What Do You Miss From Early Internet Days?

[Eco]

One thing I miss, is the lack of addictions there were back in the day. Yeah you had AOL or NetZero, but you also still had your friends banging on your front door to go and play sports, or ride a bike, and go through the woods, whatever. I definitely am happy that I grew up during the era I did, where I wasn't in front of a TV 24/7 or online all day, and instead got the benefits of being outdoors and building friendships that last to this day. 

Now - I will say, that one thing that I appreciated and adored first about the internet, was the instant connection to people from around the world. As a kid that grew up obsessed with chess, it gave me another option to play with more players, play more games, review games easier, and just increased my love for the game.

[CaaC (John)+]

6 hours ago, Gunnersauraus said:

Imagine trying to explain to a kid today that you didnt use to have a phone and when you did it didn't have the internet. They wouldn't know how you managed

It's weird though with the younger generation nowadays, I tried explaining to our 2 eldest grandson's (14 & 15) that in my days we had none of what you lot have nowadays (internet, mobiles, tablets etc) but we just got on with life in general as kids and kept ourselves amused playing football in the local park or streets.

They just looked at me and you could see them thinking "Fuck that, I would be lost without my mobile or internet..." 

[CaaC (John)+]

1 hour ago, Eco said:

As a kid that grew up obsessed with chess, it gave me another option to play with more players, play more games, review games easier, and just increased my love for the game.

And I am still trying to teach Kaiden how to play chess the proper way but every now & then he wants me to play it his way and have battles with the medievil pieces I have in my chess set that cost me a fair bit but he is getting there. 

[Azeem]

Miniclip. Purposely accessing porn first time was really thrilling

[MUFC]

6 hours ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

Just the decentralized, unregulated nature of it all. So much content was free. Free games, information, videos, music. As soon as large corporate entities saw an opportunity to profit, and governments started to regulate beyond blocking illegal content, it's all gone so far downhill. 

This site is a relic, I enjoy message board communities way more than just exposing your opinion to the unwashed masses, but they're all dying off. I hope we can keep this ancient corner of the internet alive for a few years more, because I'll miss this community when it's gone. 

Message boards are slowly fading. There are other message boards I go on which used to be ultra busy years ago. Now there are hardly any people on them. I think the younger generation don't much interest in message boards as we did.

[Stan]

MSN - indirect statuses were the in-thing. Joining massive group chats trying to work out who the fuck everyone was. 

GTA cheat codes 

Brian Lara cheat codes - BIGBALLS

MINICILIP - so many games I'd play for hours and hours. Couronne, Minicilip Pool, Crypt Raider. 

Windows Media Player with the cool graphics to play your song to. 

Omegle

Limewire - downloaded your favourite songs and then realising it was also a virus. 

 

Also not quite Internet, but playing Snake on my mum or dad's Nokia any given time, and doing so for hours. With the rubbery gel-like buttons on the phone. 

[MUFC]

1 hour ago, Stan said:

MSN - indirect statuses were the in-thing. Joining massive group chats trying to work out who the fuck everyone was. 

GTA cheat codes 

Brian Lara cheat codes - BIGBALLS

MINICILIP - so many games I'd play for hours and hours. Couronne, Minicilip Pool, Crypt Raider. 

Windows Media Player with the cool graphics to play your song to. 

Omegle

Limewire - downloaded your favourite songs and then realising it was also a virus. 

 

Also not quite Internet, but playing Snake on my mum or dad's Nokia any given time, and doing so for hours. With the rubbery gel-like buttons on the phone. 

[MUFC]

1 hour ago, Stan said:

MSN - indirect statuses were the in-thing. Joining massive group chats trying to work out who the fuck everyone was. 

GTA cheat codes 

Brian Lara cheat codes - BIGBALLS

MINICILIP - so many games I'd play for hours and hours. Couronne, Minicilip Pool, Crypt Raider. 

Windows Media Player with the cool graphics to play your song to. 

Omegle

Limewire - downloaded your favourite songs and then realising it was also a virus. 

 

Also not quite Internet, but playing Snake on my mum or dad's Nokia any given time, and doing so for hours. With the rubbery gel-like buttons on the phone. 

I remember years back. Used to buy blank DVD's and put the downloaded films from Ares onto DVD. Am sure I use to use Nero for this. Sometimes you'd get the odd movie prior to cinema release.

