I first went online in 1995 on MindSpring (now merged with Earthlink) back when the servers were in the founder's condo in midtown. When something went wrong, he'd call you.

I remember getting AOL on my first computer (a Mac Performa) and then having to ban a roommate from using it because he racked up so many minutes of long distance phone charges that he couldn't make rent.

Heh. After I moved to Minneapolis in '91, I was low on money and ended up locked out of my WELL account due to being behind on my bill. At least there was a way to avoid long-distance charges.

I think I sent one or two emails to addresses outside of the WELL while I was on it.

I had friends on the WELL, but I could never afford it. Those e-mail addresses to easy to remember, at least.

I ran a BBS in San Diego in 1985 I think, I was online at 300 Baud before that.

Yeah, me too. I was envious of the WELL but I had enough of a time wrangling my three separate Compuserve accounts to maximize my chat/gaming time. I had a separate phone line, so I was pretty happy with myself for being able to take a call while on the internet.

I first got online when I hacked a Vic20 modem to work with my Commodore, but there wasn't much out there at the time, so I didn't get back online until Compuserve, whereupon I was very impressed with my ability to just go look at other peoples' pictures of fractals.

I was pretty sure at that point that the internet was going to be all math geeks, thus "fatou_dust" as my standard, and persistent, handle. I thought everyone on the internet was going to get the reference.

I remember Compuserve! I never used it, but I know some friends in high school had Compuserve email accounts, and they were all long, complicated, random strings of letters and numbers, like en5lxjcb99sl20f@compuserve.com. I don't know why.

Liese, what does "fatou_dust" refer to? I've always wondered!

The first modem I bought for my first PC back in '90 was this completely generic model (even the manual didn't reveal who made it). This was the first time I had to crack open a computer to install something, so it was very exciting.

The modem worked... when cold. After a bit of use it would no longer dial the correct number. So I exchanged it for a good one.

I remember being so nervous because I was no longer just a guy in my room with a computer, but was now using my 'puter for communicating with others. (I guess I was worried about doing something wrong.) Anyway, it seemed that a computer with a modem was a completely different beast than one without.

Nowadays, a computer without internet access seems weird.

In 1984 I was working at a research institute that shared a VAX statistical system with several other research institutes. On the VAX you could send a primitive kind of 48 character IM to other people who were logged on at the same time.

One night I got a message from User243 of another institute: "You the tall psychologist with a red beard?" Yes. "Beer-Francos-9:00, blonde in blue"

We spent most of the evening talking about how, if we ended up together (we did not), there would be a story in the New York Times romance section, because who ever heard of people meeting over a computer. Insane!

Things change.

The internet is being very good and also bad at giving me 200M information. But it looks like at least 4 people ran faster than Usain in the first heat, although no one in his heat--but both Jamaicans who qualified were faster than him. I hope he has his head on straight and his feet set to fleet.

My sister is reminding me that PT cousin says Usain is annoying in person, but...I don't really care. I don't have to spend time with him--I think he gives good image, plays the cocky man-boy pretty well, because he turns on the respect often enough that people know he's serious. He's not getting dinged the way Daley Thompson or Carl Lewis did, when they were on top of their worlds. In person, I'd only need a couple hours of his time and really no requirement for conversation at all.

This NDA project is driving me nuts. I can't walk over to people's desk to talk about stuff, or call them. It's a weird sort of restriction when you *have* to email, or when you're being deliberately vague over the phone. Like, I don't want to talk about security either, where people can hear. Makes me feel weird.

Rick, that would've be awesome.

I remember being on Prodigy bulletin boards back in...1993 or so? Sophomore or junior year of high school. And I remember my friends who graduated a year ahead of me in 94 getting email at their colleges, but I still sent them actual letters, until the next year when I was at college and had an email address (back in the day of telnetting and talk!).