When did you first get an internet connection at home?

[GraveDilute]

I remember reading the Anarchist Cookbook. Probably get picked up by ASIO now for keeping it on your hard drive!

I started getting into the net at uni in 1996, and then got a real connection when living in Japan from 99-2002. I got an ADSL connection when I lived in Tokyo which was 8M for like $25/month (no such thing as download LIMITS. Ask any Japanese and they'll git you a wtf? face)

I went back with my wife for a month last year, and we connected to 48M/sec ($45/month) with no connection fee, and a free VOIP phone. Now that's what I call broadband.
Incidentally, for about $120/month you can get a 1Gb/sec connection. My wife and I watch the plethora of ads on TV about ADSL here in Australia and LOL

[fairmont1998]

1997.
Bought a brand new cryix 233, 4.7 gig hdd, 33.6kbps PC. Damn advanced it was...

[Dezza]

My family didn't get internet until 2003, and even still it was only dialup. They've finally upgraded to broadband with a tiny 200Mb download limit (pathetic, isn't it). I've moved out of home though, so I'm getting ADSL2 with a 30Gb limit (at the moment it's 512kb/s with a 20Gb limit)

[Bucket]

Took me a year as a 15 Year Old to convince Dad that we should get the internet...we went with Bigpond initially but they charged for every thing you downloaded...then we went with a Local ISP who charged for everything after 300Mb...That was crap too..then i discovered Global Freeway....a FREE ISP as long as you let them show you ads..that was brilliant!! Especially when as a 15 Y.o wannabe hacker i found and deleted the program that displayed the Ads, i was so proud of myself lol
My family live in a rural(ish) are and we had to partition for a year to get ADSL on our exchange...we finally did (512Kb/128) and then 2 months later i move to WA...now i have ADSL2 with 9Mb/1Mb...Brilliant!

[Deadman]

Originally Posted by Bucket

now i have ADSL2 with 9Mb/1Mb...Brilliant!

Bah! I only get 7Mbps/1Mbps where I am now, must be a bit further from the exchange than you are...

I have a mate who is virtually right next to it, regularly gets over 20Mbps. :sm_drool:

[bArNsY]

Only Feb this year.....but have been using it at school and uni for a long time

Adam

[Bucket]

Originally Posted by Deadman

Bah! I only get 7Mbps/1Mbps where I am now, must be a bit further from the exchange than you are...

I have a mate who is virtually right next to it, regularly gets over 20Mbps. :sm_drool:

Mate, i would live ontop of an exchange if i could..
What ISP are you with Deadman?

[pauljh74]

1997 - when they measured your usage in hours, not MB/GB. my first 20 hours a month lasted me less than a week so I upgraded to 40 at a whopping 33.6kB/sec. I paid for it myself and later got a phone line in my room when Optus offered free installation as an introductory deal. It beat using a 20 metre phone extension cable to the other phone point.

[GasoLane]

Does anybody in here remember 'Viatel". Waay before the 'Internet' kicked in, back in about 1990, I think.

[V8R]

i used to access bbs' from my old XT at home (back in about 91-92) with a "borrowed" 2400 baud modem from school. also used austpac with a borrowed teachers account, that was great for research and learning at the time. funnily enough ,the two rival sysops in the area banded together to form the first local isp in our area, way back in 95 or so.
they sold out recently for a tidy little sum, buggers ;)
Dark Crystal and little shop o horrors were two i dialed into, but all the good ones were an std call away for me..
Dark Zone (or was that Rhelm?) was one of our locals, i used to get around the boards as bigmoe.
as an aside, did anyone else used to go mad on shareware? sending away for catalogues and software on 3.5" floppies and stuff? i used to do heaps of it with a crew in the blue mountains. about that time i was an avid reader of Your Computer magazine, the best in the land! Well before pc user and such.

[McobraR]

was around 1999 or early 2000. Got our first PC in 1999.

first modem was 9600 , and when i got my first 14400 wow ,how fast was it ,omg i was playing games over the net back then but cost was high , i was with OZ EMAIL and cost was $5.00 per hour no real plans from memory.

