all 43 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 45 points 1 month ago (1 child)

I remember images loading one line at a time and I get irritated at less than 40Mbps.

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 21 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    We were also loading 30kb webpages. Try to load anything from the last 10 years over 33,600

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago

    Yeah, but thats in large part due to the fact that people stopped trying to optimize, because why optimize when most people have gigantic firehose connections that can just use their raw bandwidth to overcome issues.

    A similar problem exists with other aspects of computing, lack of optimization and just brute forcing it with modern GPU/CPU power

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 17 points 1 month ago

    You know what’s worse that no internet? Slow internet.

  • source
  • [–] 16 points 1 month ago

    I can still hear that image.

  • source
  • [–] 15 points 1 month ago

    Christ, that sound lives rent free in my head

  • source
  • [–] 14 points 1 month ago

    Dialing attempt 4 of 5

    “Guess I’ll check my email tomorrow…”

  • source
  • [–] 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

    Twenty minutes to download a 1MB image.

    Yes, really. 9600 baud modem.

    ASCII art was popular then, and before: https://www.asciiart.eu/

  • source
  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago

    I loved the original NetZero. You could use the ISP phone number and set up a manual connection with Windows dialer... viola! Free dial-up with no ads or shitty dialer software!

  • source
  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    There was a time when you either had phone service or internet. But not both at the same time.

  • source
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    And if some bastard tried calling you when you were on the internet, they weren't your friend any more.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    In the UK we had free numbers that would cut out after an hour of use and you had to redial, so you had to do downloads or uploads is chunks

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago

    ouch, I made ISD calls to Sydney after 10pm from Northern Australia to get the cheaper rates and had a 24k modem into one of the only ISPs in Australia at the time, IBM. I emailed someone in NASA once just because I came across their email address (in a Scientific American article I think?) .. and they replied I was like.... my jaw dropped when a reply came and I was like ... this is the future and here we are, i never once imagined how shit it could get.

    The early Internet brings back memories, when I'm using Linux. Only been on Linux for 3 years (Mint).

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 22 points 1 month ago

    Limitations of available technology at the time =/= limitations generally caused by shitty ISPs and/or IT teams not maintaining their infrastructure and equipment properly.

  • source
  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago

    Yes, we really did have to download things uphill both ways back then. I remember leaving the computer on overnight to download a game that was, like, 40 mb.

    In the morning I got there and it had crashed at like 98% lol

    My dad was pissed at me for "wasting electricity" the real OG data center hater over here.

  • source
  • Dialup noises still give me tingles. Like I'm about to experience something fun, new, and crazy soon.

  • source
  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    I believe broadband is, generally, a net negative for the human species.

    Its always on, leading to a constant conveyor belt of fresh horrors.

    Its always on, so theres no seperation from internet and anything else, because you can't just log out of the internet anymore.

    High speed/Always on internet means goods we used to own physically and use as we please, have been converted into goods we just perpetually rent and can be taken from us at any time.

    always on broadband was genuinely the turning point in ruining the internet.

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago

    I remember this and I complain about wifi. Americans are getting scammed on internet speed.

  • source
  • [–] 10 points 1 month ago*

    My kid actually complained that the internet is slow when he was getting 24 MB/s on a Steam download.

    When I was his age I got 300 bytes/s.

  • source
  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    So you can't complain about Wifi speeds unless you're prehistoric?

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • ATDT5551234

  • source
  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago

    And then it would finally connect, and your sibling would pick up the phone and start dialling....

    Aaaaaaargh!

    I remember way, way back in the days of dialup a very tech savvy friend had emailed me 20+ files, because I was the only one capable of stitching an image together. Took forever (days?) to download the files, and I had to redownload more than once due to roommates doing fun stuff like picking up the other phone line... (It was of his truck after hitting a moose.) Of course, I didn't get to see the image until he got home, I had a Hercules monitor, he had a fancy one that did actual graphics.

  • source
  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago

    Sorry but the image has no effect on me due to a lack of grating/screaming machine noises.

  • source
  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Back when your computer picked up the phone and called some machine far away.

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

    Those AOL CDs you got in the mail.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    I remember growing up with AOL and being stuck on the kiddie mode.

    I also remember the day I figured out that I was t actually stuck on kiddie mode and I could use Netscape and browse the Internet directly. Sooo many tiddies seen at one line of pixels at a time....

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago

    I recognise that isn't MS Sans Serif, that text is also anti-aliased and has kerning.

  • source
  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago

    Unfortunately I DO know this image...

  • source
  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago

    I had to deal with this shit until 2007. Then we got a shitty WISP the was marginally better.

  • source
  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

    I'm from the before-times, where loading a single EGA screen in 4 colours took a good twenty seconds from a floppy drive. Printer was dot matrix. Internet was something mythical only possessed by the extremely elite or academia. You better believe I'm still astonished when I see a 4K game load in 3 seconds from an NVMe drive.

  • source
  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    I remember waiting half a day for a youtube video to load, then leaving the computer on until the evening so I could show it to my brother when he got home.

  • source
  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    Trumpet Winsock.

  • source
  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    I don't complain, my country's internet is like one of the fastest in the world.

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    Wifi is not internet.

    If your internet is slow, yeah, that's a service/country problem.

    Wifi is slow for a bajillion reasons completely unrelated to the service. The biggest one being modems/routers out-of-the-box defaulting to the same channel -- particularly a problem when everyone in the same building has the same damn ISP-issued modem.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago*

    Mrrrrrrr meep meep meep meep meep meep meep meep. Murrrrrrrrrr weeeerrrrr MWOM MWOM mreeeeee meomrmrmrmrmmmmrrrr

    (8 digit number because Europe)

  • source
  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    Gatekeeping is a downvote

  • source
  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    Never had that because it was too expensive to be worth the trouble.

  • source