What were the early days of the Internet like?

What were the early days of the Internet like?

Surely it is better then now...

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=hWq4DWfrpu8
freearcade.com/
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

...

Messangers still basically exist, though. I'm on Discord right now.

I remember the early 90s. Retards couldn't figure out how to join. And pretty much no women. When one showed up there was usually no attention whoring or she was taunted out of there. It was a utopia.

people online were way more stupid back then

i was an oper on dalnet back in the day. file sharing was weird back then. you'd join a channel, and type a command like "!search lesbian porn", and all the file sharer's bots would message you with the matches, and you'd tell the bot which one you wanted, and it'd do a DCC direct file transfer to your irc client.
we didn't give a fuck about those channels in the early days, but there were similar channels for trading cp. at one stage we were shutting down 20 cp channels a day, many of which would have hundreds of users with unmasked IPs and not enough intelligence to use a shell to hide their ips.

In its beginnings it was for business and emails.
In the 90's it was mostly underage. A place for nerds and weeaboos discussing anime and videogame cheats.
When messaging became popular more girls started appearing and everyone tried to look cool and deept with poems as status or weird symbols in their usernames.

I miss the old Internet so damn much.
>no real names
>no pictures
>no email verification
>no phone number verification

I hope that style makes a comeback but it's more likely we will be forced to use fingerprints and retinal scans to post online in the future.

asl? cyber?

I don't know if it's just me, but I remember back then it was easier to make friends online. People online in general seemed friendlier too

It was cooler in some ways... IRC, MUDs, Usenet. But now there is so much stuff on the Internet to explore, and such a wide reach of communication to all kinds of online subcultures, that it's really hard to get bored.

Pic related is the HMI for the control system for a dairy farm in Nebraska.

Total freedom, and only intelligent people from good and interesting countries used it.

Totally ruined by, first ecommerce which brought normies, then social media, and they smartphones followed by brown and black people.

simpler times

Shitposting was great back then.

I caused a lot of butthurt with the Brits when Princess Diana croaked, ah, what times they were.

Video sharing sites didn't really exist. Video files were much too large to even try, though a few people on the fringe were doing it and were spreading memes, using direct file transfers of very low quality videos. Message boards were fairly plain and all had rules against images because it caused long loading times. If you searched for "Super Mario" you would only find results for a basketball player. "Mario" gave you results for Mexicans.

The internet wasn't great. GameFAQs existed but no one knew about it. There was no anime or manga, or anything Japanese. It was barren. There was nothing to do on the internet. You didn't miss anything.

Between the and now sites like Geocities began popping up, and Japan found out about the internet. People began creating their own fansites and linking to them whenever they could, using whatever garbled HTML they could learn to make their limited sites look like garbage. There was still no video streaming, but animated gifs became popular, though were low quality but not a pain to load unless there were a lot of them. People began to notice GameFAQs and kept spreading rumors that you could revive Aeris if you had the Japanese copy of FF7. People still didn't really know what Anime was, except for the diehard hipsters of the time.

Instant Messengers became huge, and Yahoo Messenger was the clear dominant winner between AIM and MSN Messenger. But a lot of fags had AIM because it came with their internet subscription of AOL. Ragnarok Online came out which ushered in a new age of anime loving freaks which were all trying to communicate online (and share their shitty Geocities). MSN Messenger would continually revise their look and genuinely came up with some good features that still don't get used anymore, but it never beat out Yahoo's popularity. AIM remained to be used until AOL effectively died out (and thank god it did).

I meet my wife of 14 years on AOL IM.

Mostly men. Kinda fun like that.

the internet was far, far friendlier even at its worst like alamak

it was much better pre facebook

The Web ruined everything good about the Internet.

Social media really ruined the internet but Facebook and smartphones,mobile phones, etc. Were the final nail in the coffin for it. The way it's just become a hugbox for anything political related really has me saddened.

Who was defender69?
Was he dare I say, our guy?

>People still didn't really know what Anime was, except for the diehard hipsters of the time.
what really?damn, was i that cool? a hipster before they existed?!

Don't listen to that fag we even had anime on tv for kids and VHS stores stocked full-on hentai.

99% men, niggers and women didnt understand it or use it and it was glorious. No old people either.

>wrestling/entertainment gossip
>gore
>guitar tabs
>music lyrics
>doom/quake/TA mods

NO MODERATION ANYWHERE.

I swear internet moderation didnt even exist really until 2k5 or so but back then site admins werent pussies or hired fags

This brings back memories.

right. i grew up in bumfuck nowhere ohio and all my friends watched manga

This, and anime "roleplay" chats were already pretty popular with kids as early as 98 but 90% of that was just kids chatting and liking anime and some RP "fighting" and cybersex.

I can only vaguely remember as far back as 98, or so.

It was fun, albeit the speed was annoying-as-fuck. It was more like exploring back then; you had everyone making custom sites with Geocities and Angelfire and every site seemed to have its own flavor.

