I remember this too. First year of university in 1991, me and my friends who'd all gone to different places used to write actual letters on paper and post them

I remember this too. First year of university in 1991, me and my friends who'd all gone to different places used to write actual letters on paper and post them to each other. I was on the internet for the first time, and was excited to be able to download pictures! I could print them out and include them in the letters. If I remember correctly I needed to compile some kind of image viewer/manipulator on my account on the DEC Mips machine we CS students had access to. Anyway, as you say it was amazing watching the autoconf script feeling its way around and discovering its environment.