What the Internet used to be like

[isometry]

Keeping careful lists of bookmarks because all we had were those primitive pre-google search engines. Early versions of internet explorer and the huge gap in time between the invention of pop-up ads and the invention of pop-up blockers. Video clips with horrendously low quality, formats like realplayer. Using download managers to pull files over 1 MB to avoid corrupt files. Giant MP3 players that were basically full-size hard drives in a portable casing.

Thinking about those days really makes me appreciate google search as the best upgrade the internet ever got, followed by broadband, followed by youtube, IMO.

 

[Dags90]

Wow...
...suddenly I feel so young.
Thanks for this thread, OP.

That's probably because you are so young. Sort of like there are soon going to be children in developed countries who haven't heard of chickenpox, because they and all their classmates were vaccinated.

Back in my day, we had our varicella zoster and we liked it! We loved it.

I remember by about 2000 our house had four landlines, so we could use our computers without tying up the phone. And oh Lordy the popups. You think computer viruses are bad now, my brother got one that made his computer dial-up to a long distance connection. We got a phone bill for over two grand.

I also remember that before 4chan became popular there was a site that was...rotten.

And seeing this meme on a TV show...

 

[Vault101]

I remember HTML...GIF's...joecartoon..comic sans

then later newgrounds was the place to be...and salad fingers *shudder*

and of coarse the ones that hung around for ageis...like the "plok" fan page which had a petition for "plok 3d!" (presumibly on the n64) unfortunatly it is no more

 

[Gottesstrafe]

I remember hating AOL with a fiery passion then, and to this very day when they continued to bill me even after I ended my subscription. I remember when in order to navigate to another site you had to brave a sea of pop up windows for porn sites that were sure to give you a virus even when you didn't click them. I remember the days of Xanga, LiveJournal, and even Napster when they first started. I remember when AYB was everywhere and most flash movies were watched on Albino Black Sheep. Hell, I even remember all those god awful Penny Arcade clones and sprite comics ripping off 8-Bit Theater in the early 2000s.

And you know what? I don't miss them.

 

[gbemery]

I remember the ungodly amount of AOL discs for your free 7 day trial of the internet they were everywhere...and I think there was even a news spot on the amount of them piling up in landfills

 

[Capt. Crankypants]

Habbohotel. Neopets. Funnyjunk. Playing Flash games (like 'tanks') in class. All the teachers telling us to use fucking 'AskJeeves'. And yes, the Dial-up tone, this nostalgia includes being disconnected every time someone used the phone.

 

[Limecake]

I remember visiting websites where every link would lead to an "under construction" page, you know so you could check back later when it was finished.

I remember neopets, I was pretty boss at snagging expensive items in the stores and I would make a killing.

 

[Comando96]

You know what the worst part is? I learned recently that the whole noise was unnecessary. It wasn't actually the sound of connecting to the internet. There was no sound. Someone just though we needed to hear something. Isn't that awesome?

You know something...
I honestly think that there... that fucker there who though that up... that person is the Internets first troll... ever... the first internet trolling was the unnecessary dial up noise...

 

[Esotera]

RIP.

I came into the internet on the back-end of this, around 2000. There were enough people on it for companies to make cool websites, but the old-school style of websites/blogs remained.

Internet speeds have risen dramatically, and sites always find a way to add unnecessary crap that takes longer to download these days. There were also less ads back in the day.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

Well, there was stuff like Hamster Dance. Wasn't that the first internet meme? Like before there was even a term for it.

Was 'Milk and Cereal' before it? And the good old hamster song was a legitimate hit in the UK in 1996/7!

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Sort of like this:

Ah GeoCities...how you used to annoy me.

 

[Frybird]

I think that sums it up pretty well

(yeah i know it's not working, just put it in notepad and save it as html)

Other than that, i remember using Search Engines not called Google (wich i ignored for a long time for some reason), trying to make Websites with the atrocity that was Microsoft Frontpage, my father buying print magazines about Internetpages (not making them, it was actually mostly a reviewed link list), and him being angry at me for downloading a crapy 280p bootleg trailer of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within for two hours or so.

Also, i still have a disc with tools, tutorials, examples and resources for creating your own websites....The Sample Websites are so awful by todays standards that one has to wonder how they could sell this shit.

