What did you first go search for when you had your first computer? (page 3)

greendawn

So Jim when was the first time that the net became available to the general population? I suppose at first it was at very low speeds, no graphics and not much on the www to search for.

unclebruce

My first time online was in November 1999.

Practically right away I searched JW stuff, found Randy's site and my printer never stopped for two days.

I saw a link that said discussion, pressed the button and was taken to a site called H20. There I saw a pile of people stating the bleeding obvious - that the Watchtower religion is a cruel fraud. I saw a serious guy called Farkel and thought "I'm hav'n him!"

Jim_TX

"So Jim when was the first time that the net became available to the general population? I suppose at first it was at very low speeds, no graphics and not much on the www to search for."

Hmmm... good question. If I recall correctly, the first times that I used the internet was at work - via an internet connection that we had there.

There weren't search engines like 'google' - but there were ways to locate archived information. I don't recall the buzzword that described it... but you would basically send out a 'request' for information on a topic, and it would go searching all of the computers it was linked to. The process would return results within a day... or several days later. It was all text. No graphics (oh! the horror!). Kinda like a 'web crawler'. You then had to use ftp (if I recall correctly) to log on to that computer, and retrieve the information.

When I first started using the internet at home, it was on my Amiga, and there were still very few that used graphics. Mostly text.

I remember one summer, my ex-wife went to Cancun with her sister for 3 days. I spent an afternoon searching (again - pre-Google) for anything in Cancun. I finally found some sort of link - someone down there who had an e-mail address, and some sort of business in Cancun. I sent him an e-mail asking him if he would be kind enouh to relay a message to someone (the ex-wife), staying at XYZ Hotel.

He replied that he would be glad to. I sent a neat little message to the ex-wife, all proud of myself - that I had found a way to 'communicate' with her - for free - all the way down to Cancun. Well, I never heard anything back. I figured that the fella didn't deliver the message. Oh well.

When the ex-wife got back, I mentioned what I had done. She said, "Oh! We got the message. It was left at the front desk." I asked her why she didn't try to reply to it? She just sorta gave me a blank look and said "Oh. I didn't think of that."

Anyway... the internet has progressed quite a bit from when I first started dabbling with it.

Regards,

Jim TX

greendawn

Certainly the internet has progressed a lot since those early days as speeds of 6 Mb (megabit)which is equivalent to 6000 Kb are becoming now commonplace. It's a long way since the early 2 Kb or even the later 56 Kb speeds .

drew sagan

I checked out my favorite musicians webpage, beck.com

stillajwexelder

porn - what else?

daystar

Stilla

I still miss your old cleavage avatar... speaking of porn...

Finally-Free

The first time I went online was in 1995, and I was a very good JW. I just signed up for a Compuserve account, and I had just started looking for some technical information about windows 95, which was pissing me off in a big way. I soon got a message saying that someone wanted to chat with me about windows 95. I immediately realized, by the name, the person was female. Evidently she was being controlled by Satan, and a "windows 95 question" was obviously just a ruse to entice me into some kind of sexual escapade which would destroy my relationship with Jehovah. I didn't answer her. Instead I promptly disconnected from Compuserve, shut down my computer, and went out to the living room to read something upduilding.

W

Soledad

My dad bought me my first computer in 1993. I didn't have a modem so I didn't connect to anything. I just used the PC to play solitaire and some weird DOS game, type homework assignments ( I had Microsoft Works) and keep a journal on floppy disks.

The first time I accessed the internet was in college circa 1998. It was part of a lab assignment for my Sociology of Law class. The professor showed us how to use search engines, such as alta vista and lycos. It just so happens one of the cases we had to research was the 1943 Supreme Court case about the Jehovah's Witness children who refused to salute the flag----I completely forget the name of the case. Typing the word "Jehovah's Witnesses" in the search engine was------I can't describe what that was like. I had been having doubts for about 5 years and at that point was inactive for over 1 year. I then completely tuned out my professor and just keep looking and looking, seeing all this stuff written about the JWs, the big glaring flaws in the doctrine and how in fact they are a cult (which deep in my heart I knew!) I think one of the first sites I found was Support Group for ex-JWs. I went home that same day, connected my old computer to a 14.4K modem that my older sister dumped on me, logged onto MiningCo.com, and the rest was history.

What did you first go search for when you had your first computer?

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