Happy Birthday Inter(ARPA)net

[J-Sun]

"Watson, come here!" 46 years ago today, the first message was sent from UCLA (from their SDS Sigma 7) to Stanford (to their SDS 940 over the ARPANET.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I've only been using it since 1986 (email on bitnet via a Gateway from x.25 access to a remote server). My earlier use of BBS and Prestel in 1982 wasn't Internet type services.
I had web browser Mosaic from 1994 and my own websites since 1996

 

[Parson]

Wow, how the world has changed in these 46 years!

(I first hooked up to the 'net in 1989, (True Blue 8086) you got me by a few Ray.)

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I first hooked up to the 'net in 1989

I think Tim Berners-Lee published HTML then, but the internet didn't have websites till maybe 1992? Before websites there was FTP, gopher, email and newsgroups on the Internet.

 

[Parson]

Hm, Parson racks his brain trying to bring some order to it. I got my first computer the aforementioned 8088 in 1989. Shortly thereafter, but perhaps longer than I realized, a friend and I linked our two computers together (it took a long time to accomplish) and sent some messages. Since we were connected via long distance telephone it was much more expensive than actually calling one another, so we only did it once. Then a year or two later I joined Compuserve; 199............

[Palm to Forehead!] I was conflating two things. My first computer to computer chatting was about 94, Compuserve 95 .... Sorry!!

 

[anivid]

During the '60s I was an IBM programmer - left it after 5 years for other studies - but during the 1980s, when employed in an international corporation, we used the intranet

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I got my first computer the aforementioned 8088 in 1989.

The internet (but not websites) certainly existed before 1989. But access outside of military, big corporates and University was complicated. So to do email with people on the Nacent Internet I had to get an account on a server in London. It let me send and receive Telexes and fax too. Sending fax from computer, but the server people printed out incoming faxes and posted them in the mail.
I used 300 baud dialup on CP/M to access an X.25 Pad in Belfast, from Co. Clare. Then used commands to navigate UK X.25 network and log on to the server in London. Then I could send/receive X.400, internet mail, fax and Telex.
Dialing Belfast was much cheaper then than dialling London server direct.

There were no ISPs then. My first ISP (and local 28K modem dialup) was IOL in 1994
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland_On-Line

... was reported to have launched "Ireland's first mass-market Internet service" in January 1994.

So I couldn't have used websites any earlier, easily. No ISP to connect to "ordinary" Internet. My 1986 to 1989 account was only a messaging account that provided email gateway only to the Internet.

 

[tinkerdan]

Back in the early 80's at the NSCL at MSU they were beginning to connect all of the University National Labs together. I remember them running all the cable to connect our CAD workstations into it.