[Jeeepers]

Originally Posted by Casper

I think it was 1996 when a BBS I was on became an internet provider.
Ahh, they were the days. I didnt even have a 56K modem at the time.

was it Hornet's Nest?

[Jeeepers]

First modem was a 2400 baud, and used to download at .24kbps or 240 bps. Hornet's Nest BBS.

[Kil4Collingwood]

only got connected late 2004 1500/256 dsl only got it originally for xbox live but.

[JG3282]

Had one provided by trade school in '95 but my own in '97

[bathurst77]

FIDO net vs GT-net Anyone?

Shortwave possums, poets corner, Kralizec, my brothers keeper.
I had a list of about 25 i used to use. echomail took about 3 days.

took me 6 months of negotiating with some ISP or uni to get permission to have a home dial in for the internet.

[bathurst77]

Then there was "The Well", "compu$erve" and "The microsoft network" thingy. I actually attended a sminar by Bill Gates homself launching MS' own inhouse version of the internet.
At that time Compuserve was the big boy on the block, god it was terrible tho, and soooo expensive!

[TUF_302]

Used the net at school since grade 6 which was 99 and got it on at home in 2004.Parents still wont get broadband yet tho!!

[Feathers]

I used my highschool computers from about 1997, graduated in 2000, and then it was only in about mid 2003, that I got bored at home so much that I decided to get my own connection, as I had a phone line into my room.
My parents weren't happy about it, and wanted me to cancel it, but then Dad thought about it some more and thought that as I was 18-19 I was old enough to be responsible with it and since I was paying for it myself I could keep it.

Now Dad gets me to do stuff for him online for his business, since he's not computer literate.

[Falcon_Phill]

I got AOL in 99. Big mistake. Discovered good ISP's a year later.

[jimmy_c]

1997 , 30 dollars for 10hrs !!

how far have we come today with broadband pushing what was and still are carrier speeds for some networks. !!!

[Bax]

Not too sure, pre 2000's easy. Maybe about grade 10 for me, which was, 99. Maybe earlier.

Joined up with a mob called Pronet, they went bust and we lost our 400 dollars for a year subscription. That was unlimited hours with some weak limit.

The days when 5kb/s was amazing. To be honest I don't know how I ever played GTA canonball runs with my mate across the road.

[revhead24ads]

1997 for me

[red_hotxr6]

It was 2004, dont really know how we got by without it.

[Lumpen Proletariat]

I'll say 1996 to be safe but it may have been late 1995. I was about 12 at the time.

First modem was a 14.4K and the later upgraded to 33.6K!

Our local ISP charged $5/hour or 20 hours for $60! Lots of money accrued when my brother really got into playing MUD's.

Only got 512K ADSL last year.


A quick note about the terrorist/anarchist handbook and alot of those style websites in general, the 'recipies' are often fake and are most likely to react badly while mixing them and explode causing serious injury or worse.


PS, I'd be interested to how to get around the Mullhullond Drive 'barrier' in Street Rod 2.



Lumpy

[Bobman]

Was 1996 for me, back when the Internet was fast and had no spam or other crap that's around now.

I joined Austnet the following year on IRC & it has changed so much now, never got spam in my emails then either, I guess you could say the net was "clean" in those times and even earlier.

Yeah BBS groups & telnet was a load of fun. Ah reminiss ;)

[guym]

still don't have it

[the black pig]

Originally Posted by The MaDDeSTMaN

I miss the BBS days, when more then 2 other people in all of Australia still used Amiga computers...

Ah, the Amiga. When I were young, we were so poor, we could only afford an Amiga, a 300bps modem and Fidonet.

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by the black pig

Ah, the Amiga. When I were young, we were so poor, we could only afford an Amiga, a 300bps modem and Fidonet.

A Megre! WOW, I could only afford a C64 .:watches to see all the under 25's google C64 to find out what it is :.