Snakes on a Plane...

The story of my first actual introduction to the internet is for another time. I will however, mention when I first had it installed in my house, because I threw a bit of a bash...and invited some of the more sophisticated and suave members of my formidable social circle to indulge in the cultural significance and general magnificence of my new cutting-edge status.

To this day I believe I must surely qualify for some sort of 'land speed record*' between the official connection of a broadband line and a group of half mutant, very pissed up twats entering the words: 'big gay porn' into a search engine, purely for the reason of leaving frankly hilarious pictures all over my desktop and filling up my hard drive with slowmo videos of fellas bumming.

However, a far more interesting 'Intro to t'interwebz' story involves my dad. Despite being so old that he witnessed the big bang first hand, he positively embraced this groundbreaking new information superhighway and demanded it...fucking sharpish.

At the time, the Internet seemed in it's opening throes; more 'Morse code' than 'source code', but my techno-tastic pater plunged in straggly-nose-hair first, hooking up with possibly the most pathetic and overpriced dial up connection this side of AOL.

He had a reason for such enthusiasm, for he was a man with a mission. He needed knowledge.

Bit of back story: My Dad used to reside in a little village on the outskirts of Coventry. A few weeks previously, The daft old fart had been walking his dog near the local woods when he saw...a snake. a fucking SNAKE! Slithering about in the undergrowth without a care in the world like an offcut from Medusa's latest trim 'n' blowdry.

It was at this point when my Dad launched spectacularly into 'Indiana Jones' mode. Unfortunately, I don't mean he adopted an 'heroic archaeologist persona', no. Instead he merely resembled 'some bloke who wears way too much brown, and pappers his kex at the first sign of anything remotely serpent-y'.

Although he was aware of the existence of such scaly shitwads in the British Isles, he had never properly seen one like this...in the wild, in the Midlands, and more importantly, in the middle of his fucking dog walking route. My Dad is a worldly wise, knowledgeable chap, and was aware of adders etc being seen slinking around these parts. However, this forked-tongued little twatbuckler didn't look anything like one of those. So the mystery deepend: What was this particular species? Was it a pet that had escaped? Why wasn't the dog trying to hump it to death like he does with everything else? How did Dad manage to refrain from flailing his arms around and running home like a big sissy girl?

Keeping his massive phobia in check, he continued to peer at the little bollocks as it hissed dismissively at him. He stared on, in an effort to memorise as much detail as he could about it...because one day soon...he would have the AWESOME INTERNET!, and the power of all knowledge would be at his two-words-per-minute fingertips.

The fateful day arrived, and just a few short hours later we were ready to rock, thanks to a phone-socket splitter gizmo and 30-metre extension cable from the phone point dragged through the house to the room where his PC lived (that incidentally looked like it was mostly constructed from a mixture of Meccano and stone, was hamster powered, and was originally designed by Charles Babbage).

He connected the computer up to the modem...it fired into life like a Boeing 747 with a deafening whirr of fans, clunky hard drives, and no doubt pistons, valves and wotnot.

Minutes pass by...manuals and installation discs came and went, until eventually he hit defcon bongle. He was on the motherfucking INTERNET!

I think it was Netscape he was using - and I don't even think Google was his search engine, but still, none of us could contain our excitement at having eternal global wisdom at our disposal. There was a moment of silence before I spoke:

"What should we look up?" I enquire, breathless with anticipation.

My Dad's mind wisely wandered to his earlier dog-walking experience and he smiled. "I know just the thing, boy...", he exclaimed authoritatively as he cracked his knuckles at the keyboard. Slowly but confidently, he then proceeded to make history and type the very first words he was to ever enter onto the majesty of the world wide web.


Tentatively, he tapped away. The first word was 'Large'. This was enough to get our imaginations racing.

The second word however, was slightly more ominous. 'Black'. Hmmmmm.

Then he typed the third word. 'Snake'.


'Large Black Snake'...


...


Ooooooh fuckeroo.


