Author Topic: If you think about it...  (Read 4928 times)

-KEN-

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If you think about it...
« on: December 26, 2011, 07:58:15 PM »
Forums like this were really the first Facebook-like social networks; DMs, public posts, profiles, replies, a "recent posts" reverse-chron stream...interesting what happens when you take the core ideas and mix and match them a bit differently.

Steve

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Re: If you think about it...
« Reply #1 on: December 26, 2011, 08:13:17 PM »
Forums like this were really the first Facebook-like social networks; DMs, public posts, profiles, replies, a "recent posts" reverse-chron stream...interesting what happens when you take the core ideas and mix and match them a bit differently.

Go even farther. I don't know how many of you remember the internet before images, but I do. Back when it was BBC (is that what it was called?) text only discussions. That's when, to the best of my knowledge, handles first started. Handles were online identity, and it was an obvious progression from there on. I would attribute Facebook and Myspace to discussion boards and then things like imageshack the same way I attribute the explosion of those networks to the creating of cloud based computing.

These forums were developed on the invision board and phpbb ideas, which derived from those old BBC days.
hey ethic if you and i were both courting lily allen..... oh wait, which one of us has a relationship that lasted more than the bus ride home?

-KEN-

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Re: If you think about it...
« Reply #2 on: December 26, 2011, 08:32:53 PM »
Yeah, I didn't want to go back that far because these types of systems were really the first to unify everything, wouldn't you say?

Steve

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Re: If you think about it...
« Reply #3 on: December 27, 2011, 04:20:32 AM »
Yea I agree. I think I was around 8 when I was using them. Maybe 6, because it was like a year after I got my first computer.
hey ethic if you and i were both courting lily allen..... oh wait, which one of us has a relationship that lasted more than the bus ride home?

micah

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Re: If you think about it...
« Reply #4 on: December 27, 2011, 07:48:22 AM »
AOL, which I had before it was connected to the internet, also had "screenames," profiles, chat rooms, private chat, emails and even file sharing! (I used to find and create midi files until they closed it down for copyright reasons).

While obviously all the technologies build off of the original start of the Internet, I'll agree that message boards really tied a lot of features together ON the internet itself... but just as Facebook has taken concepts from the "bulletin"/message boards, these forums are just an extension of concepts before them.

Also, RoD, you're thinking of BBS.  I remember, as a teenager, (again, before unerstanding what the "Internet" was), dialing into my friends computer and him sending me a copy of the Star Trek Generations script, about a week before the movie came out.  I printed the whole 120 pages out on our dot matrix tractor-feed printer (which took hours) and read it before seeing the movie. I thought that was just awesome that I could do that (I still have it too... the paper version that is)
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Steve

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Re: If you think about it...
« Reply #5 on: December 27, 2011, 09:18:57 AM »
AOL, which I had before it was connected to the internet, also had "screenames," profiles, chat rooms, private chat, emails and even file sharing! (I used to find and create midi files until they closed it down for copyright reasons).

While obviously all the technologies build off of the original start of the Internet, I'll agree that message boards really tied a lot of features together ON the internet itself... but just as Facebook has taken concepts from the "bulletin"/message boards, these forums are just an extension of concepts before them.

Also, RoD, you're thinking of BBS.  I remember, as a teenager, (again, before unerstanding what the "Internet" was), dialing into my friends computer and him sending me a copy of the Star Trek Generations script, about a week before the movie came out.  I printed the whole 120 pages out on our dot matrix tractor-feed printer (which took hours) and read it before seeing the movie. I thought that was just awesome that I could do that (I still have it too... the paper version that is)

YES!! I miss dialing in....sort of lol.
hey ethic if you and i were both courting lily allen..... oh wait, which one of us has a relationship that lasted more than the bus ride home?

Bassy

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Re: If you think about it...
« Reply #6 on: December 27, 2011, 03:25:49 PM »
ahh the days of BBS and 2400 modems (my 1st modem) when there was very little content out there and not very many people online and hardly anyone had email.. a simpler time ;=)
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Steve

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Re: If you think about it...
« Reply #7 on: December 27, 2011, 04:42:27 PM »
The modem was like the size of todays dvd players
hey ethic if you and i were both courting lily allen..... oh wait, which one of us has a relationship that lasted more than the bus ride home?

Mike

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Re: If you think about it...
« Reply #8 on: December 27, 2011, 05:04:46 PM »
My 2400 baud modem was an internal card that plugged into an 8 bit ISA.

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Re: If you think about it...
« Reply #9 on: December 27, 2011, 05:05:52 PM »
yeah, our first modem-capable computer had a built in 14.4k card.  Our 100Mhz "Gateway 2000" came with a 28.8 modem that I eventually swapped out for 56k card.  Then I went to college and discovered "campus speed" connections that made winter and summer breaks unbearable :)

When cable access came to my area, not only did I sign up immediately, I went out and spent $125 on a 20GB second hard drive in anticipation of all the songs and movies I was going to download.
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Steve

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Re: If you think about it...
« Reply #10 on: December 27, 2011, 05:12:20 PM »
Yea I cashed in savings bonds and bought 20G HDD's lol. My first modem was a COM modem that was probably 12in x 6in
hey ethic if you and i were both courting lily allen..... oh wait, which one of us has a relationship that lasted more than the bus ride home?

ober

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Re: If you think about it...
« Reply #11 on: December 28, 2011, 07:32:06 PM »
yeah, our first modem-capable computer had a built in 14.4k card.  Our 100Mhz "Gateway 2000" came with a 28.8 modem that I eventually swapped out for 56k card.
HA!  Our first computer was a 75MHz Gateway 2000... LOL.  I think ours had a 14.4 that we later swapped for a 56K modem but our ISP didn't even support 56K for a while.  The best we could get was like 24K for the longest time.

Mike

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Re: If you think about it...
« Reply #12 on: December 28, 2011, 07:34:48 PM »
yeah, our first modem-capable computer had a built in 14.4k card.  Our 100Mhz "Gateway 2000" came with a 28.8 modem that I eventually swapped out for 56k card.
HA!  Our first computer was a 75MHz Gateway 2000... LOL.  I think ours had a 14.4 that we later swapped for a 56K modem but our ISP didn't even support 56K for a while.  The best we could get was like 24K for the longest time.
I started off on an 8088.  We then moved leaps and bounds to a 486 SX (so no math co-processor) 33 MHz.  I remember my friend got basically the same computer but the 66MHz DX and we compared Civ 1 and it was a world of difference.

Steve

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Re: If you think about it...
« Reply #13 on: December 28, 2011, 07:38:13 PM »
My first computer was an IBM 8088

Edit: apparently, so was mike's
hey ethic if you and i were both courting lily allen..... oh wait, which one of us has a relationship that lasted more than the bus ride home?

Govtcheez

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Re: If you think about it...
« Reply #14 on: December 29, 2011, 06:28:29 AM »
TRS-80 here