# How long have you been using the internet? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 10, 2013, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-you-been-using-the-internet/668522 "2013-09-10T20:19:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-you-been-using-the-internet/668522/41 "2013-09-11T04:07:58Z")
I was using email in my job by 1990 at the latest, and maybe as early as 1987. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-you-been-using-the-internet/668522/42 "2013-09-11T04:13:25Z")
I got my first computer in 1996, at the age of 30 (the only reason I didn’t have one before that was “money” - I’d loved computers since high school, but never could afford one of my own) and I got online later the same year. I’ve done the progression of 28.8k, 56.6k, ISDN, DSL, 5gb fiber optics, and now 25gb cable internet. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-you-been-using-the-internet/668522/43 "2013-09-11T04:23:47Z")
1995, when I went off to college. ---
**Author:** ![Gleena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b3f665/32.png) [@Gleena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gleena)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-you-been-using-the-internet/668522/44 "2013-09-11T05:01:37Z")
Before 1995 but I don’t remember when. I remember it was before then because I told everybody I knew on Usenet (alt.atheism, alt.music.rush, talk.origins) and AOL (yes, not the internet, but I was on Usenet first) that I was pregnant with my son that I eventually always referred to as Tiny Rush Fan, or TRF. Tiny Rush Fan turned 18 a couple of weeks ago. He is no longer Tiny. He does love Rush. (The band, obvs.) Therefore it was likely 92 for AOL and 93 for the internet, but I simply don’t remember. ---
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-you-been-using-the-internet/668522/45 "2013-09-11T05:06:32Z")
I had my AOL on my Compaq Presario in the winter of 1995. ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-you-been-using-the-internet/668522/46 "2013-09-11T06:36:07Z")
1989, in college. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-you-been-using-the-internet/668522/47 "2013-09-11T07:07:17Z")
I played my first MUD in 1991, I think. Got my first email addie the next year. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-you-been-using-the-internet/668522/48 "2013-09-11T07:23:09Z")
I was first told about the existence of email (by a professor) in 1991, and a friend insisted I get it in 1994, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t actually get an account (hotmail) until around August 1997. Late 1997 (IIRC) was also when I made my first Amazon purchase – Pynchon’s _Mason and Dixon_ (I inscribed it as “purchased in cyberspace” or something like that). By then I think I had an aol account as well, so I must have been “surfing the World Wide Web” by Christmas 1997. My stepfather was using CompuServe to check his bank statements and such back around the spring of 1994, and I participated in that, but I don’t count it, as it wasn’t my own activity. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-you-been-using-the-internet/668522/49 "2013-09-11T07:38:20Z")
I can’t remember specifically, it is a bit of a blur, but I think it was 1995. My flatmate had a BBS of his own, which he ran through the 90s. The Web started to emerge into my view via him, where because he thought the future of computing was going to be Bulletin Boards and Newsgroups, whereas I was getting excited by downloadable sound files and image galleries, he resisted connecting to an ISP. So I remember convincing my Mum to connect, and I would visit her house to play on it for free. And then I remember getting my own PC and connecting to it, a year or so before I got my first Website Design job (where I knew nothing of HTML, but was given three paid months to learn) in 1997. So backtracking from there makes it around 1995 for me. I can remember when Netscape Navigator upgraded to version 2.0 so that it could play animated gifs, and it thrilled me. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-you-been-using-the-internet/668522/50 "2013-09-11T07:43:42Z")
Obviously this message board is full of OLD FOGEYS DISINTEGRATING FROM SHEER AGE!!! ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-you-been-using-the-internet/668522/51 "2013-09-11T08:21:44Z")
ETA: My earliest direct experience with an Internet _precursor_ was in 1988, when I was shown the French system Minitel. Leaper: Ha! But we can still type. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-you-been-using-the-internet/668522/52 "2013-09-11T09:32:23Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > Obviously this message board is full of OLD FOGEYS DISINTEGRATING FROM SHEER AGE!!! Yeah, yeah – my first use of a computer was back in 1964, when I was still a teenager, and I was taught how to program two different computers. But that was long before the Internet. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-you-been-using-the-internet/668522/53 "2013-09-11T15:54:19Z")
I remember that Win95 made it much easier to get on the Internet, it included a good Winsock (Windows Sockets), whereas in Win3.1 you had to mess with the config.sys and autoexec.bat file, and third-party Winsock software. So I was definitely on before 1995. I remember Gopher, Archie, Mosaic, all that stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-you-been-using-the-internet/668522/54 "2013-09-11T16:19:32Z")
Had email at DEC back in 1981, and since we connected through decvax I’ll consider it the Internet. I didn’t get an actual account on decvax until 1985. ---
**Author:** ![Pixel\_Dent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc8723/32.png) [@Pixel\_Dent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixel_Dent)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-you-been-using-the-internet/668522/55 "2013-09-11T16:37:49Z")
In the early 80s I ran a BBS which around 1984 joined FidoNet. Still not the internet but it did use store and forward to allow forum messages and email to be transmitted all over the world. In 1986 I got my first real internet account. I can find usenet messages from myself going back to 88 but I know there were earlier ones. I don’t think google has archives of talk.bizarre from back then which was my most common hangout. I have personal archives of email with bang paths for addresses. In 88 I was a few doors down the hall from Morris’ office when he released the internet worm. That was an exciting few days and I was terrified someone thought I was involved because all my accounts were locked. It turned out they had done that for everyone’s accounts but I didn’t know that at the time. Around 89 I was at a university and some people I was sharing a house with decided we wanted to design a platform independent “smart client” for a BBS network. I found the specs and source code recently and it was very similary to an html browser with similar ideas like tables you could put text or images into based on percentages of screen width. The main difference was we designed ours using RPN instead of XML which was obviously a dead end. Then we all got real jobs and that project was scrapped. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-you-been-using-the-internet/668522/56 "2013-09-11T16:39:11Z")
Just squeaked into the “before 1995” category by a few weeks, I think. I started university in September 1994 and got my first email address, then a few months later they installed the Mosaic web browser, and that was the end of my chances of ever concentrating on real work ever again. I still have the muscle memory of typing in my university logon, 15 years after I last used it. ```auto l torside/ch9424144 ``` 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Trom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Trom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trom)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-you-been-using-the-internet/668522/57 "2013-09-11T16:44:26Z")
I remember my dad having something that dialed into something on our Apple IIGS sometime in the early 90s when I was 9 years old. After that I remember logging on to [eWorld.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eworld) ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-you-been-using-the-internet/668522/58 "2013-09-11T16:44:28Z")
I voted wrong. I got my first home computer in 1998 but for some reason I put 95-96. I had been on the Web on the school library computers before then but I wasn’t actually _doing_ anything. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-you-been-using-the-internet/668522/59 "2013-09-11T16:47:30Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > Obviously this message board is full of OLD FOGEYS DISINTEGRATING FROM SHEER AGE!!! I remember when FTP stood for File Transfer Protocol, not Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-you-been-using-the-internet/668522/60 "2013-09-11T17:10:53Z")
Another who was on AoL in the early '90s. > [@squeegee](#): > > Come on people - using a modem to dial into a BBS or (80’s) Compuserve or whatever is not the same as being on the [internet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet) – you’re dialing into a _private_ network. Some of those BBSs were capable of email, thereby meeting the OP’s requirement. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-you-been-using-the-internet/668522.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-have-you-been-using-the-internet/668522.md?page=4)