Even in the internet's infancy, it didn't seem to take too long for my old man's mighty 14" CRT monitor to nearly buckle under the strain of the sheer, non-stop volume of cockshots that began pouring onto it...each one being overlapped by different yet equally girthed young gentlemen, swinging their massively-endowed wares in front of my entire family's eyes.

Dad stayed calm, composed, and dignified. Actually...no he didn't. "Fucking FUCK!" He screeched, as he recoiled in horror. "What the fucking hell?" Eventually he woefully pleaded: "Son, How do you make the fucking cocks STOP???" as he waved his fist at the screen and bashed haplessly against the keyboard, praying to the web-gods that there could be some overseeing internet overlord who could 'magic away' the persistant stream of love truncheons being proudly paraded in front of us all like an out-of-hand audition for 'Cock-idol'.

We all walked away and left him to it.

However, to his great credit, he didn't let this experience put him off (as I said, he was on a mission). A few days later, he approached me, beaming triumphantly. "It took me 3 days son...3 days of trawling through seemingly never-ending nob pictures and ropey gay porn sites...but I finally found out what type of snake I saw when walking the dog". Unfortunately I now can't remember what species he told me it was, but I can vividly remember what I said next:

"Was it worth it Dad?" I enquired.

He paused thoughtfully for a second. "Not really, no." He replied, somewhat despondently.



*I admit, I didn't have a stopwatch at the time, but from my recollection it took about 0.00000008 of a second.
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Fri 23 Mar 2012, 20:34, 14 replies)

I was in Italy a couple of weeks ago for work
Took a couple of hours out to pop to city near Milan where I'd spent a year at university and worked in student travel office in 1993/94. Popped into the office to see if my old boss was still there. Guy said very sadly, "She's no longer with us..." - which turned out to mean she'd retired. Phew. Had me going for a moment.

Anyway, I had a chat with him about the way things used to be there... we'd leaf through a 2,000 page airline timetable to find flights, fill out cards with the travel itinerary on (in pencil, so we could rub it out if there were schedule changes etc), phone to book and reconfirm flights with airlines, etc. Computers? Unheard of. He couldn't believe we'd managed to cope. It worked, though.

The following morning back in Milan I was live tweeting pics within moments of taking them to the work account, emailed some copy across to the office from the train for a time-sensitive article that needed to go up pronto, and had a report filed and published online on the event I was covering within minutes of it finishing. Even five years ago, you'd never have been able to do all that.

My own experience of starting off on teh internets? Same as many others here. Baby steps early on, then starting to get involved in chatrooms/mailing lists, meeting virtual friends who are now among my closest real life friends, and with whom I've shared life's landmarks - birthdays, weddings, wetting babies' heads, funerals, etc. Strange thing is we don't interact that much online any more - much rather pick up the phone...

It was also through some stuff I posted to a mailing list and the feedback I got from people who read it that I started to become more confident about writing. An invitation to write for a fanzine followed, I kept that going for a few years, and when I lost my job four years ago, that gave me the balls to strike out on my own. I now write for a living about something I love and my office this morning was a table in the sunshine outside the local cafe. It's been life-changing for me in lots of ways.

When I think about the changes that have taken place, the pace of it all has been astonishing. I have nieces and nephews who never knew a pre-online world, and who in years to come will be doing stuff with technology we can't even start to imagine.

But you know what? I feel privileged to have been part of the generation for which it went mainstream, the one that knew the 'before' and 'after.'
(Capo, Tue 27 Mar 2012, 23:25, 8 replies)

This one fits quite nicely...
The Old Man and the Internet

My Dad never had a computer. He retired before they became commonplace in offices and the whole 'internet' thing simply passed him by, until very recently.

A couple of years ago my sister and I decided to get the folks online. We purchased a half-decent PC and sorted a broadband connection.

When everything was setup and working, I sat my 75yr old Dad down for the first time in front of a gleaming, empty Google page and explained how it all worked.

'So I just type what I'm interested in into this section and the computer will give me all the information?' He asked incredulously.

Yup. I replied. It's that simple.

We started with his name. Fortunately it is an unusual name, so the search results were few and surprisingly detailed. We found a family tree published by a US relative, we spent ages on the census site, we tried looking up his old pals on friendsreunited and watched endless youtube clips of 1950's motor racing (he loves that stuff).

