The internet of old times

www.thepalace.com

Versão em português

On August 23, the official launch of World Wide Web to the public, in 1991, was celebrated: http://metro.co.uk/2016/08/23/happy-internaut-day-today-is-when-we-first-got-the-world-wide-web-6084951/. We had no idea on how much and how quickly this technology would develop. Much water has flowed under the bridge since then, the means of communication changed completely.

I think I can say I am a pioneer of internet. In 1996, five years after its official launch, I started my first steps in this awesome world… and I am still walking. There were not many people using internet, in the planet, those days. The PC (personal computer) boom had not happened yet. There were no smartphones and no other devices, like today. The internet worked only on computers and, even if they were powerful (far from how they are nowadays), connections were very slow and failed often.

In the beginnings, the internet access was via landline telephone (fixed-line telephone), we heard on the computer every sound of a regular phone call, such as the dial tone signal, the dialing (rotary dialing) and the calling signal. Sometimes, we couldn’t connect, the server line was occupied. By the way, when we were connected to the internet, our line stayed occupied. I remember I had bought another line of telephone only for the internet, so that we had one free. Then, the technology improved a little and the sound we could hear on the computer while it was connecting to the server was like that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbZgSDT8J7I. And the line was free for ordinary calls, which was a major breakthrough.

Despite the bad conditions of the system in the beginnings, comparing to current internet, I have good memories of those days. Everything was new, fascinating. But I think I would be impatient now that I am accustomed to current high speed. Pages showing images took ages to load. Many times the system failed, and we had to reboot the computer.

The browser most used at that time was the Netscape. It was the precursor of many features still used by modern browsers, mutatis mutandis, of course. Even after Internet Explorer had become the darling of everybody, I continued using Netscape, which was much less vulnerable to cyber-attacks, among other things, precisely because he had been almost completely forgotten. It was so forgotten that not long after, in the early 2000s, I needed technical support from my provider and one of those almost robots, who answered us on the phone, asked me: "What is Netscape?"... It is unforgivable for a technician in computer, to not know the evolution of the system. For those who do not know, Netscape is the precursor of Firefox, both Mozilla.

There is something that puzzles me: the tendency for fads in the connected world. Suddenly, everyone turns to a new program or application and abandons that one used before. At that time, there was a cool chat, through which I met my husband. It was called "The Palace" (http://www.thepalace.com). It was a real mania, but it didn’t last long, until ICQ appeared, and many people migrated to it. But the 'palace' was much better! We were represented by a smiley face-like, but it seemed three-dimensional, and was called avatar; we put it where we clicked, it could be moved to different environments in various countries, going to parks, halls, bars, etc. We could wear hats, glasses and many other accessories called props. When we pressed the "enter" key to display on the screen what we had written, the text appeared within a balloon directed to our avatar, as in the comics. There were options of sounds, like laughter, kisses, small snippets of songs... It was fantastic! But everything ends, I’ve never heard about this program anymore.

The evolution to new technology brought many better options, of course. Today, there are several possibilities to see who we are talking to on the internet, using computers, telephones, tablets and many other devices. When I was young, many times I heard people asking if, in the future, we would see the person who was on the other side of the telephone, without believing it could happen. It was almost like a joke about the impossible. Well, here it is.