Internet History

[Atari-Jess]

Hey everyone, I'm working on a secret secret project and I need peoples help.

 

What I am looking for is information.

 

Here is what I need:

 

I need stories and descriptions of the "internet" back from around 1986.

that is information using BBS systems.

 

Connecting to networks using terminal emulators

 

everything and anything about what the internet (term used very loosely)

was like in 1986 on the following systems:

 

IBM XT/AT line

Commodore 64

Atari 8-bits

Atari ST line

Amiga 1000

Apple Macintosh

Apple II

DEC VAX

 

I realize that certain things did not exist at this time ie IRC, websites etc

I am not looking for a history lesson being "they did this, then made this"

 

I am looking for specifics on things like chat like things, dialing into BBS's

dialing into vaxen and such like this. Anything and everything you could

do with a computer and a modem at the time.

 

It doesn't matter if you were only little when you did this or if you were 40+

 

I want stories, I want explanations I NEED this stuff.

 

When this project is released those who helped particularly will be credited

this project is something very large that is going to take a lot to plan and

needs a lot of information. Please send information through PM's and emails.

 

Be as lengthy and as boring as you want!

 

Anyone who ran large multi user machines or BBS's or at the very least

just used this stuff a lot back at home back in college/uni etc.

 

It is important that the cut off date is very late 1986. That is to say, just

before the great USENET renaming.

 

Note to Mods: I'm sorry if you see this thread in a couple of places...

[Breakpack]

Note to Mods: I'm sorry if you see this thread in a couple of places...

talk about overkill....

[Susuwatari]

Note to Mods: I'm sorry if you see this thread in a couple of places...

talk about overkill....

 

And your follow ups are overkill.

[A2600]

Note to Mods: I'm sorry if you see this thread in a couple of places...

talk about overkill....

 

And your follow ups are overkill.

 

Come on lets help the llile guy (whispers) Overlkill...

 

Jess, where will the report be available once is complete??

[Atari-Jess]

I'm sorry to be such a tease to anyone who is curious about the result to this project.

 

Rest assured you guys will be involved but this will take a considerable amount of time as this is something even I am not taking lightly.

 

Oh I'm too excited.

 

Thanks to everyone who's replied thus far.

[AtariDude]

As far as the Internet goes, it was not in wide use for the general public until the early 1990s. Up until then, the Internet was mostly used in universities and by the military (remember that the Internet was originally the Arpanet project).

 

Instead, most people used BBS systems to log into. Some BBS systems were run by clubs or groups who shared a similar interest but there were quite a few BBS systems that were run by individuals. I remember a friend of mine used to run such a system on her Atari 800XL.

 

I can remember having an Atari 800XL with a 300 baud modem and would use to log onto different BBS systems to download games and utility software. It was fun back then but there were no real viruses to contend with back then (8 bit viruses would come much later).

 

I have no idea of what it was like for the other systems but I have to think it was similar for them.

 

By the way, back then the big system was CompuServe and CompuServe had different rates depending on the time of day so most people would use it after 6 pm to get the lower rates.

 

CompuServe still exists but now AOL owns it and CompuServe is at best a shell of itself.

[doctorclu]

Well, in 1986 I was hitting BBS's with my upgraded Atari 400.

 

Now if you want, I can tell you about all the internet surfing I have done on the Atari 800 and Atari ST/TT from 1999 to current.

 

Take care!

 

Doctor Clu

[dark willow]

ah CompuServe, I remember them:( Here in the UK phone charges were astronomical and that was a big disincentive for a lot of people, though it wans't so bad when it was only BBS's since even with the slow modems ( though I had a really quick 1200 baud modem, well it seemed really quick back then, anyway!) . I came to the net quite late (early 90's) and by then Email was all the rage and i used that mainly. The web was already in existence (just about) but there wasn't a great deal on there yet and it seemed quite useless in comparison to Gopher. I remeber being really sad when gopher died.

 

BBS were great with an 800XL (hindsight warning, using portable TV as cheapo monitor substitute = such a bad idea) though I only used it very breifly and most of my surfing was done on an already-old PC with a B&W monitor, DOS 3 and later, Win3.1 and Mosaic, which I thought was such a neat name for computer software:)