I went on AOHell in October of 1994. We had a dial-up 14.4 modem and my mother splurged to put a second phone line in so that she could still take phone calls while downloading files. We kept a kitchen timer by the computer, set for an hour. When it went DING, you shut down. AOHell was billed hourly then.
I’m still in touch with one person I met online way back then. Not too shabby. We keep in touch on FaceBook now, of course. Chatrooms are so passé.
First got online sometime mid to late 80s. Got my own account a few years later. Maybe 1992?
The 80s stuff was thru work and a friend’s work, not regularly and not my own account.
Dates are vague because I have no records and memory is a bitch, ya know?
don’t remember the exact year. When was Prodigy a thing? we had a 386-based PC at the time.
Same here, only later - more like 1990 or 1991. Then moved to Prodigy and Juno email.
2005 or so; I joined the SDMB soon after.
1988 or 1989, mainly using BBS’s.
I believe it was 1985. At least I remember talking to people about getting files and “freeware-a new concept to me” at that time. I also remember going through contortions to get my Mac online. The TCP/IP stack wasn’t part of the OS at the time and one had to load your own-and then get programs to work with it.
But as to when I learned about the “Internet”-1991. I remember the day. I asked a knowledgable co-worker for help locating a standard (TIF) and after a couple of minutes he asked me for the name of the printer closest to my desk. He told me he had located the document at the U. of Minnesota. I raced down to his office to learn how he had done that. I was planning on going over to the library and getting it via inter-library loan as I had always done. I actually gave a seminar at my company on this wonderful new concept that would revolutionize how people did business. 
We got our first computer around my 12th birthday, so 1997.
I started using BBSes back in the early 80s. I used some basic networks over dial-up late in the decade, but didn’t get to the internet proper until the early 90s.
1975 at school, then 1988 for CompuServe at home. I had a three digit user number (though most were four digit and I guess mine was recycled). The next year they started allowing emails to non-CompuServe addresses.
1984 at U. Waterloo, when DNS was the brand spanking new, the number of nodes was somewhere about a thousand, I put together an on-line learning course used at Waterloo and U of Toronto, and DEC asked us “Is there a future in word processing?”
'92 Compuserve
I’d had a Commodore 64 in the 80s, but never owned a modem (which, at the time, was a device that you actually put your phone handset down on after dialing up your BBS).
For the Compuserve users. Did they always charge fees for the time spent downloading?
That’s what made me leave after a few months in 1987 or 88. I routinely dl shareware from local BBB’s for free. I got some software from CompuServe at 1200 baud and was shocked at the cost. Canceled soon after. I couldn’t afford the charges. I don’t recall if it was charged to my phone or a bill from Compuserve. Either way it was too much. Especially when I discovered the software didn’t do what I needed.
Had a similar problem with the BBS Byte magazine ran. They profiled a cool utility in each months magazine. They were often disk drive storage management utilities. Free on their BBS. But, it was a long distance call to reach that BBS. Oh man, did I have one horrific phone bill. Learned a tough lesson.
It’s a bit of a blur. I had a flatmate who was into BBS throughout the 90s, he had even set up one of his own, so my introduction to the internet faded in very piecemeal while looking over somebody else’s shoulder.
I convinced my mother to buy a PC and get online I think in 1995, which I used for about a year before I finally could afford to get my own, which was probably in 1996 sometime.
I do know for certain that in 1997 I started a job as a website designer, so, working backwards, I must have had at least a year of familiarity with the internet before then (with something like a 6 month margin for error).
I made a friend in the chat room, who turned into a penpal until I got online, and here we are 17 years later and we’re still Facebook friends.
I joined GEnie in 1989.
I’m not sure when I got full Internet access, but since I’ve been on the SDMB since 1999, it was probably then.
'98, I think, on dial-up and a Compaq 90. I was so happy when we moved in 2000 and I got cable internet for the first time - what a difference!!!
My mom has been doing a happy dance all month - her area finally got FIOS and she was able to get rid of her satellite internet provider (she lives in the boonies.) She’s been on line at least 14 years, probably more. She now does all her bill-paying and banking on line, and that’s very impressive for an 80+ technophobe. She can’t set things up, but when you get her options the way she likes them, off she goes!