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

If anyone was lucky enough to visit hulu on april fools day they were presented with the internet in 96. It definitely took me back, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/01/hulu-april-fools-2011_n_843507.html heres a screen shot.

 

[iLikeHippos]

Well, I was too young to be surfing the Internet when the big, black N was the most popular cheese around.
But I remember that every time dad was on the computer, he was always pissed, 100% of the time. If you asked him anything, you'd hear the most apathetic moan of your life in response.
He also liked to moan and utter "Jesus Christ" as if he was preaching the web constantly as his annoying and obnoxious lord and savior.

When I began surfing the web finally however, I mostly visited the most fucked-up sites and content, and most of it was unintentional. There was just nothing else to do with the computer I found. And yeah, a flash video of 3 minutes took an hour to load. And even than, there wasn't a guarantee it wouldn't stop mid-section and make you rage completely.

I liked those days though. I had more exercise and I was more healthy. Now I risk of becoming a sack with no muscles (Except I often hit the gym and don't spend so much time on consoles nor computers).

 

[BishopofAges]

I actually have a website for this one, found out that the hype site for the movie Space Jam (1996) is actually still up and running, and for its time it was considered 'dynamic' though these days if you went to a site like this is more for its quick load content like reading comics than anything else.

You can also tell by the old school style url, this site is pretty old.

http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam/movie/jam.htm

Reminds me of playing Oregon Trail on candy colored apple mac computers, ahh memories.

 

[Kragg]

Wow...
...suddenly I feel so young.
Thanks for this thread, OP.

That's probably because you are so young. Sort of like there are soon going to be children in developed countries who haven't heard of chickenpox, because they and all their classmates were vaccinated.

Back in my day, we had our varicella zoster and we liked it! We loved it.

I remember by about 2000 our house had four landlines, so we could use our computers without tying up the phone. And oh Lordy the popups. You think computer viruses are bad now, my brother got one that made his computer dial-up to a long distance connection. We got a phone bill for over two grand.

I also remember that before 4chan became popular there was a site that was...rotten.

And seeing this meme on a TV show...

rofl was thinking the same thing, kid is 16 years old

its interesting how these generation gaps happen, personally i cant relate to people who, to put it in gamer terms, didnt have bulbasaur or charmander as a starter pokemon

 

[tgr]

When I used internet the first time back in the beginning of the 90's, It was just a bunch of black text on a grey background. Sometimes there was a link to a small black/white picture. I looked around for a while, got bored and didn't touch it for over half a year. Next time I opened Netscape, internet was full of animated gifs and blinking text in all kinds of eye-watering colors. I was like "Whoa, what is this madness?".

 

[FamoFunk]

Spoiler

ALL OF MY HATRED

so.

much.

teeth gnashing.

It's beautiful music to my ears! I used to think it was awesome, it got me excited thinking, "Fuck yes, my internet is working and connecting"


OP- Ahh, I remember those personal website's people used to do. I used to frequently visit one, his name was Chris or something, because there was loads of ASCII Art on it.

I also remember when Rotten.com was the most sickest place you got go on the net and when those pictures actually made you shocked

When Newgrounds was really awesome, I remember lots of Porn pop ups, too, even just by going on to an innocent site.

I remember trying to download things like Music with Dial-up. So.Painfully.Slow.

I remember having a Hotmail and MSN back in 1999, my older Brother got them for me because he was studying computer stuff in college. It was so basic and the emotion icons where so cute and simple, infact, I think it was before the icons and stuff *le sigh* Sadly I had to change E-mails in 2004.

Spoiler

EDIT: Ohhh, remember the Turtle that was always in school, you used to have to type in commands and he'd end up drawing crazy shit like a square or even a god damn hexagon?!

 

[Guardian of Nekops]

I remember the ungodly amount of AOL discs for your free 7 day trial of the internet they were everywhere...and I think there was even a news spot on the amount of them piling up in landfills

For a while, they were an excellent craft material. You could glue a bunch of them together to make a coaster, and my sister used them as wheels for a carriage for one of those diorama projects.

But yeah, the things were everywhere, and LONG after everyone had reliable internet with better companies.

I think they still send them, the poor saps.

 

[similar.squirrel]

Geocities, phone-bills, waiting 10 minutes for a Stickdeath video to load.. Those were emphatically not the days.