Life B4 the internet

Who here can recall a time before the IntraWbZ was around.

Curious...

campgottagopee wrote

Who here can recall a time before the IntraWbZ was around.

Curious...

Duh. It wasn’t that bad. I read books, newspapers, maps... I just went skiing  without knowing what the weather would be... called people on the phone

campgottagopee wrote

Who here can recall a time before the IntraWbZ was around.

Curious...

I can for sure.  I grew up on computers.  My first was the Commodore64  There was a modem, but at that time (circa 1982) "online" meant something completely different.  

It was a back when "mail-order" shopping seemed exotic in some way.  Now, some things show up in the mail, and my wife can't even remember ordering them... it's really hurt our world if you look at it from a consumption perspective.  With the advent of the Interwebz, things are much more connected, and often appear to be much more efficient, but efficiency can be a double edged sword.

I actually met my wife on the web.  She's one of the best things that ever happened to me.

nepa wrote

It was a back when "mail-order" shopping seemed exotic in some way.  

Oh man. You just reminded me of what it used to be to order gear from STP or campmor. The paper catalog came in the mail. I wrote out all the item #s for what I wanted on a legal pad and called the 800 # to place the order. I actually spoke to an operator on the other end of the line.

Brownski wrote

You just reminded me of what it used to be to order gear from STP or campmor.

Yup.  I loved the campmor catalog... it really seems strange the amount of paper catalogs that still show up in my mailbox... I thought those environmentally wasteful relics would be extinct by now.

I can remember when seat belts in cars were optional and everybody knew that the Beatles were these black bugs that ate your plants. Only your rich friends had telephones with buttons and color TVs and a gallon of regular was less than $0.25. So yes - I am pre Interwebz.

PeeTex wrote

I can remember when seat belts in cars were optional...

For sure... I nearly fell out of the front seat (it was a bench) of my mom's 75 Plymouth Fury wagon.  Mom was making a left into traffic, and the passenger door flew open.  She had run into the store to buy a carton of cigs (at the time a carton of smokes was $10), and I was mucking with the door... it did not latch properly.  This was back in the late 70's... I could sit in the front seat, and not wear a seat belt at age 6, and no one really cared too much about it.  Today, it seems like kids are required to be in car seats until they are teenagers.

The internet wasn't really mainstream until I was in my 20s, so that's at least 18 years ago.  So if you are older than 21 or so, you probably remember a time with no, or very little internet.

We had zero internet until my senior year of HS at our hick school.  And even then it sucked.  It was slow and there was nothing really of any interest on it yet.

Most of my HS years were not spent on a computer, I didn't even like them back then, I thought they were tedious.  We used to wrestle, play sports, vandalize shit, do drugs, ogle girls, whatever... stuff that was fun, but not necessarily healthy.



Punx.  No internet.

Cunningstunts wrote

The internet wasn't really mainstream until I was in my 20s, so that's at least 18 years ago.  So if you are older than 21 or so, you probably remember a time with no, or very little internet.

The Internet was getting pretty mainstream by 1995. I bought a brand new ‘96 Exploder from a dealer 100 miles away over the Internet in the early fall of ‘95.

PeeTex wrote

Cunningstunts wrote

The internet wasn't really mainstream until I was in my 20s, so that's at least 18 years ago.  So if you are older than 21 or so, you probably remember a time with no, or very little internet.

The Internet was getting pretty mainstream by 1995. I bought a brand new ‘96 Exploder from a dealer 100 miles away over the Internet in the early fall of ‘95.

Maybe in your high tech world, not in my below-the-poverty line reality in rural NY.

Life before the Internet or life before computers in the home? I remember both.

As Brownski mentioned, used to read more newspapers, read more books, listen to the radio and watch the news. There was media but different.

I like to think that I was a pretty early adopter of email and the interwebs on my Mac Classic and then CII. It was slowwwwwww.

In 1990 (?) through a business deal with the NYTimes I got a free subscription to the paper. It was like $300 a year.  I had it for several years until some rocket scientist in account decided save money (?) by cancelling it. WTF it was free!

Now I read my 4 free articles each month by about the 2nd and then wait until next month.

I think I got on AOL in 1996?

Anyone have a Juno email account?  

Harvey wrote

I think I got on AOL in 1996?

That’s around the time I briefly got AOL, then switched to AT&T WorldNet.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gsNaR6FRuO0

The logical follow on question would be who remembers life b4 smartphones?

JTG4eva! wrote

The logical follow on question would be who remembers life b4 smartphones?

That was like two years ago for me.  I resisted for so long.

I think I actually might be a Luddite.


Oh... and the only reason I got one was my wife got a new one and gave me her old one.

Only got an iPhone about two years ago.  Have a scientist husband who didn't want one, and only ended up with an iPhone because he got a free one when we bought one for my daughter.  One of the pluses for North Country School is that the kids do not use any personal electronics.  They have school computers for academics, but that's it.

Started working with computers in the 1970s.  Remember user groups on 300 baud terminals.  First Mac bought around 1984.  But only recently got fiber optic at my house.  Having slow DSL has kept my online use more text-based than photos or video.

Still prefer reading a book over a tablet.

I can't remember the last time I used a phone book

What a riot

Used to wait for the NYT entertainment section to see what concerts were coming to NYC. Then either go to the city to buy tickets or Tickettron which was in a back corner of Macys..

buy airline tkts at a travel agent, now that is something I don't miss. That had a super secret phone number for the airlines so they could get the prices and flight time..

Smart phones are wonderful in a lot of ways and terrible in a a few. Information and connectivity virtually anywhere anytime is great. As portal for socialization or a diversion from personal interaction they are terrible. But with all things - you take the good with the bad.

JasonWx wrote

Used to wait for the NYT entertainment section to see what concerts were coming to NYC.

When we first built the cabin, internet certainly was a thing but we didn't have electricity, phone or internet. I'd buy the NYT, read the A Section and Business, use Entertainment to start a fire in the woodstove.