Well, most ppl here have come clear that this is a really great bord. But where did you go before you came here?
Now me:
I started my online life in an Austrian chat (OE3) as a spammer, then I changed my name and became a nice little chatter.
Then I went to a small “Titanic” chat and spent every single evening with the same ppl. (No, I didnt have a life at that time.
Followed by my geoshitties chat times, which ended only because it was closed. I was a regular at the html help - first as the typical “Do I really have to upload pictures too?” to the answergirl.
That was the end of real time chats and I startede my bords career in a self help group at delphi. (WOM)
After that I went off to SAAN (Smile and act nice).
Then there was marijuana.com where I was the most wanted because the moderator detested me. I am actually proud of that.
I left SAAN when they started fighting each others and I thought I might well leave for a ruder place - which was SA (Something Awful)
End of story.
Now I am here.
As long as this list has become I feel very old now…
I think I ll lean back in a rocking chair now and tell my grandchildren a story…
Once upon a time…
I started out in a Christian Singles 20-25 AOL chatroom, and hung out there almost nightly for several months.
I also hung out in several similar chatrooms that were through, I think, Christianity Online, or whatever it is/was.
Then I found message boards. I started with “Premarital Sex” and “Staying Sexually Pure” boards on Christianity Online, mainly because I was growing up (and away) from older, more traditional beliefs and was looking for open-minded discussion. Boy howdy, I didn’t get it. The conversations in those threads were the ugliest things I’ve seen, right up there with the worst of the Pit flames we have around here. And not only were they ugly, they were ignorant, often redundant, and just plain intolerant. Yuck. I left after some of the stupidest stuff imaginable was being said, and sactioned.
Then I found the SDMB–on the old AOL boards. The rest is history…I’ve just followed the SD around since then!
I’ve been on the net forever…and thats not an exaggeration either. I know all the in’s and out’s of this world wide web, it truly is a wonderful place.
Let’s see.
In 1983, my dad had an Apple IIe and was trying to come up with things that would interest me and make me more willing to learn how to use the computer. He showed me how the software worked and gave me a couple of phone numbers. (This was all in Michigan.)
I dabbled a bit, and finally stumbled upon a chat board called Amusers, Inc. Made a couple of friends on there, sort of, but it wasn’t what I was looking for…besides which the female/male ratio was still about 1/50, so I got hit on ALL THE TIME, even though by then I was only 15. Found a few more numbers, and started calling Stardock on a regular basis…and within a week they had me modding their “advice column” sub. (By the way, Brad (Macros) and Dennis (The Mage), if you guys are out there, drop me a freakin’ line or something.)
Then I went to college, and played on the VAX system a bit. Bad move. First experience with people on computers who really had no business whatsoever being on computers…1988-90.
Moved to Virginia with a couple of phone numbers in tow. Called mostly WWIVnet and WWIVLink boards, with a couple of FIDO boards in the mix for grins. Had AOL off and on for a couple of years because we’d use the free trial, not subscribe, use the free trial, not subscribe, lather, rinse, repeat, because for several years after I got married (1993) we couldn’t afford actual internet access. Still called the boards occasionally, but as the internet got more popular the boards got worse and worse. Finally got relatively consistent internet access (thank you, Netzero) about 2 1/2 years ago…and by the time we were thoroughly sick of Netzero’s banner, we could finally afford to PAY for banner-free internet, and shortly thereafter we got the DSL hookup and I’ve been a happy camper ever since.
As far as internet boards…sorry, “message bases”…I hung out at ivillage for a while, but the whole Donna Reed vibe I got irked me. I found Hissyfit, where I still post occasionally (as well as Fametracker), and stumbled upon these earlier this year.
And my handle has been “Hamadryad” since I started out in '83.
Dodgy - Maybe Jimmy and I won’t have to come across the pond after all…
Whereas some people seem to have been born on the WWW I am still a relative baby. My life only started four years ago and just look how much I’ve grown.
I used to spend a lot of time chatting with the nice folks over at Acme Pets and made a lot of good friends. Our mutual interest and passion was our birds.
From there I started hanging out at The Globe where I made a fair reputation for myself, fought some great battles, and started my on little empire. We made some really great friends.
I moved the empire (fittingly called the Feynndom) over to Delphi about a year ago and the move has been a good one. We don’t do anything in particular except hang out, play games, and it is one way for many of us to keep in touch.