I didn't bother with email or anything like that, just gave him the power of Google and left him with his imagination.

A couple of weeks later, I popped in to say hi - but Dad was on the golf course. So I peeked into his study, the PC was on and the BBC weather page was flickering on the screen. Great, I thought, he's really getting into this, checking the beeb for weather forecasts before he heads out to play a round, he's certainly got the hang of this internet lark, I wonder what else he's been up to...

So I checked out his history.

Oh. My. Fucking. God.

I have no father.
( Albert Marshmallow is a completely irredeemable cunt, Thu 22 Mar 2012, 21:51, 9 replies)

(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Fri 23 Mar 2012, 14:25, 13 replies)

‘Monetizing the sexual experience’
I’ve mentioned before b3ta.com/questions/books2012/post1489177 that I used to work for Amazon, starting when it was just a books business.

After the .com bubble burst I had to make my team redundant and took redundancy myself. Unsure of what to do next I started to do some consultancy work whilst I looked for a permanent position, so uploaded my CV online.

I received a call from someone who said he worked for an online publishing business and wanted to talk to me about a marketing role for a job based in Barcelona. The company was Private.com (NSFW) – the legal “hardcore version of Playboy”. He asked me if that was a problem for me and if not he’d like to bring me out to Barcelona to spend a day with them to understand more about the business and to be interviewed by their European MD.

Knowing that there was no way I would work for them (it would have had a substantial long term impact on my career) I agreed to go out to meet them purely to have a free trip to one of my favourite cities.

In the meantime he sent me passwords for all of their sites so I could “familiarise myself with the content”. Circulating these to my friends got me several free pints.

On arrival at the offices they gave me a tour. I saw a gang bang being filmed in a studio and various different videos covering genres being edited. Every part of the offices contained serious grot. None of the commercial or technical staff batted an eyelid when talking about content.

I felt a bit sorry for them. I guess if you work in McDonalds the last thing you want to do is to eat a burger and the same principle applied to these people.

My interview with the MD took place in a meeting room with a massive glass cabinet down one wall containing their full range of vibrators, cock rings, symbian machines, anal beads, fisting mittens, butt plugs and kegal balls. An experience I don’t expect to repeat in the rest of my career.

After all that they didn’t offer me the job anyway, but I got a free trip to Barcelona and an extended tour around a porn set in action. Only the internet could have created this opportunity. Thank you Tim Berners Lee.
( Fucking hell Jeff I am not a robot, Sun 25 Mar 2012, 9:29, Reply)

First days of IRC and the joy of Remote WAV file playing.
After a few weeks of exploring the wonders of IRC we'd set up our own channel that mutual online Ultima Online playing friends of ours would use to talk shit. One of the features of the IRC client we used was to be able to play WAV files which would simultaneously play on anyone elses PC who had the file physically on their disk too. The command was something like !play [filename.wav]

This was mostly Simpsons samples such as:

!play simpsons_nerd.wav - which would play the Comic Store Guy saying,"Ok here we go. Alt.binaries.nerd.obsessive."

!play simpsons_eatmyshorts.wav - Bart's "Eat my shorts."

..and so on.

Around this time my mates girlfriend moved in with him and in a drunken conversation she let slip that in the times that he stopped typing on IRC on a Saturday morning was usually when she'd dragged him into bed for some carnal distractions.

One such morning he suddenly stopped typing for a bit longer than normal. So I siezed my chance.

- Mr_AirmanGabber: !play simpsons_hubba.wav - which played a Simpsons sample described as [wolf-whistles, cat noise, a bed squeaking, purring, panting, barking, howling, lip twiddle, Hubba hubba!]

*pause*

- Mr_Random: "Will you fucking stop that! It just put me off my strokes as she started giggling."

- Mr_AirmanGabber: !play Simpsons_Excellent.wav

- Mr_Random: "Fuck off!"

