# Lifestyles & Discussion > Science & Technology >  Bryant Gumbel 1994, "What is the internet anyway?"

## presence

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow...143754639.html

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## Cleaner44

Bryant later discovered the internet would deliver him porn and all hours and in all styles.  Bryant has not be seen on since.

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## green73

VCRs were still around in '97?

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## CPUd



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## pcosmar

I started late..but this is good,, if you want a chuckle.

http://www.adequacy.org/public/stori...2056.2147.html

Oh,, and look around the site,, there are some gut busting jewels.

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## angelatc

We got our first home computer in 1995 or 96.  We were young professionals, and we were the first in our social circle to have one.  And even then, for the first year we were on dialup bbs , not the internet.  We only went there after our fellow gamers started disappearing, never to return.

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## angelatc

> I started late..but this is good,, if you want a chuckle.
> 
> http://www.adequacy.org/public/stori...2056.2147.html
> 
> Oh,, and look around the site,, there are some gut busting jewels.



Thats hysterical!  


> Popular hacker software includes "Comet Cursor", "Bonzi Buddy" and "Flash".


I cant figure out if it is satrire or if that poor guy is really that confused.

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## RockEnds

In 97, I was working in a mom & pop computer store charging $65 an hour to teach people how to plug in a computer and find the on/off switch.

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## ClydeCoulter

In the mid 80's I was experimenting with a computer that was contained in the cable converter set-top boxes.  We could download our programs over the TV cable and run them on the set-top box.  The president of the company (main business was cable billing) would get changes made based on our successes and desires.  Like adding a 2nd graphics processor, joystick, more memory, etc...  That is when I figured out how to do 3D programing for graphics (sine tables, in TI assembly language).

In the late 80's and early 90's there were BBS systems that you could dial in to.  Lots of fun stuff there and research could be done.  People began to share programs and shareware was also born.

All of this before the internet became famous.

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## ClydeCoulter

> I started late..but this is good,, if you want a chuckle.
> 
> http://www.adequacy.org/public/stori...2056.2147.html
> 
> Oh,, and look around the site,, there are some gut busting jewels.


Is that stuff for real? ROFL  As in someone actually posted that stuff for parents to read?

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## pcosmar

> Is that stuff for real? ROFL  As in someone actually posted that stuff for parents to read?


Hard to tell. I think it was a spoof,, but I have met people with similar understandings,, and they were serious.

Another one was Shelly the Republican. I am sure it was a spoof,, but again, I have met some,,,,
http://shelleytherepublican.blogspot.com/

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## Occam's Banana

Got my first computer back around 1983 or so: a Sinclair ZX81. God, I loved that thing. Whish I still had it ...

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## CaptUSA

My first:

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## catfeathers

My parents bought a Commodore 128 in about 1986. I helped my sister write a lot of papers for high school on that thing, I had graduated by then . My brother had some kind of computer and was going to dial up BBS before I moved away in 1992. My brother and dad got hotmail accounts so early that they are their names with no numbers.

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## Henry Rogue

> 


I thought the internet and the world wide web were the same thing. Learn something new every day. We got our first computer in "03", we had dial up for several years so i did not surf much, just too darn slow for my patience. First thing I tried to do after hooking it up, was print something. I click print nothing happened, I clicked again nothing happened, click, click, click, click....... then it starts printing. I think I ended up printing about ten copies of the same thing. I had to learn patience, when working with computers. No instant feedback like operating machinery or power tools.

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## presence

My first 1986:

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## Brian4Liberty

Just plug in that floppy disk, install AOL, dial-up your high-speed service provider on a local telephone number, and you are surfing the Internet!

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## BlackTerrel

One of my favorite professors, incredibly smart guy once told our class how when he first heard of the fax machine he said:

"that is stupid, why would anyone ever need information that fast".

At the time there was already overnight delivery and he didn't see a need for anything faster.

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## Carson

*"Bryant Gumbel 1994, "What is the internet anyway?""*



Tubes! Lots and lots of tubes!



http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/1...-data-centers/

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## Brian4Liberty

When I first saw internet technology (Mosaic), I wondered who would create the content. No one ever wanted to do "data entry". Who would have thought that everyone would want to "enter data" 24x7?

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## VIDEODROME

We started with this piece of $#@!.

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## angelatc

> When I first saw internet technology (Mosaic), I wondered who would create the content. No one ever wanted to do "data entry". Who would have thought that everyone would want to "enter data" 24x7?


I had to take some sort of "Intro to Computers" in college, and I remember reading that the early pioneers in the technology thought we would all program our machines ourselves.

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## jdmyprez_deo_vindice

My Father's job meant that we had computers in the house from the day I was born in 1980. Some of my earliest memories involve playing on his computer systems. We got the internet in our home in 1992 through AOL and every time we dialed up it was a long distance call.

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## CPUd

> I had to take some sort of "Intro to Computers" in college, and I remember reading that the early pioneers in the technology thought we would all program our machines ourselves.





http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/A-level...nstruction_set

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## RockEnds

I first saw the internet at a college computer lab, and I really didn't care for it.  It really didn't look as exciting as playing Lemmings on my 386.  Then in late 95 or early 96, my area could get dial-up service without paying for long distance.  I bought a new Pentium with win95, and I haven't played Lemmings for a long, long time.

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## GunnyFreedom

Had a TRS-80, Commodore VIC-20, Commodore 64, Texas Instruments TI-99, Mac Plus (Presence Post #16), and so on.

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## Carson

> I first saw the internet at a college computer lab, and I really didn't care for it.  It really didn't look as exciting as playing Lemmings on my 386.  Then in late 95 or early 96, my area could get dial-up service without paying for long distance.  I bought a new Pentium with win95, and I haven't played Lemmings for a long, long time.
> 
> [vide  o=youtube;qZe_fHPdVFM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZe_fHPdVFM[/video]


Does it get any better than Lemmings!

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## ronpaulfollower999

> VCRs were still around in '97?


I still have one....

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## ronpaulfollower999

AOL? lol...God forbid if you want to make a phone call while surfing the web. Multiple times I tried logging on, then get yelled at by my mom for the loud dial tone playing in her ear (because she was on the phone).  

I remember upgrading from Windows 98 to Windows XP and being so excited because AOL seemed so much faster.  I still have that computer, and still regularly use Windows XP.

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## ronpaulfollower999

And I'm not old...but I used actual book encyclopedias, and wrote reports on a typewriter until I got to middle school. I'm probably part of the last generation that had to use actual books.

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## Brian4Liberty

I programmed with punch cards, and printed out on green-bar, fanfold paper, and walked to school through 10 foot deep snowdrifts, uphill, both ways! You damn whippersnappers with your fancy intertubes and Facelooks and Spaced Invaders video gamers!

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## GunnyFreedom

> I programmed with punch cards, and printed out on green-bar, fanfold paper, and walked to school through 10 foot deep snowdrifts, uphill, both ways! You damn whippersnappers with your fancy intertubes and Facelooks and Spaced Invaders video gamers!


You forgot flipping core bits from 1 to 0 by hand

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