[Stan]

Just now, MUFC said:

I remember years back. Used to buy blank DVD's and put the downloaded films from Ares onto DVD. Am sure I use to use Nero for this. Sometimes you'd get the odd movie prior to cinema release.

That's a good shout - blank re-writable CDs to put your own mixes on to before iTunes and then Spotify became a thing. 

Napster was also popular back in the day. 

[MUFC]

11 minutes ago, Stan said:

That's a good shout - blank re-writable CDs to put your own mixes on to before iTunes and then Spotify became a thing. 

Napster was also popular back in the day. 

They were 2gb I think. But you could also get 3gb ones which could fit 2 movies on. Some people back then made good money from copied movies.

[CaaC (John)+]

https://www.eonline.com/news/546485/remember-when-everyone-was-on-aol-and-had-embarrassing-screen-names

[MUFC]

5 minutes ago, CaaC (John) said:

https://www.eonline.com/news/546485/remember-when-everyone-was-on-aol-and-had-embarrassing-screen-names

Awol was great. Our College in 1997 had full Internet. Not many in colleges in Manchester had it that year. It was weird, we were teens with a world wide web at our fingers.

[CaaC (John)+]

Screen names in the AOL chat rooms, I forget mine but some were just fucking crazy 

Kewlchickforever
Kool_Bukkake
boomchucka
Myst3rio0usly_d0ps-liAr
wildpurplemonkey

https://tfln.co/17-embarrassing-aol-screen-names/3/

[Eco]

9 hours ago, CaaC (John) said:

And I am still trying to teach Kaiden how to play chess the proper way but every now & then he wants me to play it his way and have battles with the medievil pieces I have in my chess set that cost me a fair bit but he is getting there. 

 

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Well let me know if you need any help. I used to teach underprivileged kids in my area before COVID, and have been teaching kids and adults chess for 10 years now. 

[CaaC (John)+]

27 minutes ago, Eco said:

Well let me know if you need any help. I used to teach underprivileged kids in my area before COVID, and have been teaching kids and adults chess for 10 years now. 

He will be fine buddy and thank's for the offer, he is a quick learner, he is 8 coming up this month and he is going through a lot of stages with things he likes to do, atm he has a craze for plasticine and making wee models of whatever, they started this topic at his school and he loves it.

We got him this plasticine for his Birthday coming up and it's the proper ones they use at his school, had to get it from Amazon and it costs a bit but we are not worried about that as it's part of his Birthday presents, also a picture of some models he made.

 

 

[Coma+]

23 hours ago, nudge said:

mIRC is probably the biggest one. Being able to instantly chat with random people all around the globe was really mind-blowing back then.

Icq was similar.  I remember talking to people in Thailand and England.  Met my wife on there actually 

[Coma+]

12 hours ago, Eco said:

One thing I miss, is the lack of addictions there were back in the day. Yeah you had AOL or NetZero, but you also still had your friends banging on your front door to go and play sports, or ride a bike, and go through the woods, whatever. I definitely am happy that I grew up during the era I did, where I wasn't in front of a TV 24/7 or online all day, and instead got the benefits of being outdoors and building friendships that last to this day. 

Now - I will say, that one thing that I appreciated and adored first about the internet, was the instant connection to people from around the world. As a kid that grew up obsessed with chess, it gave me another option to play with more players, play more games, review games easier, and just increased my love for the game.

I played in a lot of Yahoo games.  Was really big into Euchre at the time.  My wife and I still call each other "p", which was slang for "partner" in those chatroom games.

[Eco]

56 minutes ago, Coma said:

I played in a lot of Yahoo games.  Was really big into Euchre at the time.  My wife and I still call each other "p", which was slang for "partner" in those chatroom games.

Yahoo Chess is where I used to play all the time online. I remember being in the top 10 in the Ladder, with my best friend (and next door neighbor) also being in the ladder. 

How did I stay out of trouble as a youth? 

I played Yahoo Chess for hours, followed by StarCraft for hours. And even when I was outside playing with the kids in the neighborhood, my buddy and I would be discussing strategy for chess or our 2v2 FASTEST maps on Starcraft. 

[MUFC]

https://vanschneider.com/blog/hottest-websites-late-90s/