Re: Newbee Questions

["Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com>]

Ewen wrote:
> Michael Kent <michael@syndicomm.remove.this.com> wrote:
>
>
> > Michael J. Mahon <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > > Michael Kent wrote:
> >
> > > > Oh yes.  My Apple IIgs has been on the internet nearly every day for over
> > > > nineteen years.
> >
> > > Cool, Mike--you, too, were a pre-web Internet user!
> >
> > You betcha!  When people ask me if I've been on the net long, I tell them
> > I remember the internet before spam.  That usually get 'em.
>
>
> Internet? Is that something new? I remember when we used dial up modems
> at their fastest speed of 300 baud!

Right--it was amazing enough just to be able to connect, and
the speed wasn't so important!  Of course, in those days, a
20KB file was "large", too.  ;-)

I climbed the usual modem speed ladder, and then in the mid-1980s
I encountered my first T1 connection, and was blown away by
getting the better part of 1.5Mb/sec.  It seemed like *anything*
was possible at that speed!

But the world-changing thing about the Internet wasn't it's speed,
but it's amazing connectivity.  In the space of a year, it seemed
like almost everything and everyone was reachable.  And since the
number of possible connections goes up as the square of the number
of nodes, a little exuberance seemed quite rational.  ;-)

-michael

NadaPong: Network game demo for Apple II computers!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
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