12 ms·

Likewise, so many amazing memories lost. I wish I could look back to how naive and childish I was at the beginning of my time online.

by vecinu 6y ago

Alex3917 6y ago
> I wish I could look back to how naive and childish I was at the beginning of my time online. This is the video that comes to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoUrLbHg5z4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoUrLbHg5z4
ghaff 6y ago
To give a little perspective, I basically don't have any pre-Yahoo/Google email history. So maybe going back 20 years or so and not much in the way of digital archives before about 10 years before that. Essentially nothing from BBS days, email on various proprietary systems, etc. Some shards here and there from the 1980s and a few things that were digitized prior. I'm not sure if it's good or bad (probably a bit of both) that much of my early time online is largely gone--and I didn't have a significant time "online" before I was about 20 or so.
- kelnos 6y ago
  I have email from when I got my college email address in the late 90s, but I still can't find email from earlier, when I had a couple different addresses that I'd gotten from my local dial-up ISP. I was always -- even then, when hard drive space was expensive -- pretty good about keeping old data as I moved from machine to machine, so it really bums me out that I can't find that old stuff.
- bigiain 6y ago
  I have a collection of Eudora backups still kicking around (an old Mac OS9 and earlier vintage mail client). I don't have a _good_ way to read them any more (but at least I can grep them when I want to hunt an old email down... I've done that maybe twice in the last decade...)
  - ghaff 6y ago
    For the 2000s, I do have an Outlook .pst somewhere I could probably find for work email. But I've probably pretty much exported any docs I care about from that era and likely wouldn't go to the trouble of digging anything else out.
  - e_y_ 6y ago
    I think I dumped a backup of my Juno emails (90s offline dial-up email for kids with parents too cheap to shell out for internet) but it's probably on some obsolete media like a Zip drive somewhere. Probably for the best.
Aeolun 6y ago
Yeah, at the time I archived a bunch of MSN messenger chats, and looking back at those now is fantastic. Unfortunately it’s the only thing I have left. There must be a DVD somewhere with my my documents folder from 2004, but it’s lost to time.
xtracto 6y ago
A short time ago I finally found my Geocities webpage (from 1999) in the archive just by chance [It is in Spanish]: https://web.archive.org/web/20010718195237/http://www.geocities.com/sunsetstrip/backstage/4681/frame1.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20010718195237/http://www.geocit... It was a blast from the past for me, amazing times for the internet.

Likewise, so many amazing memories lost. I wish I could look back to how naive and childish I was at the beginning of my time online.

by vecinu 6y ago

Likewise, so many amazing memories lost. I wish I could look back to how naive and childish I was at the beginning of my time online.

Alex3917 6y ago

> I wish I could look back to how naive and childish I was at the beginning of my time online. This is the video that comes to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoUrLbHg5z4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoUrLbHg5z4

ghaff 6y ago

To give a little perspective, I basically don't have any pre-Yahoo/Google email history. So maybe going back 20 years or so and not much in the way of digital archives before about 10 years before that. Essentially nothing from BBS days, email on various proprietary systems, etc. Some shards here and there from the 1980s and a few things that were digitized prior. I'm not sure if it's good or bad (probably a bit of both) that much of my early time online is largely gone--and I didn't have a significant time "online" before I was about 20 or so.

kelnos 6y ago
I have email from when I got my college email address in the late 90s, but I still can't find email from earlier, when I had a couple different addresses that I'd gotten from my local dial-up ISP. I was always -- even then, when hard drive space was expensive -- pretty good about keeping old data as I moved from machine to machine, so it really bums me out that I can't find that old stuff.
bigiain 6y ago
I have a collection of Eudora backups still kicking around (an old Mac OS9 and earlier vintage mail client). I don't have a _good_ way to read them any more (but at least I can grep them when I want to hunt an old email down... I've done that maybe twice in the last decade...)
- ghaff 6y ago
  For the 2000s, I do have an Outlook .pst somewhere I could probably find for work email. But I've probably pretty much exported any docs I care about from that era and likely wouldn't go to the trouble of digging anything else out.
- e_y_ 6y ago
  I think I dumped a backup of my Juno emails (90s offline dial-up email for kids with parents too cheap to shell out for internet) but it's probably on some obsolete media like a Zip drive somewhere. Probably for the best.

Aeolun 6y ago

Yeah, at the time I archived a bunch of MSN messenger chats, and looking back at those now is fantastic. Unfortunately it’s the only thing I have left. There must be a DVD somewhere with my my documents folder from 2004, but it’s lost to time.

xtracto 6y ago

A short time ago I finally found my Geocities webpage (from 1999) in the archive just by chance [It is in Spanish]: https://web.archive.org/web/20010718195237/http://www.geocities.com/sunsetstrip/backstage/4681/frame1.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20010718195237/http://www.geocit... It was a blast from the past for me, amazing times for the internet.