Anyone think the early 90's internet pre Y2K was kinda special?

I remember back in the days of AOL in the pre Y2K internet when someone had to know how to use a computer before they could get on the internet and when modems came separate from a computer. And when everything had to have a different IRQ number, otherwise it would brick the computer.

Interrupt request (PC architecture) - Wikipedia

Also back then it was Netscape navigator and most websites back then couldn't be accessed unless you typed in www first.

But then smartphones and ipads happened and everyone who wouldn't have figured out how to use a computer are on the internet.

I remember back in those days, it was a certain inteligence back then,because you had to be either university,military,government or knew someone in those categories to get access to the internet.

Yeah, those days were great. Type in your website, then wait 15 minutes for it to load while hoping that someone in the house doesn't pick up the phone and make you start all over. :mrgreen:

axelthefox said:

I remember back in the days of AOL in the pre Y2K internet when someone had to know how to use a computer before they could get on the internet and when modems came separate from a computer. And when everything had to have a different IRQ number, otherwise it would brick the computer.

Interrupt request (PC architecture) - Wikipedia

Also back then it was Netscape navigator and most websites back then couldn't be accessed unless you typed in www first.

But then smartphones and ipads happened and everyone who wouldn't have figured out how to use a computer are on the internet.

I remember back in those days, it was a certain inteligence back then,because you had to be either university,military,government or knew someone in those categories to get access to the internet.

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I remember when checkout lanes had baskets of free AOL discs.

Taylor said:

Yeah, those days were great. Type in your website, then wait 15 minutes for it to load while hoping that someone in the house doesn't pick up the phone and make you start all over. :mrgreen:

Click to expand...

So much fun, I remember my great aunt had internet around like 95-96, and the phone company would charge by the minute like it was a phone call because no one in the area at the time had monthly deals or even hourly deals for internet, it was just treated like using the phone. it was get what you needed then get off.

Later on they offered a monthly flat fee for internet without the isp and phone companies both charging at he same time,finally got a dedicated phone line for dialup just so we would not lose internet whenever the phone rang, then broadband came along and never looked back at dialup. Plus that was back when things like napster and others allowed free downloads, but the internet was so slow downloading one low quality movie or one music album often took half a day to a day.

Rexedgar said:

I remember when checkout lanes had baskets of free AOL discs.

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Those aol floppy disks were just free disks, I would rig them up as re writable floppies, pissed me off when they switched to free cd's, no longer got a free 1.44mb storage from aol ith every disk.

axelthefox said:

I remember back in the days of AOL in the pre Y2K internet when someone had to know how to use a computer before they could get on the internet and when modems came separate from a computer. And when everything had to have a different IRQ number, otherwise it would brick the computer.

Interrupt request (PC architecture) - Wikipedia

Also back then it was Netscape navigator and most websites back then couldn't be accessed unless you typed in www first.

But then smartphones and ipads happened and everyone who wouldn't have figured out how to use a computer are on the internet.

I remember back in those days, it was a certain inteligence back then,because you had to be either university,military,government or knew someone in those categories to get access to the internet.

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I don't know. I remember when cable internet came to my location, I was SO happy. That allowed me to work at home a couple of years later.

beerftw said:

Those aol floppy disks were just free disks, I would rig them up as re writable floppies, pissed me off when they switched to free cd's, no longer got a free 1.44mb storage from aol ith every disk.

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Eh? You didn't have to rig anything. You could simply write over them, at least on a Mac.

Maybe you had to reformat them. I can't remember. But reformatting was/is easy.

Mr Person said:

Eh? You didn't have to rig anything. You could simply write over them, at least on a Mac.

Maybe you had to reformat them. I can't remember. But reformatting was/is easy.

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Most of those were write protected, I forget what I used to do to to get them to write, it was either cutting a hole or taping a hole I forget.

The mac just may not have used the write protection feature at all, but nearly every pc did.

beerftw said:

Most of those were write protected, I forget what I used to do to to get them to write, it was either cutting a hole or taping a hole I forget.

The mac just may not have used the write protection feature at all, but nearly every pc did.

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Maybe that's it.

Or wait...there was that sliding black square on those things. I forget what it did. It was on the side opposite the sliding metal thing, in a corner. Maybe it made it write-protected so you could make sure you didn't idiotically write over something you wanted to keep?

Mr Person said:

Maybe that's it.

Or wait...there was that sliding black square on those things. I forget what it did. It was on the side opposite the sliding metal thing, in a corner. Maybe it made it write-protected so you could make sure you didn't idiotically write over something you wanted to keep?

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If you got the sliding square you must have had the early disks, the later ones removed them because people were using them as free storae, and they went from rarely sending them out to sending them out in mass, like I remember getting one every few months but by the end hey were sending out like 2-3 a week to every house before going to cd's.

The cd could not be re written and were only good for coasters, and redneck frisbees and skeet.