I arrived here in May after Lola told me about the SDMB and have been enjoying myself immensely. Lola and I have met some great people and developed a good friendship with one of the Dopers. I might even make a few more friends here…
I am a traveller and my interests take me everywhere. Who knows where I will popping up next…
We bought a Tandy 1000TX in 1989 and joined something called PC Link, a service provided by something called Quantum Computer Services (which was run by a guy named Steve Case). (They also had an AppleLink board and one for Commodores, but the two were not compatible.)
Both my wife and I became part of the on-line staff, equivalent to Moderators on this board, but responsible for the entire People Connection and for hosting events in chat.
Some years later, they devised a way to integrate the three boards into one, and came up with this silly name about bringing all America online on one board. By then, we’d been forced by my heart attack and money problems to depart from our role.
And yeah, when I wasn’t a PC Guide there, I was Polycarp.
I can only vaguely remember signing up with AOL sometime ago. After being disgusted with going into their chat rooms and finding my email box stuffed with porn the next morning, I looked around and stumbled upon this strange but wonderful place called The Straight Dope. It all sort of blurs after that. May I post now?
(What? Do I really have to date myself and talk about running programs on CDC 6400’s, 6600’s and Univac’s?)
I started out on an Atari (whatever that brown one with the keyboard and two cartridge slots was called). You had to have a terminal program cartridge in to dial the local BBSes on my 300 baud modem. I mostly went by Archangel back in the day. I was a regular on a few BBs, an electronics one (HSC) that was one of the first in Northern CA and a poetry board (Emil’s World) that was local but was part of a larger relay.
After that I had a two year break (Joined the Army) and finally got a real computer. I mostly was on IRC at that time, whatever channel interested me.
Then I got a better computer right around the time ICQ came out. I got away from IRC and headed towards the new MUDs like Meridian 64 (which was a MAJOR addiction for about 8 months, usually spent ~11-12 hours playing/night).
I finally got fed up with that and started partying a lot (went out dancing/drinking 4-5 nights a week) and so had no time to be online.
When I got out of the army in Jan 99, a friend showed me the board and I’ve been here and in chat(#straightdope) since around Oct 99.
We got our first “real” computer (the Tandy doesn’t count), an IBM compatible 486sx, in 1994. In early 1995, a neighbor loaned me his old 2800 bps modem and a print-out of Salem area BBSs. Since Salem was a long distance phone call, I was soon running up $400+ phone bills every month (I was living with my parents, I didn’t have anything else to spend my money on anyway–or so I keep telling myself). I met my husband on a now-defunct Salem chat-board called PLN (Party Line NW), so it was worth it (or so I keep telling myself ;)). Anyway, the BBSs kept me entertained until my husband and I got married, moved closer to Salem, and bought a better computer with a faster modem. We signed up for AOL in about Decemember of 1998, I found the SD in March of 1999, and the rest is history. (I’m leaving out the years I’ve been using the internet illicitly from work.) The end.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
…sometime later, like in the early 80’s, I started calling BBS’s at a friends house, mainly because I was too poor to own a computer. This went on until 1994 rolled around. I called BBS’s for ages. Mostly The Inner Sanctum. Where I met the guy who gave me my first Commie64. With a 300 baud modem. And, in 1992, got on this wonderful thing available to guys who could afford to go to real universities and stuff, the internet. By 1994, I’d been through a old PC AT clone, bought my first computer (486/33, 4meg, 14.4 modem) and gotten my first internet account. I found IRC on my second day online, and a channel shortly thereafter. (#Callahan’s). I was there for… well, I still show up there sometimes, but I’ve been there so long no one knows me.
So, back in May, I noticed that the straight dope had a message board. So, I’m back to what amounts to BBSing.
Online? Shoot, I’m a youngster, really. The company I worked for in Nashville got email in 1996 and used AOL as its host for it so in addition to having an “@aol.com” address, we got the wonderful addition of surfing (no monitoring etc! It was great).
I had a couple of Cecil’s books before I ever found the page and actually didn’t ever find it on AOL. When I moved back home and started working (that’s a very relative term) for the bank, I had lots of surfing time and found a link to straightdope.com from somewhere. It actually took me about a month to figure out the whole bulletin board thing. I had been posting at woman.com (good people, bad board set up) and a few like that but really got into it on the Straight Dope. And, except for a few brief departures for job related reasons, I’m still here today.