Chatrooms were a fucking blast. WAY better than Facebook/MySpace shit -- well, to me, anyway.

I remember being really into The Sims in 2000 and did a lot of time online around that -- downloading houses/packs, etc.

i remember ICQ: home of the spambot

Man I miss MSN messenger and the MSN chat rooms.

Fucking Microsoft, I HATE SKYPE ONLY THE EASTERN EUROTRASH USE THAT SHIT!

Newfags. You didn't have Windows in the old days, you had a command prompt. Internet was way better before the flood of retards, when you had to actually know how to use a computer.

Tfw used to spend all day playing Yahoo Pool and chatting with random people

I never really used MSN Chat but I used Yahoo Chat religiously.

I miss it during its heydays.

In a word: SLOW. Thumbnails existed for a reason. When our library site went online in 1994, we had to keep scaling the pictures smaller and smaller so they'd be suitable for loading on a low-grade dial-up connection.

Chinese input was a nightmare on 80s-era machines.

It's easy nowadays to put rose-coloured glasses when looking back at the old internet, but it was really crappy back then.

At the time, you didn't have any cataloguing services like Google. The first ones to come about were Dogpile and Alltheweb, but that wasn't until the mid-90s. If you wanted access to a site before then, you had to have the URL beforehand.

Basically it was used for research and database access. I was working at as a librarian in the late 80s, when you actually had to pay by the MINUTE for Web database access.

I know the Web has been commercialised to hell, but it's a lot better than it was in the early to mid 90s. The golden age was 2003-2009, when high-speed existed but it was still relatively free of (((their))) influence.

The good ol' days of stickdeath, DeadAIM, and trying to download the hey arnold movie on ares only to get the daniel pearl beheading video instead.

And you always had this guy, all day everyday on the INTERNET griping about QDOS and muh BBS.

i remember busting a nut before the porn pic even loaded(young bros im talking a like 5 whole fucking minutes for one fucking pair of tits). good t-times?

Yes, this! Now everyone and their grandma goes online, and they're all assholes.

>only to get the daniel pearl beheading video instead.
Hey guys remember me???

This, pretty much. Websites were a lot more interesting back then, and there were tons of lively forums and IRC channels still around. Back then there was no social media so you had to actually know how to do HTML to have your own space on the web. Everybody had their own little personal website back then that they designed themselves. Now it's just facebook/twitter profiles or a stream of boring blogs or identical boring personal websites that all boil down to "I'm a boring hipster and I work as a *insert gibberish job name here.*"

>Tfw use to meet local girls irl via random aol chatrooms

Actually some computers from the early 90s DID run Windows 3.1. But it was so shitty most people just went back to DOS.

>pop-ups
>mistakenly downloading porn auto-diallers, hearing your modem disconnect and auto-dialing back out at a premium rate
>yanking out your phone line before it could connect
>disabling ActivX
>browsing XXX password sites for logins to premium porn-sites
>greenguy Link O Rama

are some are my early net memories

>tfw used to spend time talking to Americans constantly on MSN chat rooms.

I actually really miss those times, I went over to IRC for a while but it's filled with retards that don't say anything and just use it to look cool, fuck them. Yeah if anyone ITT uses mIRC go fuck yourself you arrogant cunts! FUCK YOU!

There were no niggers online back then.

Early on, the only social media I used was the bnet lobbies between starcraft games. Lot of people may not think about it now but game lobbies were kind of the social media of the day and a great barrier to entry for finding people to run with

And every fucking videoclip used Realplayer.

Fuck Realplayer.

I loved the Yahoo chatrooms!

it was a supplement to society, not a replacement for it

Fuck, does yahoo pool and chess still exist?

ICQ?

I used to go do the AOL chatrooms. fucking great times there

>watched manga
>watched
kek, i like this guy

I remember when Yahoo removed User Rooms because pedos kept making rooms.

A recording of 1998 internet with WinAMP, mIRC, and Netscape Navigator on Geocities. With images practically drawing line-by-line due to dialup download speeds.

youtube.com/watch?v=hWq4DWfrpu8

That's pretty much how it was.

...

There were more computer literate normies . Nowadays they're all quarantined to Facebook and reddit

aol chat was best thing ever, twitter and shit are more soviet than ever

it was more of a collective conscious

very little trolling and/or baiting

more cooperative and helpful

I still use winamp. It really whips the llamas ass.

I remember seeing this video when i was 13 and feeling like i should tell police because i just watched my first actual murder and wasn't sure if they knew or not

Yes, it used to be way easier to make friends online. There were no social networks. It's not like everyone you knew IRL could IM you. They had to call you or later on text you (pain in the ass).

PC gamers and forum users were generally way more civil than what we see today. PC gamers and forum posters were engineering students in their dorms, they were the shutins that didn't like partying. They were friendly to one another.

