A Retro Look At The Internet

Hey, maybe this internet thing is here to stay after all.   Remember when people first really started getting into the internet about 20-25 years ago?  If not, check out this funny, old-school AOL commercial.  (They even use the old Jetson’s theme song for good measure).

It was less than 20 years ago that folks were inundated with all those free AOL CDs.  They were everywhere…at the grocery store check-out line, inside magazines and even mailed right to your home.  I don’t really know anyone who actually used those CDs for anything besides a coaster or mini-frisbee.  Despite America Online’s unsuccessful attempt to get everyone to use their service, the internet really took off!

Back then we had to use dial-up connections to get on the internet but we thought it was cool.  I remember the first time I got an email with a picture attached.  It was fascinating to me that a picture could be transmitted from one computer to another.   Who cares if it practically took an hour to download it on my old big box 286 PC.   That was lightning fast as far as I was concerned.   One time while I was downloading a picture from my brother, I told the kids that we should go grab a bite to eat and it would hopefully be done downloading by the time we got home. (It was a little pixely but at least we got it).

In the 80s and 90s, people had boomboxes, video cameras, regular cameras, walkmans, VCRs, CDs, cassettes, calculators and big huge mobile phones.   Today all that stuff fits into one device…in your pocket.

Today, we’re spoiled.  We kind of take the internet and technology for granted now.  It’s everywhere and it’s powerful.  In fact, the smartphone in your pocket right now has more computing power than the computers that guided our astronauts to the moon in 1969.  Don’t believe me?  Google it (which is something we could not do way back then).