O/T:- The internet in 2000

[upthemaggies]

That was the year I first went online, very late to the party considering I'd been a computer geek since the early 1980s but I took a break from them in the mid-late 1990s.

[countygump]

That was the year I first went online, very late to the party considering I'd been a computer geek since the early 1980s but I took a break from them in the mid-late 1990s.

Never bothered with it till broadband became reasonably cheap in 2004 or there abouts. My daughter had dial up and it drove me insane just waiting for the pages to load, so I only used my earliest computers to play freecell and spider solitaire. Win XP ay, you try installing it and using it today, it looks ancient.

[Elite_Pie]

NMy daughter had dial up and it drove me insane just waiting for the pages to load.

Waiting for the pages to load was a relative luxury. I'm the sort who gets impatient waiting for a traffic light to turn green, so the real frustration in the days of free dial up was getting a bloody connection in the first place. I was with Diamond Cable (now Virgin Media), and you got one hour free then had to dial up again. I had to close the door so the kids couldn't hear me swear repeatedly at the screen!

[upthemaggies]

Waiting for the pages to load was a relative luxury. I'm the sort who gets impatient waiting for a traffic light to turn green, so the real frustration in the days of free dial up was getting a bloody connection in the first place. I was with Diamond Cable (now Virgin Media), and you got one hour free then had to dial up again. I had to close the door so the kids couldn't hear me swear repeatedly at the screen!

The free hour and re-dial was a year or two after Diamond had become ntl, I remember the boss of that company claiming that anybody who was paying anything more than a connection charge with rival services was being completely ripped off as it was dirt cheap to run.

[upthemaggies]

Never bothered with it till broadband became reasonably cheap in 2004 or there abouts. My daughter had dial up and it drove me insane just waiting for the pages to load, so I only used my earliest computers to play freecell and spider solitaire. Win XP ay, you try installing it and using it today, it looks ancient.

I'd go back to XP in a heartbeat - The operating system itself, not the hardware it was running on which was obviously a lot slower. I felt like I had much more control and ability to customise it to how I wanted it to look.

[ncfcog]

Bought my first PC from Alders in Broadmarsh in 1996. Came with a CRT monitor with built in speakers, a printer, a scanner and a massive 6.4Gb of memory! A bargain at £965.00!

Didn't get broadband for quite a few years after that, I'm assuming early 2000's. I remember trying to build a basic website online using a dial up connection. Used to put the kettle on, do the hoovering and sort dinner out whilst waiting for new changes to upload!

Also remember our daughter running up a big bill in chat rooms without us knowing, didn't take her long to realise it wouldn't be a good life choice to do that again!

[Jampie]

I was online in '95... within a year I was convinced the internet was going to be globally transformative. Unfortunately it hasn't all turned out for the better...

[jackal2]

I'd go back to XP in a heartbeat - The operating system itself, not the hardware it was running on which was obviously a lot slower. I felt like I had much more control and ability to customise it to how I wanted it to look.

Microsoft obviously have to keep inventing new 'improved' versions of Windows to keep the money rolling in, but in my opinion it has become over-developed. Likewise I used to like playing Football Manager, but that too reached a point where most of the 'improvements' were just gimmicks and the playability of the game itself reduced in my opinion.

[uysapie]

Dial up in the USA was slow, nightmare slowing down to snail pace.

[SwalePie]

I remember paying extra for a BT Home Highway connection, which basically combined two connections. I ended up with the fastest connection in our Dales village with something like 192kbps!