What's your first memory of the internet?

[MyCheeryPearlTraybake]

Late 90s looking up wrestling results

In college. Only 1 computer was hooked up and you had to book several days in advance to use it. It was right next to the librarians desk and she had to regularly input a password to allow you to switch websites. We were very limited to what we could access and it was strictly limited to course related content. And it was preferred that you used it in groups up 2-4 especially of you were studying the same thing. And it was sloooooooow! 🐌

1992, getting an email account, which you could only access in the university "computer room" - a dozen terminals hooked up to a VAX server somewhere in a dingy basement. The joy of emailing my distant friends!

University on the late 80s, only available in the law library

For research whilst doing my masters. I remember thinking this is brilliant for spreading knowledge!

I remember asking a colleague at work about it, early 90s. I was trying to conceptualise what it was and I just couldn't seem to get exactly what it did.

At work there was one computer that was set up for the internet in the large open plan office based in a laboratory so I didn't use it much, it was only used for research anyway. At home we had dial up and I think it was 1p for 1 minute and I didn't use that much either and it cut the phone off when you used it. I think the speed was 256Mb, My first home email address was a Tesco.com one and we had Tesco internet.

This was the mid 90s

Year 8 in computer class. In a chat room chatting up another boy from my class, who thinks I'm a stranger from somewhere else. I've never dared to have a conversation with him in real life. Sneaking looks over at his screen.

In the late 80s I was on a UK dial-up system called CIX that installed a link to the internet for email, Usenet and FTP. This was prior to the web being developed.

I remember a special report with Trevor McDonald on News at 10 about 'The Information Superhighway' aka the 'World Wide Web' and how it was going to change all our lives. Must have been the early to mid 90s.

It running through the phone line, so when someone was on it you couldn't phone your friends.
Getting an email address and not really having anyone to email.

QXL at my first job after uni , that and minesweeper on windows wasted hours of my time

Early 90s. Messing about with IRC, and challenging a group of online friends in the same chat room as to which servers we could get into.

Only realised mid-90s that we probably shouldn’t have been doing it when people started being arrested for “hacking” (which wasn’t an actual offence in the early days when it really was just people testing boundaries).

I’m not sure if it was this exact article, but the news item about this boy are my first internet memories.

Judging by some other memories here I was a very late starter!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/621523.stm

I was probably 19/20 and remember a work colleague telling me about yahoo chat rooms. I signed up that evening.

I distinctly remember one night sitting at the computer “Asking Jeeves” loads of random stuff while my mum shouted up the stairs to hurry up because she wanted the phone line to call someone.

A customer asked me what our world wide web address was and I had no idea what they were talking about. I rang HR and I thought they were messing about telling me www etc. I repeated it back to the customer all the while wondering if someone was having me on somewhere, but she understood perfectly and went away leaving me completely baffled.

Summer of 1998 was the first time I went on the internet. I wrote about it in my diary and found it a couple of years ago.

I didn’t really know what to do or what to look up!

I didn’t actually have internet in my home until 2007 though.

Chat rooms

Early 2000s, posting on a music-related messageboard (Kerrang?). Getting an AOL email address and using their chatrooms. I remember finding an academic's email address online, and when I emailed to tell her I liked one of her books about feminism, she replied! I was about 13 and amazed.

1990 at University, terminals hooked up to a Prime housed in the basement of the building the faculty of computing was in. No such thing as websites back then, all text based.

1995 or so looking at the Robinson’s Catalogue website. Was very exciting!

1986 or 1987 internet chat rooms
but that was a comp sci dept and the chat was about making Ethernet work

A lecturer told us about it at uni and he told us that in the future people would do their shopping through it. I remember saying " that will NEVER take off".

1995 went to Uni, got an email address . first time I'd seen the @ symbol , we all emailed each other. Looking up Pulp and a few other bands. The websites weren't very good and very slow. Can't remember when we got it at home but after I left uni I remember us emailing to keep in touch before texts came in in 1999/2000

I remember having a very puerile discussion in the mid 90s with a friend (we were both in our early/mid teens) and he had an idea that pictures of naked women ought to be shown upside down as it was so slow to download and went from the top of the screen to the bottom 🙈😂

I first was able to email someone in 1992 on the Pegasus system as a post grad. I still remember who I emailed too. Actual internet, same year at work using one of the few pcs with access