- Mr_Random has disconnected: (Twat!)
( Airman Gabber Living life like a 70's BBC presenter, Fri 23 Mar 2012, 11:38, 1 reply)

I was about 12-13
We had recently got the internet at home so when I was alone I obviously went looking for porn. I found a few images and decided to save them on the computer. "I'll keep them well hidden" I said to myself "in some obscure hidden folder where no-one will find them".

Where did I end up putting them? Only the fucking startup folder so they all popped up the next time someone turned the computer on.
(cH3$h7846J#7, Thu 22 Mar 2012, 18:10, 4 replies)

Not mine, and not my first...
...but it's a good story, so sod you.

Art director I worked with needed a specific type of New York street scene for an ad he was creating, and decided he'd try looking outside commercial image libraries.

He suddenly started saying "oh... no... oh god no... make it stop... cannot unsee..." etc etc. And then a short pause before he announced "never do an image search for steaming manholes"
( prince-igor si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses, Fri 23 Mar 2012, 10:42, 1 reply)

I remember...1990....91
There was this 'comic shop guy' who worked in the IT department at Xerox, where I was working. He was telling me about this picture group he ran, it had alts and binaries in the name. I didn't really know what he was talking about. So he showed me.

And that was how, 22 seconds after discovering the existence of the Internet, I was looking at a picture of a man standing on a stool fucking a cow, while his friend kindly held the tail out of the way for him.
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Thu 22 Mar 2012, 13:26, Reply)

When we went online in the 90s, pay per minute, I told the kids they could use it as much as they liked at offpeak times.
BIG mistake. A phone bill for nearly £600 rolled up (this was about 1998!) which we soon found out had been run up by my 15 year-old son, spending every night all summer on it.

His father hit the roof but I just swallowed hard and said, well, I told them it was OK, so it's OK.

Soon after the next bill (for nearly £500) arrived, he'd turned 16 and come out to us. He seems to have been chatting online and getting advice on how to come out and handle parents!

Eleven hundred quid for your son's peace of mind? Steep, but worth every penny.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Thu 29 Mar 2012, 8:13, Reply)

EMAIL ON A SPECTRUM ?!
Back when programs like 'live & kicking' started asking for people to email in, we looked into what this 'email 'could be.... turns out it was electronic mail, WHAT WITCHCRAFT IS THIS?!

Anyway, we decided to 'hack' into our school's 'records' (like they'd even have any sort of online connection back then!) with my mate's Spectrum by typing "HACK SCHOOL X, RETURN, RUN HACK". We sat there for a few seconds before my mate panicked and pulled the plug out of the wall turning the whole lot off, before we ran outside and hid in the field for the rest of the afternoon in case the police came around.

It would be about 10 more years before i had anything that contained a modem, let alone being able to connect to the internet.
( Victor Meldrew, Thu 22 Mar 2012, 13:57, 2 replies)

I am probably
a late starter compared to all you lot. My first experience was reading about this new fangled thing in The Face magazine, probably about 1993/4, and thinking what a great thing that sounds! I didn't get my first computer till 1998 when I moved to uni, and then did the usual ridiculous porn searches while pissed with mates. Spending many an evening pissing ourselves to the worst/best kind of searches.

My mum on the other hand is still new to the internet kind of.
She is gone 70 and is amazingly sweet and soft and lovely, I have mentioned her before. She visits often, and I always take great pleasure in showing her numerous videos, often ones posted here. She usually ends up in uncontrollable tears, before asking me to search for The art of Richard Chamberlain or Dirk Bogarde books.
She loves, of course, cute animals doing stupid things, babies, and surprisingly anything sweary. It seems to tickle her funny bone to the degree that she nearly wets herself.
She finally bought herself a laptop last year in an attempt to get 'online' bought mainly because I showed her how to look at things via google earth, and she likes being nosey.

I have one brother that lives in Chicago. He had moved into a new house and she was desperate to see it.
So after looking at almost everyones house, including her own, accompanied by lot's of 'ooooooo' 'ahhhhhh' 'wows' we went stateside.
She asked me about 3 times how on earth they did it, I explained in great detail, not once but again and again.
We got his house up...
'If we call him, can he come to the window and wave at us? Will he be able to see us?'
I love my mum
( Herb Alpert's Taxi Driver I have very beautiful lips, Mon 26 Mar 2012, 23:39, 1 reply)

Relative newcomer to the internet...
Unlike most people here, I only got proper internet access in 2003. Sure, I had access in school but with one 56kpbs modem between 40 people, the internet was, would you believe it, boring.

