I'm curious, oldfags fill me in!

Boring and non-interactive.

text

We had to wait 15 minutes for a 10 second porn clip to download.

I was on pre-paid dial-up that you bought in 15/50/100 hour packs (ausfag). Internet was relatively plain.

MS Front page! All over the internet!!!
Pic related

as slow as 4chan

You don't remember what the internet looked like in 2001?

>>18136129

More interesting and more interactive. There was a sense of exploration and discovery. Ads didnt pop up (no GUI either) and pound you in the face. Only smart people used the net.

The barrier to entry is essentially nil now. Just read youtube comments or get on Facebook.

Cartoon network games.

http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/games/cc/summerresort/1.html

That used to take 20 minutes to load.

>>18136163
You're thinking at least 15-18 years ago.

Most webpages were basic HTML or flash. There were only a few online compatible games where the multiplayer didn't totally suck balls (SC / Diablo 2). P2P clients were in their prime because no one knew about torrents yet. That's about it.

1995? One year after it went mainstream?
Even the wayback machine only goes to 1996
http://classic-web.archive.org/web/*/http://microsoft.com
http://classic-web.archive.org/web/*/http://idsoftware.com

Pop-ups and banner ads everywhere. Animated gifs were over used. You had to download three media players (Windows Media, Real Player, Quicktime) to watch videos because you'd always run into a page that supported one but not the other two.

There were good parts though. The pages without ads often had simple, elegant UIs that loaded fast. There wasn't this "Digg, Twitter, Facebook, Share" crap on every god damn page. Content ruled and you didn't have distracting sidebars everywhere. 300 page articles were written on a single page. Not this "1 of 8 >> Next" bullshit where a page only has a single god damn paragraph.

So it had its pros/cons. The ads and gifs were the worst. Remove those and the early 2000s web would be perfect.

Back then, Internet was slow but AWESOME

>>18136167
ffff Shockwave

Pic related, all I played in 2001. Went on Newgrounds a lot in 2000 as well.

>>18136163
>More interesting and more interactive.
Lolwut? Less information and WEB 1.0 can't be more interesting and interactive.
>Ads didnt pop up (no GUI either) and pound you in the face.
Pornbanners, pornbanners everywhere.

>>18136189
>There wasn't this "Digg, Twitter, Facebook, Share" crap on every god damn page.
There isn't now either. I love Adblock Plus.

>10 years ago
>unknown 6502,6800,z80 machine
>monochrome monitor
>tape storage <-- especially this.

No.

Try 30+

Some of us remember that era. I had a TI 99/4a myself. Cassette storage, just like in the picture.

>>18136208
That looks like a private server or a hack of some sort. Back when P2P was allowed in places besides the Wilderness, Rune armor was not that common. I also spot some dragon items.

>>18136246
You make me cry. I owned only a typewriter.

10 years ago wasn't that long you know.

>>18136277
it is for the underage 13yo's like OP

Mfw my pc is 10 years old.

>>18136269

>>18136246 here

I still own my electric typewriter. You /had to type/ your papers. You couldn't print them out. Fucking tech illiterate English teachers couldn't understand computers and that word processors, even rudimentary ones, were great time savers and the future.

If it was dot matrix, you got a failing grade. If there wasn't at least some white-out (because you used a daisywheel printer), you got the hairy-eyeball.

Stupid shit like that. Made me hate writing with a passion.

go to some .gov sites they are still the same

>>18135953
10 years ago it was pretty decent.

But 15 years ago, when I first came online, it was shit.
I spend more time on BBS's (basically some guy's computer at home with a modem you could call in and download games/porn/etc) than on the internet.

If you want to experience the internet from 1996 today, you could install Tor or Freenet and use the maximum security settings. - enjoy.

>>18136308
i'm currently on a laptop from 2005.

>>18136352

>But 15 years ago, when I first came online, it was shit.

The local scene was more fun sometimes, but in the early 90s, going to the uni lab for interbutt was fun, especially when it was 24 hours available with a clock on the wall that was /always/ ridiculously wrong. So you never paid attention to the time, and eventually the birds woke up, the sun came up, you went home, and walked into your bedroom, and the alarm clock went off.

