When did you first hear about the internet?

[Crazyminnyhaha]

I think I first heard around 94-95 in my tech ed class. We be sending e-mails back and forth to a school in Alaska. I got my first computer in 95 a Gateway. And had the dial up aol service that we could almost never get connected to cause so many people were using it too.

 

[jediX]

1991, I believe. We had a computer at my elementary school with ::gasp!:: a CD ROM that you had to get on a waiting list to use that went online as well. I never used it but watched a teacher use it.

I never personally used it until 1997. We didn't get it until 1998.

 

[minor muppetz]

When I first got cable in 1992, I saw commercials on Nickelodeon that said to visit Nickelodeon online at AOL keyword Nick, but I didn't know what that meant.

I first heard about the internet in 1996 when I was in the seventh grade. My mom had the internet at work (I don't know how long she had it or how long she'd heard about it) and mentioend it to me, telling me that if I had the internet i could learn about a lot of things I liked (including Muppets).

A few weeks/ months later, my mom looked up a Muppet website for me and printed some pages out. For those wondering, the site was called Muppets & Stuff (which later changed to Cartoons & Stuff with the Muppet stuff deleted from the site). What I got that was printed from this site was the main page, the main page of the Muppets Tonight! section of the site, and the Muppet Video Guide that was included at this site. That page also had a Muppet Fast Food guide (which was basically a guide to all muppet products sold at fast food places) and a Muppet Babies episode guide (which is where I first heard that Nickelodeon didn't air every last season episode).

I first got a computer with the internet weeks later. The first website that I looked at was Bill Sherman's Muppet Home Page, and the first part of that site I read was the frequently asked questions page. I had too much homework on the first night that I had the internet, so I couldn't look up too much information. However, on the next night I spent most of the night and most of that saturday online, looking atvarious sections of the Muppet Home Page (I spent a lot of time looking at all of the episode guides, an album guide, the Mupography, and the performers list) before looking at other muppet websites and eventually sites on other topics, such as Looney Tunes, Weird Al Yankovic, and Peanuts.

 

[McFraggle]

I first heard about it around '93-'94, in a Scholastic magazine (hand-out) in school, however I didn't actually first use it until around 1997. Then we got it at home in February of '98.

 

[Labyrinth Fairy]

I got my first computer around 1993 or 1994. but I didn't have access to the net until 1999. but all I went to was pokemon and barbie^^

 

[MGov]

Boy, this will show how old I am. My memory is a little sketchy, but:

My oldest sister worked at a company for a year between her bachelor's degree and her master's degree and she would bring home what looked like a typewriter that was about 2 feet by 2 feet by about 10 inches high. It had the two rubber cups above the typewriter roller. She would dial-up (and I do mean dial) the corporate computer and be connected to the mainframe for the entire corporate network. Then she could print out computer code or company memos. It didn't have a computer screen. And you could play tic tac toe against someone else who was someplace else.

That was in, I think, 1975 or '76. About the only other thing I remember about it was my parents worrying about the phone bill.

I think it was in 1983 when she was telling me about a project she was working on where people could, through their tv's, find pretty much any information they would want, any tv show or movie, all the information in encyclopedias, everything. You'd get a box that would go on top of the tv that would be connected to the phone line and you would use a big remote control to navigate it. The idea at the time, I guess, was that everyone has a tv and most were already being used for video games.

I didn't start using the internet myself until 1993 or '94.

And as a postscript:

I did a little Gooogling to find some reference info, to make sure I wasn't mis-remembering things (I was 10 years old in 1975) and I found this tidbit in a brief chronology of the personal computer. The Alto computer was basically the first desktop computer, though, from pictures I've seen, it WAS the desk.

"1973 March
The first prototype Alto workstation computer is turned on at Xerox' Palo Alto Research Center. Its first screen display is a bitmapped image of the Sesame Street character Cookie Monster."

As for my sister, I can pretty much guarantee that many of you, right at the moment you are reading this, are being affected by her decisions.

 

[Don'tLiveonMoon]

My dad teaches computer science, and he did a College for Kids workshop on the Internet. This was probably 94, 95... thereabouts. I was quite impressed and taken with it, but I didn't use it very much in high school, aside from for research papers and occasional attempts at finding places to submit things. I resisted getting an e-mail address and just used Dad's on the rare occasions when I needed one. Now I wish I'd gotten an e-mail address back in '95 and become a computer geek right then and there. I think I would have kept in touch with my classmates a lot more.
Erin

 

[salemfan]

I first knew about the Internet and e-mail in 1996 when my father got it. Here's my history:
1989-Acquired an old black-and-white computer from somebody after he got a new one-wasn't Internet-ready.
1994-Got my first color computer.
1996-Got the Internet for the first time.

 

[Labyrinth Fairy]

I thought computers were never black and white- instead, black and green.

 

[Katzi428]

Wow...I'd say back in 1998 or 1999.
Here's my computer history:
1983:Was taking Math Workshop in Jr. High & that involved computers.
1996:My family & I got my grandmother's friend's old computer (which was only compatable for playing games )
1997:FINALLY got the Internet on a computer that my dad bought.