Anyhoo, in 2003 Bit Torrent hadn't quite taken off and the current kids favourite was none other than Kazaa. This magical tool let you type in the name of, say, your favourite band and within tens of minutes, you could have one of their songs, maybe even an album.

But you could also search for things other than music. Like pictures. Or Videos. And being at the height of puberty at the time, it was inevitable that I would eventually use the internet for what it was intended for - porn.

However, as I'm sure you already know, I'm a bit of a dimwit. While anyone with any sense would just search for "Porn", or even "Sex" or "Lesbians", my mind went absolutely blank. I was probably already harbouring a raging meat club simply from the very thought of seeing some naked flesh, causing much distraction. Too distracted to think straight, but getting nowhere with a blank search box in front of me, the oddest idea popped into my head - search for "French". In my mind, the French were renowned for being Romantic and Steamy. Je t'aime was banned at one point for being too racy, so surely the french knew their shit when it came to porn. Oh how right I was.

I did it, I searched for "French" and struck gold. Pages of results! I selected one that implied something about two filthy french lesbians and off it downloaded. What felt like hours (and in those days, it could well have been) passed but the video finished downloading. I opened it, undid my pants and prepared for seconds of intense pleasure.

The video started. There were the two women, already starting to undress each other. This is good! Yes, take each other's clothes off. Ohhh, I'm saving myself for when you're both naked and...touching, I guess. I wasn't really sure what lesbians did, I just presumed they rubbed together or something. In any case, I was about to find out!

Eventually, they were both naked and after some delicate kissing, one of them climbed onto a chair...backwards, so she's bending over the back rest. A little odd, she seems a bit high up to me but I'm rather inexperienced at this whole porn malarkey, let alone French lesbian porn.

The other bends down onto her knees. By now her face is level with the first girl's rather fantastic arse.

Something good is about to happen, something wonderful, I can feel it! I can feel a lot of things, actually, like the urge to just... OH MY FUCKING GOD SHE'S SHITTING IN HER MOUTH, EW EW EW EW!!!

...somehow, I managed to 2girls1cup myself before it was cool. Thank you, internet.
(Kushan just wants to fit in..to your mum, Fri 23 Mar 2012, 13:55, Reply)

Before I had the Internet, I dreamt of the Internet; I was 12, so the dream
consisted of me getting the Internet and then watching all of the pornography. I woke up even more excited about my future.

My first concious experience of the Internet was, still aged 12, at a 'net café', but not one of those trendy places with '@' symbols and paninis everywhere. It was quite clearly a man's spare room. My Grandfather took me and I used my allotted half-an-hour to learn about frogs. We had the interwebs installed at home a few months later.

Within a few days of getting online at home, I had a (utterly utterly terrible) website on Tripod. It had a spinning 3D Java clock, scrolling status bar text and countless interesting lists of things I liked. Soon it even had a page about Smurfs, in order of my favourite Smurf to least favourite Smurf. When I was a sad-offline-child, I'd been teaching myself Delphi (a (terrible) programming language); the Internets became the perfect place to flog my (free)wares. Doorz 3000 was a (terrible) Windows shell that somehow made it into PC Format and PC Answers magazines and is still used by some (terrible) people today. I also claim to have invented the word 'blog': one of my (terrible) applications was called 'Web log' and it would live in your system tray, download a static HTML file from your defined FTP server, add your latest entry into it, and reupload it. The executable was called blog.exe, this was before blogging was called blogging. I am aware this is just a coincidence, no one used this piece of software (it was terrible), but it is a good thing to throw out when I'm bored and pretending to be an Internet Millionaire at networking shindigs.