Now every asshole with a phone is on forums and PC gaming is no longer marketed at adults, it's now a meme so every 13 year old begs their parents for the latest nvidia card. So now even in Counterstrike I am hearing vine memes from 17 year olds who go afk in spawn for 20 seconds into every round because they're too busy snapchatting. Shitposting and arguing online and PC games was the only thing I had left that I enjoyed in this world.

Just hit the reset button please, whoever's in charge of this simulation. Send me back to 2002.

I'm an '84 fag. I'll sum it up for you. The internet was SO GOOD that I now want to suicide seeing what it has become.

But then again maybe it's my hardcore conservatism speaking.

>Tfw got vanned in 2002 once because of msn chat
Good times

>you had to have the URL beforehand
Newfags will never know about internet yellowpages

...

WinAMP was great, I miss searching for ridiculous skins. Do you remember which site had the blue radio tower where you could download music?

>Realplayer.

God damn bloated piece of shit I used to hate it, also QuickTime

Americans were the best back then, so naive and stupid/docile. My countrymen were and still are absolute cunting dick faces that need stabbing/beating.

Well it took 10 minutes to download a 128kb picture to jerk off to and you weren't sure if it was any good or. It because what the fuck are thumbnails

You don't even want to know how long it took to be able to download a movie to beat off to like a normal human bean

underrated

Yahoo chat was a virtual meat market. I met and fucked so many women from there.

we talking surveillance van outside or pedo kidnapper van here?

>You don't even want to know how long it took to be able to download a movie to beat off to like a normal human bean

>using early Kazaa
>download 10 minute porn video
>takes like 2 days
>it's a virus

Fuck.

lol I hired wicked city and legend of the overfiend on vhs when I was like 12 years old. My parents let me rent anything except porn. Hentai was new to everybody that weekend.

Who remembers microsoft chat? Mplayers online gaming service, voodoo 2 and 3 and tnt 2 cards.

The days when sub 200 ping was alright, when a pentium 3 above 333mhz was a fucking insane beast.

top lel, winmx was the same, then emule and kazaa gold/lite etc etc.

I sure miss those chat rooms, since the closest thing I got to public chat rooms are the steam and discord ones.

Everything is shit and has minimalist looks nowadays.

I also miss Encarta and the cool windows 98 plus themes

>Realplayer
>Quicktime

I'M REALLY STEAMED NOW THANKS Sup Forums

>watched
started doing this a lot in 97. quickly figured out i could roleplay as anyone i wanted. started chatn regularly with this muslim lady. i pretended to be a british guy(i was a kid at the time). used to call her love and chat sweet nothings to her and general chit chat. after doing this for a few months i get a message from her thanking me for all my encouragement, telling me that without it she could have never taken her two children and left her abusive husband.NOPED THE FUCK OUT. didnt get on-line again for two years

Was no security, could literally breach any website you wanted. I remember even Microsoft and Google having their websites defaced. Was all for the laughs, no malicious shit.

When Napster came out and living in Australia and cds expensive as fuck taking months longer to realise I knew we where onto something special.

Sharing ICQ numbers around school with all the cuties and chatting each other up and having cyber sex nightly.

Was truly glorious times.

Said something about suicide at school as a joke, forgot I had my info in my profile and some faggot called the cops in my town

I kind of wish I knew a fucking shit about programming so I could bring chatrooms back.

Gay teens 16-19

Filled to the brim with paedophiles, it's what led to MSN chats being shut down.

freearcade.com/

IRC roleplay superheroines in peril

yeah right, when they showed up they basically held court

was easier to talk to random people now everyone is much more hesitant

when i was a teen i had shit load of jap roasties and some canadian stripper who would send me pics occasionally id chat to on cam lol

FUCKING DIE IRC SCUM! Full of autistic cunts.

Life was much better before mainstream consumer internet existed. Like 1994 or so. Everything after that has just been downhill. Now life consists of wading through a cesspool of human filth on a daily basis.

enetrnal summertember

>Now life consists of wading through a cesspool of human filth on a daily basis.
but thats my favorite part

Chat rooms still exist. Nobody uses them.

That pc spec lmao.

I recall when i spent 2 grand on a 600mhz p3, 128mb ram, 17gb hd, 32mb graphics, 250gb zip disc with a 19inch crt when 99% of people were rocking a

Yep, the good old days when you could call people fags or cunts and no one cared. Female micromanagement and male betamaxery ruined internet forums

Myg0t 2.0 that flash was so awesome

That takes me back a whole decade.

I remember Andrew MacNeill he was a cunt

Also.... REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Hipsters always existed. People were watching whatever anime the local channels were airing, but they didn't know it was called "anime". People didn't even know it was Japanese. I mean we basically had showed like Voltron and such, where the content was heavily Americanized.

Around '96 all the big name animes of the decade starting coming over. DBZ, Tenshi, Kenshin, and so on. Problem was people weren't told where they were from. We didn't know it was Japanese. We didn't know it was Anime.

At least by large we didn't. Hipsters knew of course.