If you were into MUDs, MOOs and telnet chats, it was a fun time.

I am still in contact with some people from that era.

>>18136277
10 years ago was 20 years ago.

>>18136277

This.

And the OP wants feedback from "oldfags"

Well....

This oldfag is probably more than twice OP's age.

a bit shitter but not as gay, gifs everywhere

>>18136167

Oh boy, I used to love this game.

Then I wasted all our pre-paid hours playing cartoon network games and my dad beat me because he couldn't look at porn anymore, which was the only reason he connected the internet.

I don't suppose anyone here remembers Bitnet.

>>18136446
>Bitnet
Yep.

>>18136300
LOL ten years older actually, and poorfag that I was we were stuck with a BBC Micro when I was a kid.

>>18136390
I remember my first laptop from 1998, fairly shitty Compaq, but shit was awesome. I'm still running it as a media player out in my shed, it doesn't seem to ever want to break down.

So, anyone here remember Geocities?

ten years ago, I was stuck working for AOL tech support, trying to teach 9 million retards how to remove Bonzi Buddy from their systems.

Asking what the internet was like in 2001 isn't really an interesting question.

If you'd asked about the mid to late 90's, then it would be different, but 2001 wasn't a whole lot different to now sans Facebook, Youtube etc. There were still streaming videos, forums and flash games - things were just slower and web pages generally less attractive. I don't know when the last time was that I saw a recently created site composed entirely of static HTML, grouped together in frontpage or some shitty free online hosts web builder.

>>18136474
how poor can you get? i'm only 21 and at least had $5 garage sale DOS machines then

Ah, nothing beats browsing BBS's on my old Microbee
Good times

2001 was ten years ago?

FUUUUU i'm an oldfag now

>>18136474
>BBC Micro
I was 20-years old when these came out.

Commodore PET was my first computer.

Pic related, it's a Commodore PET.

>>18136466

brofist.

there are very few of us here on /g/

For the still wet-behind-the-ears crowd on here, imagine an internet based on leased phone lines and IBM (and other computers, like PRIME and DEC) mainframes.

No, not just dialup, but the interconnections were also phone lines.

This thread made me check if BBS of Leningrad State University still exists... it does not.
Come to think of it, some guy not ago was starting a new MUD, why the fuck don't we start a MUD?

Nobody mentioned DIALERS yet?

Go on a risky web page, your shit gets compromised and now your dialup is dialing numbers at £1.50 a minute and the only way you realise is because you know the dialling tone of your modem off by heart

>>18136562

That was until the dialer faggots learned to append AT M0 to the modem string to shut off the speaker. You knew your modem was dialing out because of the relay clicks.

>>18136505
Oh man, all those horrible "helper/cute" applications.
I remember a friends desktop that had 10+ sheep, poledancers and that purple fucking monkey on at the same time.

>>18136550

1200/75 modems?
Prestel?
Compuserve?

>>18136501

Had two

2001 was good because every site was unique as opposed to now where it seems like all the big sites are part of a 'network', everything links back to FB, twitter, Digg and whatever other social networking bullshit there is, most people don't aspire to create web sites anymore - if they want space on the web to act like a unique flower, they use blogger, tumblr, facebook, myspace, yourube or twitter, which is lame because everyone is doing the same shit and any ass hat can get an online presence without knowing shit about web design.

>>18136591

I started out with a Tandy paper terminal that took spools of fax paper. 300/110 baud. It literally got donated to a museum.

Bitnet access around here was through the University of Rhode Island dialup lines.

http://www.nabiscoworld.com/

Waiting 30 minutes for these to load. Time for me to nostalgia...

>>18136611
>seems like all the big sites are part of a 'network'

yea, like some kind of .. "inter".. net... or something.

i remember 1998, yahoo was grey and ugly, and i fapped like a maniac to ranma 1/2 hentai

>>18136501

>>18136611
>2001 was good because every site was unique as opposed to now where it seems like all the big sites are part of a 'network',

You don't remember Geocities or Angelfire, do you?

Just like FB, blogger, etc.

