4 ms·

I used to dial up to a vax in terminal mode circa 1991 with a 2400 baud modem. But sometimes it would connect at 300.... which was painful. Not to mention the

I used to dial up to a vax in terminal mode circa 1991 with a 2400 baud modem. But sometimes it would connect at 300.... which was painful. Not to mention there was only limited lines in so it could take a while to get a connection, so even if you did connect at 300, you'd often just put up with it. Was a cool time, no one really knew anything about the internet then and it felt like this awesome "secret world" that connected you to the rest of the world!

cwbriscoe 3y ago
My first modem was 300 baud on my Commodore 64 as a kid. 56k was like heaven a few years later.
mmazing 3y ago
> it felt like this awesome "secret world" that connected you to the rest of the world! I really miss that feeling, it's a rarity nowadays.
- doublepg23 3y ago
  There's still websites like Agora Road that have an old internet feel, you just have to put work in.
  - idiotsecant 3y ago
    Its somewhat telling that as much as we like to reminisce about the early internet, none of us actually use the parts of the internet that emulate that era. The internet now is better by just about every metric. Its just not the internet of our teenage years, so like geezers in perpetuity back to the beginning of time we Luke things better how they were when we were teenagers, even if reality doesn't agree with those fond memories.
    - pasquinelli 3y ago
      we're actually just too addicted to the internet of today to spend any time in the throwback internet.
WWLink 3y ago
It also felt so much different to use a computer. Like, even my computers in 1996-97-98 felt like a different sort of beast. The software was very self-contained, and even as late as 2000 you could use a computer exclusively offline and never really feel like you were missing much. Like, encyclopedias came on CDs (sometimes a pack of CDs lol. I remember having colliers in a 4-disc set). Games had great single player modes and local lan options - and didn't require an internet connection to play. There were lots of simple little toy programs and games, too. None of it required internet connections. In a way that permanence was nice. If you pull out a 90s computer and load it up with 90s games, you still get the exact same experience you did back then. I think that's part of the appeal of people collecting vintage computers - I even seen teenagers enjoying that these days lol. But yea, connecting to the internet felt a little like a ritual and the content felt like it had so much more flavor. Like, people writing silly things on a geocities/angelfire/members.aol site, joining a webring, creating pages with tacky backgrounds and flashing gif accents. It was more fun to find out what funny fantasy world AquaHorse1998 was writing about on their angelfire site, than to see boring pictures of a dog on Facebook that Jenny from Ohio posted. (And it's the same person lol)
ChumpGPT 3y ago
A few years back I was telling a guy I payed $300 for like a 250MB drive and thought I will never need another drive again, I'll never run out of room again. The guy then told me that he payed $800 for a 2400 baud modem.....
- ipaddr 3y ago
  I paid $500 for a 40m drive used and hooked it up to my c64. The space available was truly endless.
  - ChumpGPT 3y ago
    Crazy... :))
StanislavPetrov 3y ago
In the mid 80s I used to pay $6.25 an hour (plus phone fees, which ran hundreds of dollars a month for calls to a local number) to connect to Compuserve at 300 baud!
- illegalsmile 3y ago
  I remember those days but not the actual costs because I wasn't paying the bills! There were a few occasional months where I was in pretty big trouble for dialing up long distance BBSs or being on the local BBS for too long and racking up exorbitant phone bills.
JohnFen 3y ago
> But sometimes it would connect at 300 The very first modem I ever owned had a max speed of 300 baud. It was one of those Bell modems with the rubber cups you inserted the handset of the phone into. Yes, I'm old.

cwbriscoe 3y ago

My first modem was 300 baud on my Commodore 64 as a kid. 56k was like heaven a few years later.

mmazing 3y ago

> it felt like this awesome "secret world" that connected you to the rest of the world! I really miss that feeling, it's a rarity nowadays.

doublepg23 3y ago
There's still websites like Agora Road that have an old internet feel, you just have to put work in.
- idiotsecant 3y ago
  Its somewhat telling that as much as we like to reminisce about the early internet, none of us actually use the parts of the internet that emulate that era. The internet now is better by just about every metric. Its just not the internet of our teenage years, so like geezers in perpetuity back to the beginning of time we Luke things better how they were when we were teenagers, even if reality doesn't agree with those fond memories.
  - pasquinelli 3y ago
    we're actually just too addicted to the internet of today to spend any time in the throwback internet.

WWLink 3y ago

It also felt so much different to use a computer. Like, even my computers in 1996-97-98 felt like a different sort of beast. The software was very self-contained, and even as late as 2000 you could use a computer exclusively offline and never really feel like you were missing much. Like, encyclopedias came on CDs (sometimes a pack of CDs lol. I remember having colliers in a 4-disc set). Games had great single player modes and local lan options - and didn't require an internet connection to play. There were lots of simple little toy programs and games, too. None of it required internet connections. In a way that permanence was nice. If you pull out a 90s computer and load it up with 90s games, you still get the exact same experience you did back then. I think that's part of the appeal of people collecting vintage computers - I even seen teenagers enjoying that these days lol. But yea, connecting to the internet felt a little like a ritual and the content felt like it had so much more flavor. Like, people writing silly things on a geocities/angelfire/members.aol site, joining a webring, creating pages with tacky backgrounds and flashing gif accents. It was more fun to find out what funny fantasy world AquaHorse1998 was writing about on their angelfire site, than to see boring pictures of a dog on Facebook that Jenny from Ohio posted. (And it's the same person lol)

ChumpGPT 3y ago

A few years back I was telling a guy I payed $300 for like a 250MB drive and thought I will never need another drive again, I'll never run out of room again. The guy then told me that he payed $800 for a 2400 baud modem.....

ipaddr 3y ago
I paid $500 for a 40m drive used and hooked it up to my c64. The space available was truly endless.
- ChumpGPT 3y ago
  Crazy... :))

StanislavPetrov 3y ago

In the mid 80s I used to pay $6.25 an hour (plus phone fees, which ran hundreds of dollars a month for calls to a local number) to connect to Compuserve at 300 baud!

illegalsmile 3y ago
I remember those days but not the actual costs because I wasn't paying the bills! There were a few occasional months where I was in pretty big trouble for dialing up long distance BBSs or being on the local BBS for too long and racking up exorbitant phone bills.

JohnFen 3y ago

> But sometimes it would connect at 300 The very first modem I ever owned had a max speed of 300 baud. It was one of those Bell modems with the rubber cups you inserted the handset of the phone into. Yes, I'm old.