I’ve been exploring the fediverse and subbing and posting all over the damn place. Realizing lemmy can federate with kbin blew my mind. Not to mention the possibility of turning my old laptop into a personal server to host my own instance. Is this what it felt like to discover how the internet worked in the 90s?
Not to mention the whole time the phone line is tied up. The only phone.
I remember one of my friends had TWO phone lines, so they can use the phone AND the dial-up at the same time.
I was so insanely fucking jealous. I hated that kid so much, because he could be online all night and he would FUCKING RAID MY KINGDOM IN UTOPIA WHILE TALKING TO ME ON THE PHONE! FUCK YOU ADAM!
Very true. And when my parents didn’t want me online anymore, rather than just coming in and asking me nicely to hop off while they make their phone call, they would click the hang up button repeatedly until the signal was lost and I was disconnected. Then they would make their phone call.
I clearly remember when I first got broadband installed, yes faster downloads were nice and all, but what I really cared about at that point was that sweet release from the tiranny of the freaking phone line. Not ever having to worry again about people wanting you to disconnect because they want to use the phone. Connected 24/7, baby! What a revolution, lol
It’s like I’m looking into a mirror!
yep. it got to a point where my folks had to get a computer only phone # as either me or my sister were constantly online.
Tell me more, I think that did not exist where I live.
twas the year 1996, I had been online for 3 years, 28.8kbps wasnt doing it anymore, got a 56kbps US Robotics modem (wikipedia says 56k wasnt available until 1998 but that’s wrong, 1998 was when I started college and I had a 56k modem at least 2 years prior to that).
internet access was run by the county, so we dialed into a server (named “homer”) and then it either acted as a proxy or basic NAT to provide access to the public internet. speeds were glacially slow compared to modern day standards, I played a lot of MUD’s (smaug codebase mostly - Realms of Despair, etc). the internet was very much a different animal back in those days.
Oh way before my time! But I think we never had softphones like that. The possibility only started with y splitters in ISDN times.
I remember having a c64 with a 300 baud modem in the 80s, then Amiga500 using 600 baud modem, then after that PC 1200/2400, then went cable. Honestly i don’t miss the hardware limitations, but i “get” the feeling of new frontierness.