Your earliest memories of email/internet

[Thepigeonsarecoming]

I was at university, the internet was nothing but text and boring. But we could send an email. Although since I had to use a log in on a uni computer I’d call home to see if if was received. Anyone else?

[tinkywinkyshandbag]

I think it must have been 1989 or 1990 and I worked for BT at the time, the team I worked in was given a presentation by a boffin from the BT labs (the techie bit) and he told us about this thing called "the internet" that was going to be big. I had no idea what he was talking about and thought it was something that could have no possible interest or value for me.

[Grapewrath]

I remember being in 6th form and downloading the trailer for Armageddon ( couldn’t just watch it!)
It took about 2 hours haha but we were so excited

[Scoleah]

Sitting on aol/msn messenger for hours, changing my status to song lyrics & showing myself as offline when my crush came on, just so I could reappear as online to see if he would speak to me when he could see my name pop up.

[Toilenstripes]

I was born in 68. I remember email being the big thing in the late 90s.

[LunaNorth]

First website I ever used was Mini Boden to buy clothes for my children. This would have been in about 2000.

[LavendulaAngustifolia]

Encarta Encyclopedia. The original wiki. I spend DAYS reading that stuff.

[DingDongDenny]

1992 or thereabouts, at Stirling Uni where John Fletcher invented the first search engine and was showing us it using the World Wide Web

The page took half and hour to load and I wandered off bored after 20 mins

[SellFridges]

In our last ever IT lesson after we had finished our GSCE’s in ‘96, our teacher ran a cable from his classroom to the office and hooked up his own desktop computer (brought in especially) to the internet. Our homework was to find websites to explore so we spent most of the class looking at the Oasis website.

[Fespital]

I had an assignment to do and I knew someone at another school that had the internet. They invited me and I tried to do some research but Google hadn't been invented so it was painful looking for anything!

[BerniesMittens]

25 years ago. Dial up.the modem sound.
Different world.

My dd was born into a world of internet.

[Cherrysoup]

Very early days of email, I sent my housemate a short message. Totally wrecked his work. 😳

[CallMeCleo]

1997. I'd just got my first computer and had just about mastered how to send and receive emails.
      
      A man sent me an email with a photo of himself attached. I was utterly gobsmacked, as I had no idea you could send photos. I remember sitting there staring at it, wracking my brains trying to work out how on earth he got a printed photograph of himself into an email.

[mellicauli]

There was the pre-interenet: online business databases which I worked with quite closely in the late 80s/early 90s.

Mid 90s they set up a special room at work full of the latest kit and a young chap who talked you through the various aspects. He encouraged me to go into a chat room. I never forgot the sick, sick feeling when I realised that every person in that chat room was a man and each & every one was a perv or a creep or both.

[CaviarAndCigarettes]

The blooming cable you used to have to trawl through the house for connection from the phone line.
Tripped on it and split my chin on the door frame.
Also my brother maliciously disconnecting it whilst I was trying to send an email because I was one minute over "my time"

[insurancedrama]

Someone in the mail room connected to the internet twice a day and downloaded, printed and gave out the emails to the relevant parties!

[TedisnotH]

Was on Janet in the 80s, at work from the start, plus an intranet specific to work. Had the very earliest home computer and home modem, can still remember the tune of dial up!

But then, I did work in Computing
And can still remember my first Compuserve email address.
How things have changed!

[EBearhug]

I had done a little with census and library databases before, but my first email was in 1993, when I got a job in a university library, and we all got email addresses to be able to show students what to do. It was running pine, which I still very occasionally use direct from Unix servers, although it'll soon be no more. My boyfriend at the time worked for Compuserve, so I could talk to him during the working day! I thought it was marvellous - like letters, but without having to wait for the Royal Mail.

My next job was in another academic library, and we had reference books that were basically the yellow pages of websites. From there, I did some courses on intro to Unix and intro to programming, then an MSc conversion and a quarter of a century later, I'm still a Unix techie, involved in Internet infrastructure.

We only turned of our internal IRC server a few months ago. Definitely the end of an era.

I really love that I can instantly speak to people all over the world instantly. I work directly with people in other countries every day, and last week, I did some volunteering with an organisation running an intro to coding for girls in the Commonwealth - there I was at home in Hampshire, online with girls in Australia, Pakistan and a number of African countries. This evening, I had a video call with a friend in NZ, and a couple of days ago with a friend in Germany- from his hospital bed.

I know how all the technology works (and occasionally get called out for bits which don't work,) and its history, but it still blows my mind. We are so lucky to be able to connect to ppeople and knowledge like this.

[Maria53]

Bit of a wild story came to mind! I'm late 20s & when I was 14 there was a website called picso (?), like an amateur wordpress for teens.

Well an anonymous male pupil set up a website which he named 'the thong updater' - I shit you not. He would post what various girls were wearing in different classes. Finally I was included wearing a colour of thong I didnt even own. I've never forgotten my male friend comforting the super nerd who sat directly behind. He denied denied denied but I think it was him . Headmaster ordered the culprit to take it down, which he did.

Other than that, sent first email from school and loads of MSN I met my best male friend in an MSN group chat aged 14. We are still close today.

[Maria53]

*confronting not comforting!

[Ijustknowitstimetogo]

OMG JANET!
I remember working out how to send messages to friends in other Unis and then printing out their replies on dot matrix printers on paper with fine green lines on.

It was like witchcraft.

[TedisnotH]

Oh god MSN chat rooms!

[MedusasBadHairDay]

@LavendulaAngustifolia

Encarta Encyclopedia. The original wiki. I spend DAYS reading that stuff.

I'd forgotten that!

[DrDreReturns]

My sister did a Japanese degree and my parents invested in a PC with a dial up modem to keep in touch with her when she had her year in Japan. That must have been about 1998.
I was at uni from 1995 to 1998 and you could get online on campus but I didn't use it much. I got a dial up connection in 2000 when I moved in to my first house. Like a few pps I used Alta vista until Google became well known. We got broadband in 2006.
My Dad worked in telecoms research and I remember him talking about JANET in the late 80s. We also had a really weird modem for our BBC micro in the 80s. It was like a cradle for your phone which you plugged in to the computer, and you put the phone on it and it connected to another computer. I don't remember it being used.

[fairydustandpixies]

Oh yes, the dial up connection and having to upload a teeny tiny website and leaving it all night.

One time a tornado literally tore a path 100 metres from my house causing all sorts of devastation (UK). I was oblivious trying to upload a damn website so the phone line was busy, no mobile phones. My mum who lived some distance away saw the news, couldn't reach me on the phone (obviously) so called the police to see if I was still alive! That was embarrassing!

[GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER]

Yes, probably early 90s. Connection was to a phone
socket in the cupboard under the stairs, so a long cable trail.
It was so slow, you could almost go and have a soak in the bath while it was loading.