"Last generation who knew life before the internet"

[Nextphonewontbesamsung]

I heard this phrase on R2 or R4 recently (sorry I can't remember the specifics). It was a discussion programme, possibly about something on at the Edinburgh Fringe, and the general consensus was that it was quite unique to be a person who has lived through as an adult straddling that boundary between no internet/then internet.

I am in this generation and I DO actually feel in a bit of a no-mans land. Anyone else? and how old are you roughly? when did the internet become a thing in your life?

I was at work in 1994/5 when I first heard the word "internet". The Chief Exec was having some extra wiring done into his office but he was the only one in our company of about 50 people. I was over 30 so had lived many adult years without it and it was many more years before it become a thing that I just had access to.

I'm struggling to think of a more life-changing invention. Maybe fire? or the wheel?

Oh, and I first had a laptop in the late 90s, when I needed one to do overnight IT support You connected using a dial-up modem - unreliable in my case, so I used to have to go to the office anyway. My heart still sinks if I ever hear that familiar dial-up sound!

I started at the Univ. of Glasgow in the late 70's. You were given a reading list of books you needed for an essay to be found at the Reading
Room. Of course by the time I got there they were all gone.Madness. It must be a lot easier now.
I remember the excitement as teacher when we first got to use interactive whiteboards in class in the early 2000s.

derxa : I started at the Univ. of Glasgow in the late 70's. You were given a reading list of books you needed for an essay to be found at the Reading Room. Of course by the time I got there they were all gone.

Me too!

ICould What did you study or would that be 'outing'? I did MA French/History/Linguistics.

My brother (b. 1960) was the first of us to use the internet habitually, late 80s? I heard more about JANET a few years later from a guy on an evening class we were doing - he worked in a university IT dept.

I went to Uni in my 30s (mid 90s) where we used Mosaic and Fetch. I had by then become more familiar with the internet and what it could do so found it a lot less confusing than most.

I had owned a little Mac Classic for some years by then but there was no bb, you could use JANET if you had a Uni login, but otherwise paid vastly to compuserve....

Even in '94, when at Uni with a valid login, I couldn't get my classic online as the Uni didn't support Apple so apparently couldn't help me. As an ex-programmer I even begged them for the code they had so I could have brother help me translate it. Unsurprisingly, no dice.

We got dial-up internet just as I was coming into year 11, I think - maybe even sixth form. I’m so, so glad to not have had social media when I was at school. I was picked on quite badly and if they’d been able to get to me at home too, I don’t know what I’d have done.

There are a lot of kids right now who don’t have access to the internet either at home or at school. So no there won’t be a ‘last generation’ until we get broadband infrastructure to every part of this country

I remember

Typing on a regular typewriter
Using copy paper? to make a copy of a letter or report (was blue and inky)
Tippex for any errors made
Operating a Telex Machine
Phones that were only indoors so if a call was missed it was missed (as no answerphones either then and mobiles were far ahead)

I think around 97 I got my first desktop computer and accessed the Internet then , via a disc that places like PC World gave out Line One was the first ISP I used . Then AOL became big .

Generation X , just about . I am 54.

My first email addresses were christian name. + first letter of surname and same with maiden name @virgin.net

My study was really tidy as I would tidy while I waited for the page to load. Or go and make a cup of tea. Most web pages consisted of what the business did and a phone number.

In north norfolk last week I saw two old fashioned phone boxes, both working and accepted coins - and with signs to tell you how to "reverse the charges"

I used to check passengers in for flights with a board full of cardboard slips, configured to the aircraft layout. You checked in by me taking the flight coupon out of your ticket & handing you a card with your seat number on it. Ie it just said 36c etc

First word processor package I used was Wang.