The Off Topic Topic

[celedhring]

I remember when I'd lose internet every time somebody called the landline...

[Grey Fox]

I got broadband internet early in late 2000 or early 2001 because hugging the landline was unacceptable to my aunt(where I lived).

[crazy canuck]

I have bad news for you Valmy. 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/12/us/texas-vs-california-history-textbooks.html?searchResultPosition=1

[Razgovory]

I remember my teachers claiming the internet was this great research tool.  Information superhighway.  Besides the incredible slowness of the damn thing, there really wasn't anything worth looking at.  The research potential was pretty much nil.  Now you get newspapers, newspaper archives and in some cases access to a newspaper morgues.  That's a lot better than the old microfiche machines.

[Valmy]

I have bad news for you Valmy. 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/12/us/texas-vs-california-history-textbooks.html?searchResultPosition=1

I used those textbooks, this isn't news

The problem with teaching history in schools is that I don't think school systems really think teaching history is about getting people to know history. It is about teaching them the correct social and political values via history so therefore you get stuff like this.

[crazy canuck]

You went to highschool after those textbooks were published in 2016?

Pays to read the link before dismissing it 

[Valmy]

You went to highschool after those textbooks were published in 2016?

Pays to read the link before dismissing it 

I went to the link and read it. I didn't mean that specific textbook. I don't think I dismissed it at all.

[crazy canuck]

I am impressed you were able to read the whole thing in a little under three minutes....

[Razgovory]

No need to get snippy guys, you aren't talking to Grumbler.

[crazy canuck]

No need to get snippy guys, you aren't talking to Grumbler.

[Tonitrus]

I remember using Pro Comm to log into a bulletin board which in turn gave me access to something I later learned was the internet.  Problem was the bulletin board had limited lines in.  So even if our house line was free (I had a sister so that was rare) I had to wait for a bulletin board line to come free on a first come first get basis.  Endlessly dialing in with Pro Comm was our version of walking up hill both ways on broken glass without shoes.

There are some BBS games that I remember fondly, and still miss.  One of my faves was Imperium...a much better, detailed version (it had nukes, chemical weapons/fallout, after all) of Empire, even in ASCII...if any of ya'll remember that early PC game.

[crazy canuck]

I remember using Pro Comm to log into a bulletin board which in turn gave me access to something I later learned was the internet.  Problem was the bulletin board had limited lines in.  So even if our house line was free (I had a sister so that was rare) I had to wait for a bulletin board line to come free on a first come first get basis.  Endlessly dialing in with Pro Comm was our version of walking up hill both ways on broken glass without shoes.

There are some BBS games that I remember fondly, and still miss.  One of my faves was Imperium...a much better, detailed version (it had nukes, chemical weapons/fallout, after all) of Empire, even in ASCII...if any of ya'll remember that early PC game.

Trade Wars was my BBS addiction.

[Valmy]

I am impressed you were able to read the whole thing in a little under three minutes....

Thanks! It is certainly a subject I have known about and read about for awhile.

[celedhring]

My first internet experience was in 1994 at the first internet café that opened in Barcelona. As opposed to modern-day internet cafés, it was a rather posh place, and they charged a lot. The only thing I remember was perusing yahoo.

Then I started uni, and all the PC rooms had internet. Telnet was all the rage by then - some local guys had created a text-driven MMO that sucked a good part of my uni years.

[Valmy]

My first internet experience was in 1994 at the first internet café that opened in Barcelona. As opposed to modern-day internet cafés, it was a rather posh place, and they charged a lot. The only thing I remember was perusing yahoo.

Then I started uni, and all the PC rooms had internet. Telnet was all the rage by then - some local guys had created a text-driven MMO that sucked a good part of my uni years.

I got on with Prodigy around 1990 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodigy_%28online_service%29. I think I have talked a bit in the past about how quick it seems like the message boards on that thing almost immediately had trolls and inside jokes and so forth. I also remember how wild wild west in was in the sense that on the video game boards people working on games could, and did, just drop in and spoil the whole thing months before release and nothing would happen to anybody. Oh wow a few thousand dorks on Prodigy now know the story, nobody cared. Today that would be an instant massive scandal.