Today Show from 1994 "What is the Internet?" - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

james t kirk · 02-02-2011, 03:38 AM

YouTube - Today Show January 1994...What is the Internet?!

Priceless. (Love Katie Couric's hair. And the fact that she thought that @ was about)

"Internet is that massive computer thing the one that's become really big now"

You can hear the tech telling them what it is.

"You don't need a phone line to operate it?"

"No No"

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When I was in University in the mid to late 80's we could connect to from McMaster to York, then from York (for some reason) you could connect to many different Universities. I remember connecting to Oxford. It was very primative, but it did exist. I remember using the school "Vax" computers which were brutal when I think back. Just a black and white TV monitor (about 12") in a yellowed plastic box and a very clunky keyboard. There was a huge process just to log on. This was my first real exposure to computers (other than a 1k thning you hooked up to your TV (Seriously)). The "Vax" by Digital I remember was the most frustrating fucking thing in the world. It made me completely despise computers. You'd walk into that computer lab and is just stank of University geeks pounding away all day and night on those clunking keyboards trying to debug fortran code. Fuck me.

I remember in 1988 working a Summer for the Ministry of Something and my boss came up to me and said, "Look at this". He was holding a few sheets of waxy paper. "What is it?" I asked. "It's called a fax", he said. "What's a fax" I asked.

Har.

Didn't hear much about "The internet" again till about 1995 or so when the company I worked for invested in a 14k dial up modem that they hooked up to a central computer (in the words of my boss - he wanted to make sure we would not be goofing off surfing porn on the computer)

snowy · 02-02-2011, 08:42 AM

The radio show Science Friday celebrated its anniversary a couple months ago now, and they replayed several pieces from shows in the past, including one about the Internet from 1993: Science Friday Archives: Science Friday, 1993: The Future of the Internet It was pretty funny to listen to.

I grew up in a pretty small town with very limited access to computers. I was probably one of a handful of students in my school with a home computer, and one of 3 in my homeroom with a computer at home. In spring of 1995, we visited the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, and one of their exhibits at the time was a computer lab with access to the Internet. I think the first thing I looked for was an MTV website (we didn't have MTV where I grew up). When I moved down to Oregon that summer and started at the middle schools there, all of their schools had gotten wired over the summer and every student had Internet access. Intel has a very big presence in that town, and it is definitely felt in the school system. You had to take a special class to actually be able to use the computer, to show that you wouldn't get on and look up porn or whatever. I never got around to taking it at my first school, but at my second middle school, the librarian was much more friendly and more insistent that I needed to take the course. So I did. It was about 15 minutes long, showed you how to open Netscape, and showed you how to access the school district's email via Outlook. I think the first person I emailed was my dad. He was the only other person I knew that had email!

Leto · 02-02-2011, 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by james t kirk

....(in the words of my boss - he wanted to make sure we would not be goofing off surfing porn on the computer)

- where would that be? alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.hamster?

Ourcrazymodern? · 02-03-2011, 05:26 PM

Funny now, sure, & a bracing reminder of how short a time what we all take for granted has existed.

Grancey · 02-03-2011, 11:16 PM

I remember, way back when, a conversation when someone tried to explain the "world wide web" to me. It seems like we got so much technology almost overnight. And those campus computer labs were eerie. There always seemed to be so much paper everywhere.

02-02-2011, 08:42 AM	#2 (permalink)
snowy Kick Ass Kunoichi Location: Oregon	The radio show Science Friday celebrated its anniversary a couple months ago now, and they replayed several pieces from shows in the past, including one about the Internet from 1993: Science Friday Archives: Science Friday, 1993: The Future of the Internet It was pretty funny to listen to. I grew up in a pretty small town with very limited access to computers. I was probably one of a handful of students in my school with a home computer, and one of 3 in my homeroom with a computer at home. In spring of 1995, we visited the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, and one of their exhibits at the time was a computer lab with access to the Internet. I think the first thing I looked for was an MTV website (we didn't have MTV where I grew up). When I moved down to Oregon that summer and started at the middle schools there, all of their schools had gotten wired over the summer and every student had Internet access. Intel has a very big presence in that town, and it is definitely felt in the school system. You had to take a special class to actually be able to use the computer, to show that you wouldn't get on and look up porn or whatever. I never got around to taking it at my first school, but at my second middle school, the librarian was much more friendly and more insistent that I needed to take the course. So I did. It was about 15 minutes long, showed you how to open Netscape, and showed you how to access the school district's email via Outlook. I think the first person I emailed was my dad. He was the only other person I knew that had email! __________________ If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

02-03-2011, 05:26 PM	#4 (permalink)
Ourcrazymodern? still, wondering. Location: South Minneapolis, somewhere near the gorgeous gorge	Funny now, sure, & a bracing reminder of how short a time what we all take for granted has existed. __________________ BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

02-03-2011, 11:16 PM	#5 (permalink)
Grancey Life's short, gotta hurry... Location: land of pit vipers	I remember, way back when, a conversation when someone tried to explain the "world wide web" to me. It seems like we got so much technology almost overnight. And those campus computer labs were eerie. There always seemed to be so much paper everywhere. __________________ Quiet, mild-mannered souls might just turn out to be roaring lions of two-fisted cool.