The ‘90s Internet: When 20 hours online triggered an email from my ISP’s president::1998 plea for restraint reveals a lost world where the 'Net was an opt-in experience.
Now you can never leave
But you can check out any time you like
ISPs: Lying about unlimited since the 90s.
20 hours… … …what were you doing?!
Downloading Slackware.
Downloading a short video?
I’ll give you 69 guesses
…pixel line…
…pixel line…
…pixe- nipple!!!Interlaced GIF was a godsend. You got the low res naughty bits early.
And by the time it’s done downloading in its full 320x180 glory, you’re ready to go again!
Some sort of game, idling for gold.
Didn’t RTA.
Downloading Linux
Anyone remember download accelerator plus? I’d download stuff at night while everyone was asleep, then pause DAP/disconnect from the Internet in the morning. Rinse and repeat.
I remember that but never knowing what the hell it even did lol.
My god yes! I remember downloading the Soldier of Fortune demo over the course of a month. 95 megabytes over a 28.8k connection.
I remember the anxiety of downloading the Quake demo the afternoon it was released. My mother is a notorious phone talker, so I guarded the handset like a hawk and prayed to God that no one called. By some miracle it completed after a an hour or two. 1.1 mb I believe it was.
You’ve unlocked some deeply buried memory there.
I remember I used that not so much to “accelerate” downloads but mostly because it let me download stuff in multiple sessions, instead of trying to do it in my browser and lose everything because of a lost connection.
Hours to download a few MB, interesting times.
GetRight was a godsend too
