Internaut day!

Albus_Scope

An “internaut” is a person who possesses a thorough knowledge of how to use the Internet and its history. But what is the history of the web?

Way back in march of 1989, Sir Tim Berners-Lee a researcher at CERN wrote a proposal for a "distributed information system."

• On December 12, 1990, the world's first website and server were ready and went live on CERN.
• On January 10, 1991, not only CERN but the whole physics community gained access to this web system.
• On August 6, 1991, Berners-Lee put a summary of his project on some internet newsgroups, and shortly after, on August 23rd 1991, the World Wide Web (or W3 as it was originally called) was made available to the public.
  

The last significant date in the creation of the World Wide Web was April 30, 1993, the date when CERN released the World Wide Web's source code to the public so that anyone could freely use it. Many consider this to be the true anniversary of the World Wide Web!

Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Thanks for the internet!

I'm of the age where I can remember a time before the internet and grew up alongside the web, so it's been one heck of a journey so far. Who'd have thought we'd have access to it on our phones and we'd no longer need to use the phone line and reel out 40 meters of cable to download a terrible quality image?!

So my lovely online community, what are your fondest memories of the internet? Can you remember the first website you ever went on? Remember the old AOL CDs? Myspace? IRC? Let us know!

Rosie_Scope

Woo happy Internaut Day!

I found my old Livejournal the other day. I must have been about 13 when I created it, some very angsty posts on there. I also had a bunch of random links down the side of the page and successfully managed to rickroll my future self 😁 13-year-old me was such a troll!

Another site I used to love was Neopets spent a long time on there playing games! Looks like it's still going but I doubt I could remember my passwords any more. And Habbo Hotel too.

I can't imagine a time without the internet now. I have to know the answers to things immediately, I don't think I could live in a time where you had to go and look it up in a book!

Steve_in_The_City

This is giving me some nice yet long-forgotten memories @Rosie_Scope and @Albus_Scope so thanks. I have had a trip down memory lane. The lane is usually dark, foreboding and not one that I want to set foot upon, but this lane has made me smile and smile and smile! In 1983 (long before anyone had heard of the 'net) I had a Commodore64 Home Computer. I think I have got the year right. I subscribed to a BT service called Prestel, that was a very early form of the 'net. I met a doctor and I was the only person he knew on Prestel, and vice versa!

Then I established a Bulletin Board System (BBS for anyone who can remember the dark ages). I ran it from my bedroom on an Olivetti Business Machine. I aimed it at medical professionals and had 8 phone lines attached to the PC. It was fun and I provided a prehistoric form of email, but I knew the WWW was coming along, so I had to close the business. But anyway, things were fun and I guess that is what made matters happy.

Rachel_Scope

Hi @Steve_in_The_City I'm glad it's sent you a nice trip down memory lane 😊 I was born in 1985 so I'm not familiar with the things you've mentioned. That's so interesting that you made your own type of 'prehistoric' email! Are you still into computing?

I do remember the early internet days of dial-up and the awful tone you had to listen to every time you wanted to connect! There was also the panic of accidentally leaving the internet 'on' and dreading telling your mum 😂

I remember all the chat rooms, MySpace, and yes, the free trial CDs! Does anyone remember Encarta before we had Wikipedia? I quite miss putting a disc in the tray and seeing it load up.

onedayatatime

The dial up tone! Haha! I remember working and office job and first being introduced to a computer.and the internet. You know for about a year that computer stayed permanently on! We all thought by pushing the button that turned the screen off meant the whole thing was off 🤪🤪🤣 I moved on from office work as it obviously wasn't my forte 🤭

Rosie_Scope

That dial tone is such an iconic sound! It's one of those things that'll be lost to the generations after.

I just remembered Geocities too, did anyone make their own websites on there? I'm sure I had one, but I can't remember what was on it. What I do remember is that it looked visually awful with all sorts of bright colours and moving parts 😂

Albus_Scope

I had a very depressing email the other day, telling me my Livejournal was 19 years old now. 😆 I must say I did make some lifelong friends through it, but I don't think I want to read all the angst again just yet.

I remember my first go at online gaming. Diablo 2 and I got attacked and robbed (in game of course) by a 15 year old from Germany. That really put me off online gaming with others haha. It took ages rolling out all the cable needed to connect the PC to the phone line. It was a nightmare. But all good memories. 😊

Did anyone else use all the free trial CDs as drinks coasters?

onedayatatime

'Did anyone else use all the free trial CDs as drinks coasters?'. I've still got them (🤣) and hang them in the garden to help deter the birds off my veg 👍

Albus_Scope

Wow, those must be classed as ancient artifacts now @onedayatatime they may be worth something. 😆

Steve_in_The_City

In the Olden Days I once counted all the leads that made up my computer system. There was almost 40! I did have 2 printers though and their leads accounted for 6 or maybe 7! I don't know what Livejournal is but I remember the free cd's.

Cantilip

Ah, my Amstrad….Ah the simplicity of olden times! Tell you what I do somewhat miss and that's 'plug and play'. An example is printers. I don't print much, scan a bit more but my dear old Deskjet scanned too, print, scan and copy has been around a long time, and all I want to do is click Print and have a page of type slowly churned out. I also get a bit peeved when the browser is updated and I'm proudly presented with pages and pages of things I don't want. I do have Windows 11 and a fair bit of memory or else internet life would be unbearably slow. I have made vids in the past but today I don't actually want to do anything on the computer I couldn't do in Windows 98 in 1997. Internet, MS Word, Excel, Publisher, PhotoShop 5.5. Outlook.

Steve_in_The_City

The trip down memory lane with computers is on-going and makes me laugh. I have attached a photo of my late Uncle A. I took the photo in March 1982 in Marina Del Rey, a suburb of Los Angeles. He died about 20 years ago. He only visited the U.K. once and I am the only Brit he knew, so I hope the moderator will allow the picture to be published. The thing is, the picture shows how big and clunky things were in those days. The massive phone with a lead connecting the headset! The modem which is beneath the old fashioned monitor. And the massive keyboard. And other things! But in 1982 the kit that Uncle A was using was hi-tech!

Albus_Scope

Oh that's a brilliant photo @Steve_in_The_City it's really conjuring up a tonne of memories of the old brick PCs. 😆

egister

Hidden somewhere in the garage is a zx spectrum, XT and packs of IBM punched cards. Maybe)