In 2002 I found b3ta, became an internet-pervert (thanks, Rob), bought fucksocks.co.uk and started asking for people to send me photographs of them with socks on their willies to add to the gallery of me and my friends. At the time I was routinely recognised around town for being the 'sock guy', half a million people have seen those photographs.

Since then I've worked freelance, been the eCommerce director for a multi-million-pound-company (it turns out that is quite stressful, I had a bit of a breakdown) and now run my own little venture selling hair dye and other brightly coloured things. It is doing quite well: Look Magazine featured it a month ago and it was in Stylist Magazine yesterday. £10 of samples for an editorial feature is much better than paying for advertising. Soon I will be able to afford to eat real food and heat my flat!

I was a (terrible) reclusive child (über-bullied), I think the Internet stopped me from going completely mad and gave me an outlet. I have a nice balance of geekyness and socialness now, but I do still feel like I grew up online rather than in swing parks. This is fine, the Internet is a nice place to live.
( stevierar, Fri 23 Mar 2012, 11:48, 16 replies)

From precious luxury to ubiquitous commodity.
My earliest experiences with the networking power of computers began with my father's purchase of a first generation Compaq portable in early 1983. After using the word processor software to prepare and print out an extensive senior seminar final paper, I demanded my own computer system to take with me to college, and put much of my summer's earnings towards a portable of my own, with M&D graciously making up the difference, plus throwing in a loud and proud Riteman 9-pin dot matrix printer.

My initial years at the college were filled with BBS exploration and an ever growing list of telephone numbers for same. I was also blessed with the gift of a pricey Compu$erve account, which at $12/hr for 1200/2400 baud access was a carefully guarded resource, especially when an extended file downloading session could generate a $60 charge and a followup phone call from dear old dad making certain I was using it to best effect. It's old history now, but watching GIF make its debut, then seeing NAPLPS morph into the Prodigy service and the rise of the independent national networks was exciting, as horizons broadened and ideas exchanged across the patchwork of systems. The college did have internet access, but it was set aside exclusively for professors to communicate with other professors. We did have a limited global news capacity in the form of the X-Press system, which was a low rate satellite link to world news stories. It was that system which informed the students in the computer center about a breaking radiation disaster in Goiania which, coupled with the prior year's news of the Chernobyl meltdown, generated a greater level of angst than most of us were accustomed to.

My final presentation at the college centered around data transfer rates, the ubiquity of low speed modem based networking and the continuing viability of "sneaker net" technologies, up to and including mailing a stack of diskettes or CDs being quicker than attempting to use telephone connections. 2 months after I graduated, my entire presentation was rendered moot when the new V.32 communications standard turned existing modems into garbage and the BBS networks experienced a resurgence in popularity and viability until the flat rate ISP appeared.

It took a few more years and the rise of the independent ISP before I abandoned my trusty Compu$erve account and braved the wild waters of direct internet access, but by '94 I was enjoying newly expanded horizons, automating how to make 7-bit ASCII text coexist with 8-bit binaries in emails and starting flame wars on message boards by trying to help users of older Packard Bell computers figure out how to upgrade their VRAM sockets (argh: ZIP chips!). And I certainly can't forget Usenet.

An especially memorable moment involving the service occurred when Jhod had the wild idea to create a new discussion group in alt.sex; we were clueless to what he was doing until we saw alt.sex.aluminum.baseball.bat brought into being, at which point he said, "let's leave it for a few weeks and see what happens." I had no idea of the power of suggestion until that moment. As we checked back in to see what was being discussed, the initial, tentative posts of "is this real?" had already given way to discussions of size and types of bats used and the merits of standard anodized models versus painted variants. It was at that moment, reading the posts, responses and suggestions, that I realized the internet truly is a magical place.

In the years since, the world has caught on to the wonders of easy world wide communication: the battle now rages between corporate interests attempting to destroy individual liberties, governments pushing for wholesale censorship, groups who fight to protect individual rights and unrestricted use, and you, who me? yes you, keeping this place fun and entertaining - but I'll never forget that magical moment when I discovered you could ask the question, "are your fetishes as sick and twisted as mine?" and receive an honest, emphatic reply from the rest of the world.

