Today exactly 30 years ago, the teacher education course I attended (IVLOS, part of Utrecht University) provided me with a 14400 baud (baud = bits per second, so count out the amazing speed) modem. As we were all supposed to start our individual work placements after the summer holiday, but needed to remain in touch with each other, this was a fairly hi-tech solution to our communication needs. I think we had an email program called NuPOP”, and of course I browsed the internet using “Netscape Navigator”. These were the times, I also seem to recall (dimly, and possibly incorrectly) of people primarily using the “Yahoo!” search engine, with cutting-edge people (like what I considered myself to be) gradually discovering “AltaVista”. “Google” happened later, around 1999-2000.<\/p>\n
I had, being a bit of a geek, already been on the internet before. Utrecht University had ‘computerleerzalen’ (computer learning rooms) at the Jutfaseweg (all demolished before the end of the century, having been a residential neighbourhood called ‘Vondelparc’ since 2001), that I used to send people messages from, and do non-specific but somehow incredibly exciting internet-related stuff (chatting and emailing, I think). Back then (my internet travels started in June 1995) my old young friend Gard Abrahamsen (RIP) was a patient mentor when it came to my voyages of internet discovery. I remember very clearly that I used to Telnet to his server and that I used to look around myself to see if people would perhaps catch me contacting an internet node that was located all the way over in Norway. I assumed I was somehow racking up costs somewhere, and I was going to be confronted with a bill sooner or later. The basics of the internet were clearly very unclear to me.<\/p>\n
*Anyway*, the computer learning rooms were free but also DOS-based, or Unix-based (I don’t remember exactly, but a command line interface at any rate), and my internet explorations became more interesting on 4 June 1996, on my first Windows 95 machine (Pentium 60 Mhz, 8 Mb RAM, and an enormous 1 Gb HD), when I got that modem. When I was surfing the internet, none of the other people in my house (I lived with 4 or 5 other students) were able to receive calls, and they’d hear the familiar white noise sound when they lifted the communal phone receiver to try and place one. Also, surfing the internet cost a specific amount per minute (I seem to recall 0.15 to 0.25 Guilders, and it was cheaper in the evening\/night). Different days.<\/p>\n
The internet was a beautiful, new and exciting, barely commercial place in these pre-enshittified times. It was full of sites made by amateurs (and some professionals) that were advertisement-free. It was Web 1.0, though in those pre-Web 2.0 days it was just ‘the web’ I suppose. Almost 2 years later I made my first website (for the ST NEWS disk magazine, by then 2 years defunct), hosted by the very same and much-more-internet-savvy-than-me Gard. I started learning HTML and using an FTP program to upload my attempts at webmastery to Gard’s server in Norway. People in my house weren’t too happy with all the time that took, I suppose, but these were happy days for yours truly. I could now easily contact people from all over the world, and find out information about practically anything I wanted (although this was still well before 2001, when Wikipedia started). Like Mary Hopkin sang, “Those were the days, my friend \/ We thought they’d never end.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today exactly 30 years ago, the teacher education course I attended (IVLOS, part of Utrecht University) provided me with a 14400 baud (baud = bits per second, so count out the amazing speed) modem. As we were all supposed to … Continue reading