That's pretty much my story. My parents were always technologically illiterate and didn't get a computer until 1998, and it was a hand-me-down 386 that ran Windows 3.1. Needless to say, we didn't have our own internet connection.
I came on in 2000 after I joined the military and built my own first computer, with a cable modem. I was like that one kid that had that one cool toy that all the other neighborhood kids were always stopping by to play with (which got annoying fast) because the original Napster was in full-swing and fast as fuck. My friends and other dormmates were downloading theme-songs to ridiculously obscure anime, movies, porn. It got to the point where I had to start kicking them out of my room when I had to go to sleep.
Because of that I met a guy around my age but who was into that older-school stuff like IRC, smurphing, early Linux, shell accounts, carding, warez, BBS, all that shit. I remember him using alligator clips and opening up a wall box to download warez in the dorms using the dial-up modem in his laptop. There were some "free" providers who ran at 44.1 with required ads that could be disabled easily using clever tricks.
I had a computer early on (Apple IIGs in the 80s) but my dad was deadset against a modem for years. I think he was scared of viruses. I listened to friends talk about BBSs and online services, I read the ads, and sometimes I wondered what it was like but mostly I was content. Then college got me online and after one semester I decided I wanted a modem for the Christmas break so I could connect to school and get on usenet (with occasional lynx use for the world wide web). At that point it was technically my dad's computer I was using at home (Mac LCIII) but he had no worries about me buying a modem at that point, and the rest is history. I used ZTerm for Macintosh dialed up to my university for a couple years after that. At one point I even used it to download NetBSD for Macintosh which I installed on a 100M Zip disk. That was probably the longest file transfer of my life.
-- ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 08 2017, @06:25PM
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday July 08 2017, @06:25PM (#536599)
I briefly tried a "freeweb" thing. The ads were easily covered by full-screen applications like lynx and quake. Still not worth the waste of bandwidth though.
There were some "free" providers who ran at 44.1 with required ads that could be disabled easily using clever tricks.
LOL, that must have been netzero. After launching it ran a banner of ads along the top of your screen. Though, you couldn't leave your PC unattended for very long as no mouse movement meant you weren't browsing so it disconnected. A friend rigged a small motor to a spare USB mouse and a circuit that reversed the direction so the mouse cursor moved back and forth which was enough to fool the activity monitor. After that I think he wrote a VB program that did something similar or clicked the ads after they got wise to those shenanigans.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Wednesday June 28 2017, @08:19PM (4 children)
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday June 30 2017, @11:38PM (3 children)
That's pretty much my story. My parents were always technologically illiterate and didn't get a computer until 1998, and it was a hand-me-down 386 that ran Windows 3.1. Needless to say, we didn't have our own internet connection.
I came on in 2000 after I joined the military and built my own first computer, with a cable modem. I was like that one kid that had that one cool toy that all the other neighborhood kids were always stopping by to play with (which got annoying fast) because the original Napster was in full-swing and fast as fuck. My friends and other dormmates were downloading theme-songs to ridiculously obscure anime, movies, porn. It got to the point where I had to start kicking them out of my room when I had to go to sleep.
Because of that I met a guy around my age but who was into that older-school stuff like IRC, smurphing, early Linux, shell accounts, carding, warez, BBS, all that shit. I remember him using alligator clips and opening up a wall box to download warez in the dorms using the dial-up modem in his laptop. There were some "free" providers who ran at 44.1 with required ads that could be disabled easily using clever tricks.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Saturday July 01 2017, @02:46AM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 08 2017, @06:25PM
I briefly tried a "freeweb" thing. The ads were easily covered by full-screen applications like lynx and quake.
Still not worth the waste of bandwidth though.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday July 13 2017, @03:00PM
LOL, that must have been netzero. After launching it ran a banner of ads along the top of your screen. Though, you couldn't leave your PC unattended for very long as no mouse movement meant you weren't browsing so it disconnected. A friend rigged a small motor to a spare USB mouse and a circuit that reversed the direction so the mouse cursor moved back and forth which was enough to fool the activity monitor. After that I think he wrote a VB program that did something similar or clicked the ads after they got wise to those shenanigans.