Thank you for your time.
( Felis Concolor, Tue 27 Mar 2012, 10:16, 7 replies)

My first experience on the internet was in a chat room. I started chatting to a 15 year old girl. She was a bit flirty and in need of a friend so we arranged to meet up. Turned out she was an undercover detective. That's an impressive achievement at her age.
( enoughblueskyforsailorstrousers, Thu 22 Mar 2012, 16:39, 4 replies)

i don't have, and have never had, access to the internet

(Quintno EXPERIMENT RUINED CANCELLED, LEFT 4EVER, Thu 22 Mar 2012, 14:39, Reply)

Times have changed.
The old days of the Internet:
"Oooh! A picture of a kitteh! It should only take 25 minutes to download over dial-up. Yay."

The present day:
"FFS @%**! IT TOOK FIVE FUCKING SECONDS TO LOAD ICANHAZCHEESBURGER. THAT'S IT! I'VE HAD IT. I'M CHANGING BROADBAND SUPPLIER! FUCKING USELESS SHOWER OF CUNTS."


I don't even like cats.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 22 Mar 2012, 13:36, 4 replies)

56k Modem
A few years ago I found my old dusty 56k modem in a box at the back of my recording studio, I really missed the sounds it made when connecting.
I plugged the old fella in to see if it works but like a twat I accidentally connected it to my mixing desk.

Still on the upside I invented dubstep and now drive a Honda Accord
( Terry Oblong There's nobody here but us chickens on, Fri 23 Mar 2012, 0:19, Reply)

summer, 2002. first iMac G3. mother is out to get fags and i connect to our local ISP.
my mother is a single parent. having heard no end of man hate and small penis jokes since childhood, i spent many years thinking my penis was too small; that somehow i was unusual and would spend the rest of my life as a bitter man.

imagine my surprise when entering in "fanny" and "boobs" into google for the first time. unusual websites i found made my penis activate! "at last", thought i. "no longer is my penis an underachieving shrimp with no hair! even the willies on this website is bald."

a banner ad at the top of the page caught my interest.

"how odd. it says here i can get a monster penis by just clicking!"

i clicked.

no growth.

if you ever had one of these iMacs, you'll know there's a small gap between the desk and the computer that's perfectly sized for a small, prepubescent erection.

that's how my mother found me trying to fuck the computer whilst right clicking and downloading the banner ad .gif image in an attempt to make the monster penis somehow download to my chap.

length? about 5 1/2 inches these days.
( avant-hard thought UHT was a sex noise, Sat 24 Mar 2012, 12:40, 1 reply)

Not my story, but an interesting bit of history.
I have a friend who was a part of the really early days of the internet, back when it was ARPANET.

In the late 1970s major government departments and major universities were tied into ARPANET and were able to send messages through it. If you happened to be working for one of the Ivy League or something you might have access to do this, but if you were in a smaller university you were out of luck as it cost $25,000 per year to access it.

An MIT graduate who was an engineer and his wife had an idea. Suppose they bought a license themselves, set up a nice big server and sold access to that for a far more reasonable amount, and sold it to a lot of people? And lo, in 1979 one of the first commercially available email services was born.

Bob and Susan became millionaires, of course. Sadly in 2006 Bob died of cancer, and the company has dwindled to nothing. However, Susan and I are good friends, and there may yet be a resurgence of their company- we have plans for drift buoys for climate monitoring that may yet come to pass.

The amusing part of this is that they were essentially reselling government services at a profit, and not only was it legal to do so but it was encouraged.

RIP, Bob. You had chromium steel balls the size of cantaloupes.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 22 Mar 2012, 21:13, 4 replies)

My first experience of the internet?
I used it to buy a bread-maker.
(Mao's stepson is doing his bit for East/West relation's, Thu 22 Mar 2012, 18:01, Reply)

Ah the joys of waiting for pictures to download, one line of pixels at a time
As a Top Tip in Viz at the time had it - Online pornographers: save your users' time by simply posting the images upside down so that the minge is at the top.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Thu 22 Mar 2012, 12:12, Reply)

'Would you like to dial up now'....clicks 'Yes'
Wwwwlwwwwweeeeeee.............iiiiiiiiiiiiaaaa.......eeeeekeekekeeeeeee.......oaoaooaoaoaoaoooooojojojojojooo........
ceeeeeeeeeeeeeccciickckc.....iiiiiiiiiwwiiiieiieieieieiiii...........
eeeellelelelelelellel..............iiiieieieiririririririiwiwiow..........slskjdlkjslkjlkjlkjlkj......owiuoiuoiuoiuoiu.....oopopaoapaopaoapapoapoa........

