History...

[kengr]

While reading someone else's LJ, a comment of theirs got me to thinking.

I've been on the Internet for around 20 years. And, if I recall correctly, it was in March of 1981 that I got my first modem. (I still have one of the same model, simply for the sake of boggling newbies).

So I've been online for 24 years.

I want you to try to picture this. My system had cost $1000 *before* adding things like extra RAM, a serial port and a modem (and a serial port wasn't standard then!).

It was a TRS-80 Model III. Z-80 CPU at 2(?) MHz. 16k of RAM (which I expanded to the max of 48k as soon as I could). Yes *k*, not meg.

Storage was cassette tapes at 1500 baud. The display was monochrome with 16 lines of 64 characters. Graphics resolution was 128x48.

When I went online, there were two BBS systems in Portland. I got their numbers from Byte magazine. The *national* BBS list took up only one page. And the print wasn't super small.

The modem was 300 baud. I had to dial the phone, and when I heard the modem on the other end answer, flip the toggle switch on the modem from Off to Originate.

I want you youngsters to try to imagine when that was state of the art in home computers...

I got onto CompuServe a bit later and stayed on it until 1994 or so.

I got onto the Internet sometime around 1985.

I have to wonder what it'll be like in another 20 years?

Comments

[tsjafo.livejournal.com]

My first computer was a trash 80 micro 10 basic...hooked up to the tv and I couldn't even afford the magnetic tape recorder to store programs, I had to fat finger 'em in every time. We got our first modem much later, a blazing fast 300 baud model you plugged your phone into, second hand, of course. Remember what the world was like before the world wide web? Playing Zort on a BBS. And the sound the phone made hooking up to the internet...the geek love call! Yeah, I think we are living in some very interesting times, technologically speaking. Ain't it great?

[lolleeroberts.livejournal.com]

I worked for Western Union for 10 years, starting in 1978. We had the "order wire", a teletype that was hooked into a circuit that ran between every Western Union office in the country. Think of a hard copy chat room for proto-geeks. And every Christmas the techs would get out the ascii art punch tapes...ah, good times, good times.

But I wouldn't trade it for now. It's like the memory of crossing the desert in covered wagons from the comfort of your Vegas penthouse. Nice to look back on.

Young punk!

[seawasp]

When *I* started you couldn't OWN a computer system because there weren't any (aside from a couple of actually-fairly-useless kits) for private users! 300 Baud? That was FAST, and we were GLAD to have that instead of our 110-baud teletypes!

*bangs cane noisily on walker* Rassassassafrassin' kids...*cough hack*

20 years from now, there's no real predicting. I make some overcautions predictions for some of the functionality to expect 30 years from now, but I'm rather deliberately NOT trying to predict accurately at that distance because if the technology goes on its current curves it's beyond my ability to guess.

[suzilem.livejournal.com]

Back in the dim mists of time, I had a Timex-Sinclair. :-) 4K of RAM and a Chicklet keyboard.

[ranunculus.livejournal.com]

Gotta say that I'm not a programer, and that my first computer was a TRS 80 with, I think 8k of ram. Since I was only doing word processing the silly thing lasted me for -years- till it wouldn't talk to the printer any more, and I couldn't find any one to fix it. Upgraded to a 386....
My first modem was a 1200 - but I was late, didn't start on the internet till 93? Geez, what a latecomer!
My partner insists on keeping an old K-Pro in the basement. He claims that it will some day be worth something....