>>18136562

I remember a news story a couple of years ago about some old couple getting fucked over by a dialer because they were still on dial up. They were warning people to take care because it could happen to anyone, failing to mention most people use broadband, rendering dialers useless.

Gopher up in this bitch!
gopher://gopher.floodgap.com

>>18136621

>"I remember when the Internet only had a few pages, and they all worked."
>"Sure, Grampa."

Sure feels like I'm getting old sometimes...

>>18136642

There was a time when Yahoo was just a couple of pages of text of where to go on the interbutt. As the list grew, pages got categorized and pigeonholed in an extensive index, which gives us the monstrosity that Yahoo is today.

>>18136675

Y'all should install Overbite.

2001?
Jut like today, except with a 1024x768 CRT display. Give it another year for LCDs to show up.

I remember my internet not working for ages and nobody in my house bothering to call up and ask why for months and months.

Eventually my dad did call up and spoke to some Indian who said it wasn't working because the computer had a virus and that there was no way to fix it, we had to buy a new computer.

Not a bad outcome as I got a new computer, but it's hard to believe the shit that went on 10 years ago.

I was 8 then, so I guess I can let myself off.

Everybody used AOL

>>18136674

Until a couple of years ago, my parents were still on dialup, because it was 10 bux/month and they didn't use it much.

"But dad, if you just add the cheapest plan to Cox it's still just 10 bux"

Eventually they did come around.

I remember madblast, pokemon crater, e-zone and stick death.

I wonder how many of those sites are dead now.

>>18136709
I used to have a paperback book with an internet index.
It was about as extensive as Yahoo.

>>18136750
>mfw my Mom wouldn't tell me the AOL password so I used the trial floppy

>>18136780
http://www.stickdeath.com/

Still alive brah

I remember getting a virus via a copy of Altered Beast on a 3.5" floppy.

As for the interwebs, I remember entering my first home page into the Yahoo category listings, before they got filled with spam and then disappeared entirely.

>>18136785

"Navigating The Internet" First Edition. A door-stopper of a book. First half "how to use the internet" including Gopher, Listserv, IRC, telnet, muds, moos, email, "this new thing called the web" and the second half a big index of places to go.

>>18136800

Don't you love it when people so they're going to start working on their site again after a long absence, then never return?

>>18136788

>trial floppies

This was my sole source of portable storage. It was a sad day when AOL went to CDs.

>>18136846

It's a sad day when one of the oldest archives is no more. The Internet Wiretap is fuckin' gone. The page is there but the etexts are gone.

cant remember 10 years ago but how about 1999 right before the new milenium

glorious 320/64 kbit cable laughing at all those 56k dial up pesants
does anybody even remember ISDN lines ?

also irc was nice
flash was getting started and worked fine on low end systems

and games ... shit ... can you belive there where games which not only had a story but you had to play multiple weekends to get through it not just an afternoon

>>18136861
>source of portable storage
I used the free disks from magazine covers.

>>18136926

>isdn

Do you know what ISDN stands for?

I Still Don't kNow

>>18136926
Go play Anchorhead if you don't mind text adventures.

With that said, I could really setup a MUD, if anybody is willing to be GM.

>>18136977

A MUD might be too much work.

A NUTS chat server might be better.

paying $200 for a GB of internet
every webpage looked 1000 times worse than futuba and youtuba
2 day long downloads for 5kb
cheese pizza in webpage adds :(

>>18136999

I never saw cp in ads. Where the fuck did you go?

>>18136995
I already have a BBS with chat and nwsgroups running for that. MUD is easy to setup, running it is another story, tho.

>>18137016
Probably the russian sites back when CP was legal there?

>>18135953
We had to get our cp from usenet and we thought "wow! This beats bbs."

>>18136550
Remember NSFNet? The state-of-the-art 56 Kbps Internet backbone (Hell yeah! A backbone measured in Kbps!) which was set up a few years after BITNet? Around 1985/6?

>>18137027

You have a chat?

ooooo.....

Name, plox?

Also, is it active? I belong to an old group of chatters, but the old server is always vacant.

Tumblin' tumbleweeds.... pic related. Look at the check-in times.

