4 2005 |
Back in 1995, ten years ago, was the first time I was on the web. I'm not talking about the internet, mind you -- I'd been on the internet for around 3 years prior, but the WWW didn't exist at that time. Heck, I'd had an operating Linux system for a couple years before I ever tried opening a web browser.
In '95, AOL bought GNN and beta-tested a more internet-friendly service, rather than adding internet to AOL. I was one of those beta-testers.
disclaimer: I only used AOL because of the free 30-days, and then I got free GNN for beta testing...I wasn't a AOL lover.
So, I got set up, got online, and tried out all the Winsock-enabled fanciness that came with it. I'd used Windows-based newsreaders & email before, but this webbrowser - it's the new technology of the future! I opened it up, surveyed the unfamiliar window...but realized I had nowhere to go.
I suppose, if I thought harder, I could have come up with a WWW site on a server I was familiar with, but I'd seen one in an ad someplace...so I typed it in the address bar and hit return.
The site I remembered was ZIMA.COM. pictures - and text - looking like something out of a word processor? It was new - but what could it do?
As you can see from the WayBack copy above, there wasn't much to do. I probably closed the browser, and returned to alt.gothic, Gophering random servers, or dialing up the BBSes. That's what happens to new technology...you don't always recognize it the first time you see it, but there may be something more to what you've got. Little did anyone know that a simple markup language & a small browser would revolutionize communications as we know it. I didn't; thankfully, I caught up and it shapes what I'm doing for a living today.
Happy New Year... (the long road to my point): In 1991/92 I was a co-sysop of a small and locally (very locally) known BBS. My friend and I scoured other BBSes (in other states) so that ours was among the first to have content different from the other ones in our netgroup (I guess that was what you called them, I forget). We had a meeting on the 2nd Tuesday of each month, where a group of men in their 30s would argue over something, (usually the fact that one of them was on disability and someone else had a problem with it, since he had the BSS and seemed to get around okay). I was in my early 20s, and thought these people were a bunch of idiots; but I stayed, because I knew I was part of something that would seem important one day. (Short cut): Sometime in Spring / 95 I was trying to figure out the Winsock stuff, but I didn't have anywhere to go either. Good times.
--pero , 1/5/2005 12:05:36