It's over 20 years since I first went online...

[HollowTalk]

I was just thinking how different life is now - then we still had five channels (just) and a dial up connection. We'd only just started using emails at work and mobile phones were huge and expensive to use. You got what was given as far as entertainment was concerned and you paid by cash or cheque for everything you bought.

What difference do you think another 20 or 30 years will make?

[HollowTalk]

Has anyone got one of those smart fridges which makes a shopping list as you use up your food?

[HollowTalk]

Oh no, a dead thread!!!

I thought everyone would have great ideas.

[Hen2018]

20 years ago you could pay with a card but you had to sign the receipt!

[MawkishTwaddle]

The first thing I did online was buy baby clothes on Mini Boden.

My mum used to go mad because the internet used to engage the phone line all night.

XH typed PORN in block caps for his first foray online. Right in front of me, six months gone at the time.

The row we had. Tosser.

[HollowTalk]

20 years ago you could pay with a card but you had to sign the receipt!

I'd completely forgotten that! Swipe the card, then sign?

[HollowTalk]

I know a lot of people pay with their phone now, but I'd be too scared of losing my phone and giving someone else the chance to buy things. If you do use your phone to pay, do you use a fingerprint password and have it set to 5 minutes?

[HollowTalk]

I remember chat rooms - I used to love them. The idea of people all over the world talking to each other in real time was great.

[myhamsteratefreddiestarr]

Dial up internet! I joined aol, then freeserve. Our first computer cost around £800, it would be about £300 now.

DD 11yo laughs when I talk about 5 tv channels and no internet, no film downloads, no online music, and always processing camera films. It all sounds so alien to her.

I used a visa swipe machine recently in a local garage when their computers went down . I’m surprised the banks still know how to process them!

[ThePlatypusAlwaysTriumphs]

I can't believe how far things have come since I first "went online"! My dad built me a computer and I had freeserve dial up! E- mail was a revelation! have
Now we have wifi, broadband, 5 people in the house doing different things on the internet. When my dad first got me online (1997) he gave me a little book of all the websites!! Now it would be a tome!

[doris9034]

Remember the manual swipy machines for cards with the carbon slips!!!

[myhamsteratefreddiestarr]

I used to love the chat rooms. It was the start of online dating for some! I did meet up with a lad who I met in a chat room, back in 2000. Didn’t come to anything though.

[SomethingPhishy]

We went online here October 1999. I remember having to run a cable from the telephone point to the computer. It was my first time living away from home & when we were online, the phone line was engaged - my Mum used to moan about it. We were signed up with Freeserve & it was really slow loading pictures. How things have changed!

[HollowTalk]

The thing is, I can't imagine what it's going to be like in 30 years' time. I just don't have the imagination for that. I assume we'll pay for things with our fingerprint or iris.

When I was young we were told that in the future we'd have a tablet instead of food - I can't imagine that happening ever, can you?

And there will still need to be public transport. I assume all cars will be electric and there'll be charge points all over the place.

[HelmutFrontbut]

Op I was freaked out last week by a guy using his ring to make a transaction! Next thing we'll all have chips under our skin??

[Xiaoxiong]

First thing I remember was selecting "Dial" in the Terminal to dial up (and the the god awful noise), and typing in "finger" into the terminal to see who else was online. I also remember downloading Netscape Navigator in 1994, I was 11 - it was the first browser we ever had. Even as recently as 2001 I was still using pine, they introduced webmail at my university the following year I believe.

God I feel ancient!

[noraclavicle]

I first went online in 1995...in ‘97 I went to a conference where a guy from MIT told us we’d all be buying our shoes over the internet someday. How we scoffed in the audience! I don’t think I could predict what’ll happen in another 20 years - am totally rubbish at it

[Xiaoxiong]

My parents told us we needed to build our own computer if we wanted to play computer games, it was really smart - we learned how to do it very quickly!! We built a desktop tower and first game we played was Myst I think.

[HollowTalk]

Me too, noraclavicle! I'm really crap at predicting the future! I remember talking to students about video phones, many years ago. We all agreed they wouldn't catch on

[HollowTalk]

@HelmutFrontbut I think this will happen, because anything else can be stolen. Eek, unless our fingers are chopped off!

[MadisonAvenue]

It's just over 20 years since my husband walked in the house with a computer - "what are we going to use that for" I asked. A few days later he came in with a modem which left me scratching my head and wondering why we needed the internet, it all seemed pretty pointless.

Funnily enough I was talking to online friends just a few days ago about the fact that it's 20 years this year since we 'met' on a forum about Friends (the TV show).

[chipsnmayo]

I first went online in the late 90s at my work, did not by a computer until about 2005 though too poor

Also I remember before FB there was Friends Reunited I use to access that at my work computer

[PickAChew]

I don't think fingerprint technology will become completely pervasive. Some of us don't have readable fingerprints.

[thenightsky]

Was anyone on breathe.com? I made friends on there back in the late 90s that I'm still friends with today.