(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews.)
Prompt: The First Website I Remember Visiting
Darkest Gods, y'all. The first "website" I remember visiting was a dial-up BBS. I mean, maybe that doesn't count, because that sort of setup predated the Internet, but that's where I cut my teeth. There was one run by a local around my age (fairly young, at the time) and we futzed around and even had a play-by-post D&D game going on it.
First actual website when The Internet became a thing? No idea. I was active early on with another sort of bulletin board setup, this one devoted to the Borderlands anthologies, and we did some writing of our own that one of the group members would format and post on his own website. (Both are, as far as I know, lost to the mists of time; the borderlands group survived a while longer as a Yahoo group, but eventually died out.)
What about you? What's the first website you remember visiting?
So glad we evolved beyond dial-up!
ReplyDeleteYes and no? I mean, it really had its moments. The BBS systems were small and local, and in some way made for a much stronger sense of community. That said, I do not miss the wait times, or that horrible electronic screeching sound.
DeleteThe screeching has become nostalgic for some, though -- maybe just for those of us who were just hitting middle school + when it happened, so it has a certain air of magic about it. There are recordings of it on youtube with no shortage of wistful comments.
DeleteWhen I first got on in 1998/1999, I found web forums and they invariably called themselves "BBSes". I thought that's what BBSes were for a few years, until I kept hearing about pre-World Wide Web internet activity and dig some digging. LGR (I think) did a video on one BBS service that's still running.
I mean, the idea of a bulletin board system is still around; it's just that other versions of social media have introduced alternate systems, and the particular feel of a local dial-up BBS was very different. Weirdly, the closest thing I've found to that experience recently has been Discord -- where you have to find particular servers to log into, and each server is kind of its own little community.
DeleteThe early days are quaint now, but such an improvement over snail mail, and paying long distance rates
ReplyDeleteWell, and there was so much novelty and weird experimentation! It really felt like anything could happen.
DeleteI definitely don't miss dial-up. My dad used to be on call at work and the handshake would wake me up at night.
ReplyDeleteWhuf. I can just imagine...
DeleteI really miss the old groups, loops and message boards. I made some of my best friends on those things (people I still talk to -- and occasionally see when I can travel). The good old days... :-)
ReplyDeleteIn some ways they really were!
DeleteI’ve heard stories about the BBS days, but I wasn’t old enough to participate in them. They sound pretty cool, though.
ReplyDeleteThat Borderlands anthologies message board sounds interesting. I miss the message boards that were everywhere in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
I miss them too. That particular one was somebody's homegrown coding project, and it was kind of amazing that it lasted as long as it did.
DeleteI'm not sure if it should count as a website, but I had a CompuServe membership before the internet was a thing, and I'm pretty sure I got my first browser (Mosaic) from them. Mind about the time I signed up with CompuServe, I also had accounts on university computers with Usenet access. I read newsgroups before the Great Renaming when the only hierarchies (that I remember) were net, mod, and whatever the local network used (wustl for Washington University in St. Louis in my case). Oh yeah, the university had computers on ARPANET although I don't think I had access to those specific systems.
ReplyDelete