via the comments.
I just realised that this month marks my 10 year anniversary as an internet addict. I think that makes me a relatively early adopter. I remember for sure that in the run up to purchasing my first modem (which could handle a dazzling 9600 bits per second, i.e. 60,000 times slower than my present connection), I had a hand written list of sites I wanted to visit. The only available browser was Mosaic, which was less than a year old, and Netscape was just a twinkle in Jim Clarke's eye. I booted it up on my father's PowerMac, and the first website I checked out was oddly enough the Klingon Language Institute. It looks pretty much the same today as in '94. Back then you had to have a whole host of programs for getting the best of the internet. Mosaic couldn't handle FTP, nor access the Usenet. In fact most webpages were very static, so the majority of the online dialogue took place over Usenet. There were so few people hooked up worldwide that the whole grunge scene was discussed in a single alt.music newsgroup. People who don't "get" the antipathy toward Internet Explorer, probably never experienced the web via Mosaic and then Netscape. I certainly felt a strong loyalty toward Marc Andreasson and Jim Clarke. I was incredulous that the tools that they had provided were free, and that they directly enabled the information revolution. There's a great recap of the chronology of the birth of the web here, and I would love to hear other people's stories about battling with the early internet via the comments.
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