EntropySink
Nothing & Everything => Open Discussion => Topic started by: -KEN- on December 26, 2011, 07:58:15 PM
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system). 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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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 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system). 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.
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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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The modem was like the size of todays dvd players
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My 2400 baud modem was an internal card that plugged into an 8 bit ISA.
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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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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
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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.
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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.
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My first computer was an IBM 8088
Edit: apparently, so was mike's
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TRS-80 here
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we actually had a used comadore 64 as our first family computer but I don't remember using it as much.
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TI99/4A. Boy, that thing sucked. I think I still have it somewhere.
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I wish I still had my old machines. The last old one I had was "Stonehenge", it was a Gateway something I will try and look it up later.
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we actually had a used comadore 64 as our first family computer but I don't remember using it as much.
+1
my first "modern" pc was a packard bell
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My family had a comadore 64 but I honestly don't remember it. I'm not sure if I even used it.
When I was in high school Mom came home with a TI computer from 1979. That thing was massively heavy. Was fun tearing it apart.
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Commodore, y'all
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Commodore, y'all
I blame micah. I just copied his spelling because I honestly didn't care :D
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Tandy 1000.
Amber screen. 512k on board cache. Two. Yes, two 5.25" floppy drives.
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compuadd 325. 386sx 25mhz
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Tandy 1000.
Amber screen. 512k on board cache. Two. Yes, two 5.25" floppy drives.
My gateway had two. Was fun to play with functions between the two and different tricks for increased storage at the time.
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My first PC was a 386sx (i think it was an olivetti) - though I did have one of those commodore 64 things from a long time ago (think its still in my mothers attic - though she did ask if she could install windows on it)... cant remember why i bought it probably as it was a new gadget and i am still gadget queening. Thinking how much time I spend on the PC when at home I wonder what I would be doing now if I had never bought that first one (maybe we could do a film 'its a wonderful life' but instead of james stewart never existing it would be our PCs)
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Tandy 1000.
Amber screen. 512k on board cache. Two. Yes, two 5.25" floppy drives.
Holy crap, I never knew what my dad's old office computer that then became our first was, but I think this was it. Amber screen and everything. AND it had a turbo button :cool2:
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what did the turbo button do?
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The turbo button was basically an overclock button.
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thats pretty cool. Was it a software kind of thing, or was it more or less like the "jumper number 2 pencil pin connecting" tricks we used to do?
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It increased the voltage that controlled the clock speed.
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thats pretty cool
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Yeah, I've read that computers had them for a while because some poorly written software would run too fast on the newer processors.
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Yeah, I've read that computers had them for a while because some poorly written software would run too fast on the newer processors.
It was there exactly for that. Not to speed things up, but to slow the clock to 4.77MHz (usually) for compatibility.
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I guess what I didn't understand was that it was a button... so unless it was a toggle, who is going to sit there and hold that thing in while you work on those specific programs? ;)
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IIRC it was a toggle button. I don't remember ever using it, though
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I wish I had a turbo button. I am fascinated by the whole thing lol
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I remember having it pressed in all the time, mostly because it was "TURBOOOOO!!!!"