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SgtRamonRuiz t1_iu42qsw wrote

Reply to comment by nicholasruunu in This was a high end laptop in 1989. It’d cost 12,000 $ in today’s prices by Read_Icculus_

I wonder where you’d find anything to connect to. Earliest I remember a friend’s dad connecting to the internet tied up the phone line for hours and he basically just said hi to a friend. There was nothing online for the average person to do.

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nicholasruunu t1_iu432cx wrote

The internet basically consisted of BBS, bulletin boards hosted by Universities and such. It was before my time though.

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Available-Fly-8268 t1_iu5l48k wrote

Some nerds/geeks had multiple phone lines with modems attached where folks could dial in and post messages similar to today's Craigslist or Kijiji. The first few years of the internet was pretty much about porn and Internet Relay Chat. Users who bought those Toshibas were I-T types and business people who wanted to do more work away from the office. I was in Field Service in that era, myself and many others were very impressed with that product. Networking at the office was only just beginning in that tyme as well. The floppy drive enabled users to copy or save a file to the disk, take the disk to another machine which had a printer attached and print the file. We called it sneaker net. The best part about being an I-T Guy in that era was the chicks.

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mechanab t1_iu4j1xb wrote

There was lots to connect to. CompuServe was already pretty big by this time. Lots of BBSs and universities. Listserv was just getting started I think.

I got my first modem around 1982. It was 300 baud and my mom was always pissed because I would be using the phone line for hours.

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SgtRamonRuiz t1_iu4jr0h wrote

Lots of money for a listserv. I just can’t imagine being mobile and wanting/needing/being able to connect.

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mechanab t1_iu4lor6 wrote

The mobility was for business. My older sister needed to travel for work and had one of those suitcase Compaq luggables. She would need to dial in as well. This was around 1986 I think.

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Masters_1989 t1_iu7ir2d wrote

That's incredible. I never knew things started so early.

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GoodOmens t1_iu4fp6f wrote

Trade Wars 2002!!!!

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aricknight t1_iu5aoo3 wrote

I was more of a lord guy myself but for mentioning any BBS door you get an upvote.

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kabekew t1_iu6ipl6 wrote

Compuserve, AOL and Prodigy were pretty popular back then, with online games, chat, message boards and downloadable software. For business there was Dow Jones where you could get stock quotes and financial news.

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