when first got internet in 1996 it was a brand new thing and we had dial up, my sister had a desktop computer for the whole family. Our very first computer though was more of a toy called the PRE computer 1000.
it ran on a battery, though you could plug it in could teach touch typing and made cool noises. The screen was like one of those dymo machine printers..LED or a what you might find on a calculator. You could do basic programming, play hangman, or answer trivia questions.
After we somewhat upgraded to a proper desktop computer (that weighed a tonne and had a fan that made whirring noises, it also had 'floppy disk' and CD-ROM drive, ran on windows with a turquoise desktop background and the browser was netscape navigator. I remember I was on it a lot as I had joined a GWTW movie e-group which is like a shared email online group and was now emailing fans from all over the world. I would go on my then favourite tv shows websites like The Simpsons and Friends, read the scripts because I liked reading all the jokes and look at Garfield comics online (not the same as reading them in the paper and cutting them out though!) There was no google...there were tonnes of different search engines and you had to pick through all of them, to find stuff. I was also into catwoman comics so when I found there were fansites online I would look them up.
Back then it wasnt really a commerical thing cos we didnt have money or credit cards to shop or spend anything. Then ebay and amazon came along and if you really wanted something that was overseas that you couldnt find in the shops in your own country you could get it. lol looking back on my early computer use I was pretty much a geek fan girl, althoug I also used computers for boring stuff like writing essays for university, when they no longer accepted hand written submissions. and writing CVS. And then ....job hunting. what a chore!
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