DING .....DING

YOU ARE NOW CONNECTED
(The Archduke of South London I'm in your Girlfriend eating her organs, Tue 27 Mar 2012, 12:45, Reply)

mangina
At a mates house some time in the 90s

Wavy lines

My pal showed me what he'd found via the magic of his 56k modem. Adult chat network was a significant collection of boards covering a multitude of perversions where (so far as I could tell) a bunch of dribbling shut-ins would await a female then compete at flirtation in order to entice the victim into a private chat and 'cyber' them.

Things became nauseating when my (then) friend logged out and signed back in as a bi-curious female named mangina.

Like rubber-necking a nasty road accident, I them witnessed him accept the flirtations of the ravenous horde and soon after engage in private chat with a 'lucky' punter.

I can't remember much detail, but basically mangina put across that 'she' liked anal play and encouraged the gibbering monkey spanker to follow suit. There was something about trying to get four fingers in his jacksie then the typing stopped. An enquiry was met with reply that he was bleeding pretty bad and would have to go.

I've never felt so shocked or nauseous online until some twat on here mentioned jarsquatter and I looked that up.

Oddly enough, I happened to lose touch with the sadistic fucker i'd called my friend.
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Fri 23 Mar 2012, 13:41, Reply)

Command and Conquer online multiplayer frustration
My mate's family had just got a brand spanking new, top of the line 28k modem. The internet was ours! Or so we thought. Spent an afternoon trying to connect to the local games shop (which had a super-powered 56k modem) so we could play C&C online with another mate that worked there. Everytime we got connected we phoned each other to talk about how cool it was, and lost the connection. Took several months to work out why.
( Crap Little Monkey Deathstar, so good they built it twice, Fri 23 Mar 2012, 11:00, Reply)

Auntie knows everything
Wavy lines back to 1981. I'm sitting in the lounge, pounding away on the keyboard of a ZX-81 which is connected to the family TV set. Yes, I was one of those famed 14-year-old computer fanatics of that distant, halcyon era.

My aunt, in her 60s, is watching from the armchair as she does her knitting. She's visiting, and probably hasn't ever seen a computer before. Apparently she's been trying to work out what I'm doing, because she suddenly asks, "So, can you ask it anything, then?"

Oh how I rolled around on the floor, laughing at her naivete! What a dinosaur, I thought, what a muppet. How could anyone be so stupid to think that you could simply sit at your computer at home, and ask questions to get information.

About 15 years later it dawned on me that she was, in fact, startlingly prescient, and if I'd taken her seriously I could have been Bill Gates.

Bugger.
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Fri 23 Mar 2012, 10:49, Reply)

Back in '93 or something
my little brother was trumpeting the delights of the internet

"It's great, look at this! LIVE footage from someone's fish tank!"

me "I can't see much changing"

him "It updates every 20 seconds...watch"

time passes....

me "where's the fish, I can't see any?"

him "there aren't any yet, he's hoping people will send him money to buy some"
( Citizen Cavy Admires your passion for conformity, Thu 22 Mar 2012, 20:25, Reply)

Did this only happen to me?
Perusing the use.net alt/binary/pictures/disgusting_porn when Win3.xx crashes and the blue screen comes up 'Illegal Operation'.
"Oh shit" I says, "How could they know?"
(the other guy not the one that gave you coochie warts, Thu 22 Mar 2012, 14:48, 2 replies)

If it wasn't for this QOTW I'd have never known you could get pornography via the internet.

( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Mon 26 Mar 2012, 19:10, 7 replies)