

What the Internet Looked Like in 1995 [video] - eroded
http://mentalfloss.com/article/49676/what-internet-looked-1995

======
michael_miller
Technology has a way of feeling incremental. Think about this past year, what
really happened? We got a slightly faster iPhone, Facebook did some interface
tweaks, Microsoft released a new version of Windows. These seem like really
small improvements. But if you look back to the original iPhone, what Facebook
looked like in Zuck's dorm room, or what Windows 3.1 looked like, the change
is staggering.

The linked video shows this phenomenon full effect. The internet in the video
is slow, clunky, and ugly. How could a page take 30 seconds to load? Why does
everything have a murky gray background? The difference between the web of
then and now is staggering. But as someone who grew up through the early 90s
watching the internet expand, it sure didn't feel like things were changing
fast. It happened gradually - companies starting coming online slowly (and
often with a very limited presence): nytimes, barnes+noble, moviefone. Then
the internet started getting organized better, first with Yahoo's directories,
then with search engines like AltaVista, Excite, Lycos. Then, Google came
along, gradually improving their algorithm to the point where we can now
access almost any piece of the world's information in seconds. In retrospect,
there was so much going on during that time period, but living through it
didn't feel that way.

More than anything else, I think this is a testament that having a real impact
on technology in the long-term is a marathon, not a sprint. You have to have a
vision, and incrementally improve on it constantly, even if it feels like
you're not accomplishing much in the short term.

~~~
furyofantares
Your point is well taken but there have also been a number of things that did
not feel incremental to me when introduced to them. Google, DSL/Cable
providers, Napster, iPhone, YouTube, and Bitcoin all felt like big jumps.

~~~
yareally
Also wikipedia, stack overflow, multicore processors (no more having your
system lock up on most heavy tasks), git versus svn/cvs. Lots of technological
advances that improved things greatly. Just takes some additional thinking to
recall what those things are.

I still recall going from a single core AMD to an Intel q6600 quad core CPU
and thinking how amazing it was that I did not have to worry about my entire
CPU locking up on one bad app going bonkers and eating 100% of the CPU. It
became possible to have an app crash and max out a core and not even notice it
immediately. Even when OSs and apps did not do mult-core processing overly
well, I still manually set the affinity to most heavy apps so they were
isolated to their own cores.

------
ericabiz
I'm not one to usually watch videos online, but this one is well worth
watching.

Check out around 5:00 when they start describing the first live band to stream
a concert online--a group of geeks from Xerox PARC in Palo Alto! And one of
them, in the interview, says "If 100 bands tried to do [live streaming] at the
same time, disaster would ensue. It may not be possible to do what we did in
another couple years."

But perhaps my favorite part was right at the beginning, when they're talking
about "electronic mail." John Markoff from the NY Times casually shows his
email inbox..."Here's a message I got from Steve Jobs, for example." (!)

Markoff admits even then that email was hard to keep up with: "When you're in
my position, you get hundreds or even thousands of messages each day..." And
he shows off his fancy new Eudora "filters" that he's using to make his inbox
usable.

Great piece of history...and it really shows how far we've come in under 20
years. I doubt any one of them would have predicted that the #1 Billboard hit
in 2013 would come from a Korean band that no one had heard of...until they
put a music video online that got over 1.4 _billion_ views. Breathtaking, and
it makes me excited for the next 20 years and whatever we're going to come up
with next.

~~~
wavesounds
It's interesting how the problem of getting too many emails is still a problem
18 years later and the solution of 'filtering things into different folders'
is still the best we can do.

~~~
logn
I think we have better solutions. Most of my social contacts are on Facebook
with an optimized ranking system so I see what's important. Much of my work is
handled on wikis instead of people emailing me documents. Links people might
have emailed are now posted on twitter or other websites. Quick questions and
answers are now in IM. Job inquiries are left on LinkedIn or HR management
software.

If your inbox is jammed with work email, then you have a bad job. If your
personal email is jammed, then you need to click 'Unsubscribe' more. Or you're
a public figure, in which case they always have gotten mail, postal or
electronic. The internet just let a lot more people become public figures, so
be careful what you wish for.

~~~
wavesounds
Im curious to know what kind of job you have in which you don't get lots of
emails? Maybe its because I've always had jobs working with customers but from
my experience customers love sending emails.

