Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The web is 30 years old today

home.cern

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 171 posts

Re: The web is 30 years old today

#141

Post by ihaveajob »

Apofis wrote: post #136
spacedcowboy wrote: post #51

When I set up my first website, you had to email CERN to be put on a list of websites around the world, that was published on their website... I think it was about the 60th (I forget the exact number, it was a long time ago :) website in the UK, serving the “needs” of (ok, playing with tech for) the image processing group in Kings College London’s physics dept while doing my PhD. The server ran on my desktop DECstati…

Wow, I didn’t realize I’m older than the internet. When I have grandkids, I’ll tell them stories that start with your first paragraph.

Technically, older than the web. Unless you were born in the 60s or earlier...

Re: The web is 30 years old today

#142

Post by malikolivier »

Buttons840 wrote: post #98
ghaff wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long distance calling used to be a pretty big deal. Even intrastate calls outside of your local calling area could be expensive--in fact, sometimes more than interstate. For BBSs, there was various software available that basically let you logon, do your uploads and downloads of messages, hang up and do your reading and writing offline. Go back a few years further and people would do all kinds of tricks if, for examp…

Bob Wehadababyitsaboy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JxhTnWrKYs

Having never been in the United States in the 80s or 90s, can some explain some background here?

It sounds very interesting but I cannot bring the pieces together.

Re: The web is 30 years old today

#143

Post by mr_toad »

severino wrote: post #140

I find it really exciting to be part of a generation that discovered the internet (which was mostly a synonym for the www and the irc) in the mid-late 90s, as opposed to the current ones who had always internet present in their lives. Back then, at least in my country, internet connections were very scarce, nobody had internet at home and "connecting" to the internet was actually a thing... So you can perfectly remem…

> nobody had internet at home

There were no residential ISPs in the early days. You had to work or study somewhere with internet access.

And home connectivity was all dial-up. DSL was completely unaffordable.

And even then, home computers lacked a TCP/IP stack, so you’d be dialling into a server using something like z-modem, and using that to access the internet.

Re: The web is 30 years old today

#145

Post by movedx »

severino wrote: post #140

I find it really exciting to be part of a generation that discovered the internet (which was mostly a synonym for the www and the irc) in the mid-late 90s, as opposed to the current ones who had always internet present in their lives. Back then, at least in my country, internet connections were very scarce, nobody had internet at home and "connecting" to the internet was actually a thing... So you can perfectly remem…

I'm in the same boat as you.

I had to go to my local college when I was 11 to use their Internet. They offered it for free on weekends. There I learned JavaScript and C from the guy who I'd say basically launched my interest and therefore my career into what it is today.

I remember downloading "large" (Warzone is 250GB!) files and splitting them up, copying them to multiple floppies disks. Now I've got 1TB in my back pack!

Those were the days when websites were just tables... I miss those simple times :P

Re: The web is 30 years old today

#146

Post by Buttons840 »

malikolivier wrote: post #142
Buttons840 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bob Wehadababyitsaboy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JxhTnWrKYs

Having never been in the United States in the 80s or 90s, can some explain some background here? It sounds very interesting but I cannot bring the pieces together.

You can (or could?) place collect calls in the US. The receiver of such a call then pays the bill. To prevent abuse, you give your name and then the phone operator will ask the receiver "do you want to accept, and pay for, this collect call from Bob Smith?"

The video is just making fun of that situation by encoding a message in the name.

Re: The web is 30 years old today

#147

Post by ghaff »

Buttons840 wrote: post #146
malikolivier wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having never been in the United States in the 80s or 90s, can some explain some background here? It sounds very interesting but I cannot bring the pieces together.

You can (or could?) place collect calls in the US. The receiver of such a call then pays the bill. To prevent abuse, you give your name and then the phone operator will ask the receiver "do you want to accept, and pay for, this collect call from Bob Smith?" The video is just making fun of that situation by encoding a message in the name.

Students also frequently had shared phone services of various types so they'd make a person to person call to their parents with some agreed-upon name and their parents would call back at the shared number. When I went to school we also traded cassettes because phone calls of any length were expensive in any case.

(The context is that long distance phone calls cost maybe $4+ per minute in today's dollars.)

Re: The web is 30 years old today

#149

Post by aduitsis »

samstave wrote: post #63
spacedcowboy wrote: post #51

When I set up my first website, you had to email CERN to be put on a list of websites around the world, that was published on their website... I think it was about the 60th (I forget the exact number, it was a long time ago :) website in the UK, serving the “needs” of (ok, playing with tech for) the image processing group in Kings College London’s physics dept while doing my PhD. The server ran on my desktop DECstati…

I love stories of yore like this. I got my first machine in ~1985 or so... I convinced my dad he needed a machine for his business - and then I just played populous and called long distance from Tahoe to a BBS in San Jose to play the pit and trade wars. I got grounded for a month because the long distance phone bill was $926 and my dad was furious. He yelled at me one time and said "stop wasting your time on the damn…

My sad thought is that today I'm probably never going to have the pleasant opportunity to be proven wrong by telling the kids to stop wasting their time on Fortnite :( .

Re: The web is 30 years old today

#150

Post by gerdesj »

spacedcowboy wrote: post #51

When I set up my first website, you had to email CERN to be put on a list of websites around the world, that was published on their website... I think it was about the 60th (I forget the exact number, it was a long time ago :) website in the UK, serving the “needs” of (ok, playing with tech for) the image processing group in Kings College London’s physics dept while doing my PhD. The server ran on my desktop DECstati…

"In comparison, the first computer I ever got was the ZX81 (in 1981, so about 8 years earlier) and it had 1K of RAM, came as components that I soldered to the motherboard (I was 11 at the time,"

Me too (turned 50 a few days ago). I persuaded school to buy a single ZX80, then quite a few 81s and a tonne of Speccies later on. Then you buy the RAM pack: 16KB luxury! Then you discovered a new use for Blu Tac - to stop the bloody RAM pack from wobbling.

I was more interested in the 'puters than the telly but I do understand your fixation.

I had a brief job in RNAC Manadon (Plymouth, UK) as an IT bod in 1993. From my (Windows 3) PC, I could telnet the Xn (n - can't remember the number) PAD, then get myself to some box in the US and then to CERN for the www. I was asked by my boss to evaluate this new fangled www thing, compared to WAIS, GOPHER etc. I can't remember my exact findings but it looked like gopher to me because the cat pictures were not there because I was using telnet (Mosaic came later) and it looked to me like another menuing system.

Post reply on HN