>>18137093
telnet gopher.su
It's held together by spit and willpower, with barely two visitors a month and the chat is ugly hack. Switching to some decent software is forever on my TODO list. But hey, it has games and ANSI gallery!

>>18137077

NSFNet lived until the mid 90s. When it finally went away, then the interbutt was available for commercial use. When NSFNet set the rules, if you so much as put up a for sale ad, you'd get nuked from orbit.

I kinda miss the old rules.

10 years ago that was in 2001. Pretty much the same as today, however less interactive (no Facebook crap and no comment-this and comment-that).

In 1995-ish it was a lot like MySpace. Popcorn backdrops, MIDI music. There's actually a torrent of Geocities if you want to have a look. A lot of useless pages, a lot like Blogger, actually.

There was IRC which was the main social thing. The Palace was also revolutionary and still available. Porn was usually exchanged through fservs on IRC and a lot of MP3s and movies (and porn) is still exchanged on IRC today.

Between 1995 and 2000, the most noticeable thing was e-commerce. In 1995 the concept was new and credit card info through the internet was a big no-no, since signatures meant something back then. The biggest thing was porn web sites. That totally BOOMED in the mid late-90s to this day and it's really that that motivated people to givetheir CC info over the net. Things like eBay, and smaller commerce websites like Amazon and Barnes and Nobles also helped e-commerce to get a good reputation.

All in all... the internet is today... what it has always been.

sex.com had pretty good porn site back then. I remember surfing there with 14.4kbps modem but it was over 10 years ago.

free6.com was awesome around 10 years ago. Everyone played counter-strike and MSN Zone was used to play Rainbow Six and Age of Empires games online.

>>18137196

You should read up on how sex.com was stolen and given back through lawsuit.

>>18137142

telnet does not seem to work, but the gopher does.

Do I need to type in a port?

>>18137267
Welp, probably Kerberos acting up, ssh in with 'new' as an username.

>>18137195

Book sales were instrumental in the development of the internet and e-commerce because one of the most popular and widely accepted sales pitch of the early internet was "the library of congress in every household".

>>18137299

Wow, it's been a while since I've seen an animated ASCII splash screen....

>>18137142

nostalgia all up in this bitch...

>>18137435
It's actually VT100 animation, used as loading screen for newsletter. Had to use some hacky perl script to display it at normal speed (since it's tailored for 9600 baud transfer rate or lower).

>>18137142
>.su
>>18136555
>Leningrad
Kremvax much?

>>18137404
That makes no sense.

>>18137537
Nope, friend in Moscow registered the domain for me, Leningrad's uni BBS was the central meeting point for all "internet" user in Eastern Europe. It was pretty good, nice people and all, they even had a BASIC programming tutorials.

>>18137195

>Palace Chat

Oh god, i remember that. Chat with avatars. It was the Next Big Thing, but anyone who came to Palace Chat from Telnet Chat was chased away by the graphics. It was a lot less convenient, really, than a plain old telnet chat or IRC. Text scared the newbies from normal chats, and graphics scared the traditional chatters.

Anyone remember Foxnetwork chat?

>>18137469
eristic.net/games/infocom/zork1.html

Zork walkthrough, you might need it.

>>18137696

I have a collection of all the Zork games in a box. I don't even have a floppy drive to install them anymore.

>>18137469
Hell, I like what you've got there but your software kinda sucks. Don't know what you should use to make a *nix BBS these days, though.

it was good, less interactive and real-time as it is now - but in general very much the same

I used to spend hours in the departmental computer lab just browsing and messing around on muds

>>18137739
There are a few BBS packages for *nix, but most of them are either:
a) closed source (I kid you not)
b) outdated as fuck and dependant on Fido
So I took old BASH scripts and made a BBS out of them. And LoRD is closed source, DOS only and commercial, still.

I made that board in 4 hours for some anon who wanted to see how BBS looks like, so...

>>18137748
You have tons of servers, host a MUD for us, dude!

>>18137817
what would you suggest I do if I wanted to start my own telnet bbs?
back then I never got a chance to do it, and anyway, I was too young
is your script foss?