~~~
logn
Yeah, perhaps my comment on work email only applies to people in my line of
work, engineering and not working directly with customers. For people on the
customer side maybe it's unavoidable (although there are apps attempting to
address this). But as far as non-customer-facing engineers go, I've found that
if you're constantly flooded with email you're probably in an organization
with lots of bureaucracy where few people feel empowered to make decisions.
For instance, when I want to hire someone (I manage), I do it by sending an
email to the HR person saying essentially 'hire them'. My boss has empowered
me to make this decision and no other departments get in the way, except if
they limit the budget.

------
mseepgood
How it looked some years later: <http://divshot.github.io/geo-bootstrap/>

~~~
Aardwolf
Man I miss those under construction signs :'(

~~~
joonix
I miss the playful/innocent nature of the internet back then. These days it's
all about being "sexy" and cool.

------
jweir
I lived for Computer Chronicles in the 80's, but lost track of it in the 90's
(when I didn't have a TV).

This episode on UNIX from 1985 (with a bearded Bill Joy) is great:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7P16mYDIJw>

~~~
Aardwolf
Unix, mainframes, and people with beards. What more does a TV show need?

------
joonix
I will always treasure the fact that I grew up with the internet during these
times. Yes, even the old geocities pages. It truly was a "new frontier," and
not everyone gets to experience something like that. It was all so exciting.
People would come over and we'd just sit around and "play on the internet,"
trying out different things. Or we'd get some "warez" and think we were
"hackers" because we could "punt" people off of AOL...

------
runn1ng
I know it's slightly off topic, but with the risk of being downvoted:

you want to see some really old-looking pages and feel some nostalgia? Just go
to DMOZ - <http://www.dmoz.org/> \- and click through the categories. They
have hundreds of pages that felt right out of 90s. (If they work at all.)

------
Mithrandir
You can find more episodes of Computer Chronicles and Net Cafe (the spin-off)
on the Internet Archive:

<https://archive.org/details/computerchronicles>

<https://archive.org/details/netcafe>

------
autotravis
"Who says online users are a bunch of anti-social geeks?"

~~~
derleth
People online, in my experience.

------
lucb1e
First time I ever saw a video in 144p on Youtube. Was this ever the main video
format on Youtube?

------
milesf
Then there was my era of "modern computing", the 80's. My favourite show back
then was Bits and Bytes:

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VaBYw3swyg>

------
nuttendorfer
Did anybody notice that the average internet user today is pretty similar to
the one presented in the video? Users still need a lot of hand holding and
guidance to use the web. Back then they used only a handful of sites which is
still the case today with Facebook, Twitter and maybe a couple of other sites
(news sites, craigslist, Youtube).

On another note I somewhat wish we could go back to a (slightly) less
interactive web. Everywhere you go you are overwhelmed with social media
plugins and calls to various actions (WE WANT YOUR ANSWERS! [taken from
mentalfloss]).

~~~
Evbn
Adblock. Problem solved.

------
timr
For those wondering, the cafe in the youtube video is now Azucar Lounge, at
the corner of 9th and Folsom. It's becoming a somewhat popular place for the
people who work at the startups that are crammed in down here:

<http://www.netline.be/presse/cybertaire/news/ccafe.htm#icon>

<http://goo.gl/maps/LEKrD>

The more things things change...

------
pfarrell
1995: "How concerned should I be about information I put online?"

2013: "very concerned... In about 6 years."

1995: "...and this is usenet which is a collection of computer 'conferences'"

2013: "what? When I first logged on at Purdue, 1993, I thought of usenet as a
public email inbox. Oh and hey 1995! Sell SUNW and buy AAPL.

------
onemorepassword
One thing I remember from those days is how _fast_ the web changed. Every new
browser version brought new features that people immediately started using.

Nowadays, a 5 year old site can still look and feel like it was made today.
Back then, a 5 month old site was already outdated.

------
linuxhansl
Wow that brings me back. I remember my first ping when I had my ppp connection
to the internet after using BBS for years.

I actually had dealings with SoftQuad (the last interview) back then.

It's amazing how things change and how we just accept new stuff and take it
for granted!

------
unsigner
Tiny espresso cup? At least Americans had _taste_ back then!

------
rbanffy
Am I the only one disturbed by the AT&T Unix PC being mirrored on the intro?

------
MRSallee
Usenet looks a lot like Reddit.

~~~
onemorepassword
I was an avid Usenet user back in the 90's and an active redditor today, and
only now I realize how right you are...

~~~
Evbn
Does reddit have killfiles?

