Before the internet, we had FidoNet (BBS).
I think I started using the Internet with AOL and then MSN.
this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2026
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I think it was 1996.
Same here.
Same, bought Netscape Navigator on floppy disks because I didn't know how to download it
Edit: not at home, but I recall in 1994 downloading Wayne's World and Ren & Stimpy clips with Gopher on the university network. Good times.
I still have clear memories of trying to download the huuuuuuge 20MB install and a phone call ruining it when it was almost done. All that time, wasted. I think of that every time my phone is now downloading apps updates that are around 90MB in a few seconds.
I miss the excitement of going 14.4>28.8>36.6k baud and 2x>4x>8x CD ROM drives where each update was very noticeable. Nowadays I do the majority of my computer stuff on my phone, so a bit of the magic is gone.
1994 ish
BBS before that
Somewhere around 2010, i was around 15 that time. Had to steal wifi from the neighbors. Placed wifi antenna on the roof through roof window and had a long wire running across the house to my room.
If weather was bad i couldn't get internet connection and every spring i had to dig the antenna out from the snow when it fell off the roof.
Got normalish internet when I got 18 and joined mobile carrier myself, that was limited to 2GB per month before speed was capped to 100kbs.
Shit. Mid nineties somewhere? Though I'd had a chance to fuck around before that
1995/1996 with a PowerMac 6100 and a 33.3k modem and Compuserve.
2005 for me. But then when I moved out I didn’t have regular access until 2010 then I had an another internet hiatus until 2012.
Back in those days, you really had to put effort into having access to it.
Probably around 2015-2016, my dad gave me a profile on his macbook to play with.
1997
1991 or so by local university dialup that had a backdoor. People on local BBS clued me in.
After that backdoor was closed, a handful of student accounts kept me online until a local ISP launched.
Possibly as soon as 1985 through Q-Link, though I don't recall it until 88 or 89 - so I'm not sure when my folks first got in.
Me personally, around 1990.
We got dial-up in 1998 and ADSL in 2001. VDSL in 2012 and now waiting for fiber to become available in my street.
Roughly 1996, we would dial up though the local college