Plus, I don’t even have my own computer yet - I’ve been leaching off my workplaces for as long as I’ve been on-line! I don’t know whether to be proud of that or ashamed!
I didn’t really get into PC’s all that much until my dad came home one day in the summer of 1987 with a Tandy 1400 Laptop. It was an IBM compatible with 720 Kb memory and 2 3.5" high density disk drives and a 1200 bps modem. After figuring out MS DOS, I wanted to get the modem working. I had heard that there were some BBS’s around Kalamazoo that you could dial into. I started calling some Citadel 86 systems that were around as well as some WildCat BBS systems. At that point, I was hooked.
I figured out how to dial into WMU’s VAX-VMS system and proceded to do my programming homework from home instead of the lab.
I sort of got away from the BBS’s for awhile and finnished up school. Then I got married and did AOL for a year, but dropped it when I moved to an area that didn’t have a local number. That’s when I got my first internet account and I’ve been online ever since. I never really did any discussion boards until I came upon the Straight Dope earlier this year. So there you have it.
1990: started reading BBS’s off other people’s computers
1993: got access at school, got onto a few newsgroups, got pissed off and left a few newsgroups
1996: discovered nitcentral.com, where smart people nitpick their favourite tv shows; I still post there, under this name
1999: joined a few yahoo message boards, got disgusted with the general childishness and left
2000: discovered the SDMB and snopes, and have been spoiled for anything else
I began when my friend got a new 486 and this strange program called “AOL”. This was back in the day when AOL used to charge $2.95/min. I’m sure my friend didn’t like my online encounters as it probably added to his monthly bill.
After AOL turned to $19.95 monthly, I got AOL that faithful December 1996. It definitely put my life on hold as I went online every night, often tying up the phone line. I regularly visted the “Los Angeles” chat rooms, as well as some online people I talked to in the “Sacramento” chat rooms.
In October 1998, cable modem was available by MediaOne. I was fortunate to be one of the few in my neighborhood at that time to have it (let alone know about it) so my bandwidth was kickass. With that, I began regular visits to mIRC, although mIRC was lacking in conversations…
Eventually I got terribly bored of the content online as it only consisted of Internet Movie Database or browsing people’s personal pages, which all looked the same after a while. However, a friend of mine made mention of Straight Dope and I read all of Cecil’s columns, completely unaware of the hidden treasure here. One of my other friends began posting here and I got hooked (sort of). Since April 2000, I’ve been posting about once a day on the average and been reading quite a bit of the other threads that I didn’t post to. The rest is history…
This is my first message board. I moonlight a few others, now and then, but this is my main pad.
…
About 4 or 5 years ago I used to chat 'round on AOL. Got kinda bored with it and got away from the Internet for a few years.
Earlier this year, while dabbling around on AOL, I found the Straight Dope site. I then proceded to spend a few weeks reading lots, if not all, of Cecil’s columns.
After that, I discovered the message boards here. Then in all fun–just to see what would happen, I posted all these silly, arrogent, sex threads. Heh, to my surprise, I caused a total uproar. I basically took over MPSIMS for 2 weeks, got something like 1,000 responses directed at me (I actually counted them once, I forget the exact number) from the whole board, and I was discussed on a many other boards. It still makes me wonder how I got all that attention when I didn’t expect any at all. I was just bored. Lol!
Anyway, as I hung around the boards for the following few weeks: I came to enjoy the place. So I changed my name, posted me, and now I am one of the “Doper Crew.” It’s been an interesting trip [sub]to say the least!!![/sub]
…and that’s my online story in a nutshell.
About 6 years ago is when I finally got online. At first, my parents would not let me use any chatrooms of any sort. After their paranoia wore off a little, I visited QuickChatCafe, where I was a regular little cyber-slut for several years. That site was taken down for a bit, so I floated from room to room, none of them very interesting. When I found the Internet Infidels’ message board, I became instantly hooked. Of course, that too was taken down. Finally, after drifting back and forth aimlessly, QCC came back, as did the II message board. Then, miracle of miracles, I stumbled upon the SDMB.
I am actually proud of that.