Alcun Atirutan BBS

Does anybody remember when The Internet was an icon on your desktop?

Sure, it’s older than Windows 95, but this icon represents the 'net as an opt-in experience. It had not yet become a non-stop drip feed of anguish and arousal to your brain. You could still log off.

Good times 😁

@benjedwards oh man, when we would make the express *choice* to go online to do some particular thing. I appreciate the web and connectivity has given us many treasures, but there has certainly been something lost along the way too!

@benjedwards I renamed mine "Cat Videos".

@benjedwards I do. And I also remember spooling the long cable to hook the modem into the phone socket inconveniently placed in a different room.

@benjedwards

@benjedwards https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsNaR6FRuO0

@benjedwards what happened when you clicked on The Internet? (I vaguely remember when Windows looked like that but my earliest memories of "going online" involve Netscape)

@sofiav It opened Microsoft Internet Explorer, the web browser

@benjedwards I remember waiting the right time to access it for a low price, here in Brazil it was between midnight and 6 am

@benjedwards 🤣 so did Internet Explorer not have a name back then?

@benjedwards Oh I do. Sometimes I really miss the need to dial on & the per minute rates of dial up. Those slow speeds coupled with costs meant getting things done & then logging off. Humans without friction are hopeless at moderation.

@benjedwards Yes, I remember that. I would make a "Pepperidge Farms remembers" joke, but I never saw the commercial (and I don't intend to).

@benjedwards But back on topic, it was sort of nice to log off and be disconnected, treating the internet as its own place.

@sofiav It did. I think they just thought it would be more user friendly to have an icon that said "The Internet" :)

https://winworldpc.com/product/internet-explorer/10

@benjedwards I remember it was a total PITA to get all the settings right the first time. Now if you're not connected the computer basically doesn't work

@BTowersCoding hehe yep, great point

@benjedwards The days when you went online and did whatever you had to do as swiftly as you could because you had one eye on the phone bill.

The days when you willed the data to come down the line faster. And prayed the connection would hold long enough to get to the end of the jpeg.

@benjedwards you still can log-off anytime.

@benjedwards
On 3.11 there were Trumpet Winsock and other tcp/up stack diallers. And #mIrc to chat to people in real time. And #netscape. Happy days.
@bornach

@nickb333 @bornach happy painful days! Hehe