# What year did you get online? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 26, 2015, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-year-did-you-get-online/741430 "2015-12-26T22:04:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2016, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-year-did-you-get-online/741430/101 "2016-01-05T16:46:28Z")
1. Got my first email account as part of my freshman stuff in college, and started reading Usenet news feeds and using Gopher shortly thereafter. Used my first actual browser (NCSA Mosaic) in 1993. From about 1989 or so, I had a modem and would connect to various BBSes, and one of them _might_ have had a SMTP gateway or something, but for the most part, it was local content. ---
**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:** [January 5, 2016, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-year-did-you-get-online/741430/102 "2016-01-05T17:30:02Z")
1983 or 84, at college where we could connect to machines off campus. My first job in 1985 I had an admin account on decvax, so I was solidly online at that point. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2016, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-year-did-you-get-online/741430/103 "2016-01-06T15:00:33Z")
I communicated on BBS’s in the mid-late 80’s… let’s say 1988 or thereabouts. I first used “the internet” in 1992 when I got an email/Usenet account in college. ---
**Author:** ![Nelson\_Pike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Nelson\_Pike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nelson_Pike)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2016, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-year-did-you-get-online/741430/104 "2016-01-06T16:02:43Z")
~1997 Online for the first time at work. 6/03 for the first time at home. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2016, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-year-did-you-get-online/741430/105 "2016-01-06T17:19:24Z")
Fall of 1995, at University. I didn’t even really understand what ‘online’ was before that… 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-year-did-you-get-online/741430.md?page=5)