<p>
Yep, Adventure was what we were playing on the MIT computers from Harvard terminals. My favorite part was the maze of “Twisty passages all alike” - it took us a while to figure out how to make them not all alike. When mathson was in third grade we found a library book about programming in Basic and it explained how to do the programming for an Adventure type game. It was remarkably easy. (And a good way to sneak some writing practice for him.)</p>
<p>Mathmom: Adventure on the MIT terminals from Harvard… I was down at MIT working on making sure those terminals worked. I remember well how long it took me to figure out that the "maze of twisty little passages: was not the same as the “maze of little twisty passages” (and other subtleties). The programmer was a guy I worked with. </p>
<p>Yes, shrinkrap, Adventure later became Zork and the programmer made a small amount of money off it. No one then really thought those games would take off. I remember interviewing at Electronic Arts when it was a one-room outfit and was just developing Visicalc (think Excel). I didn’t get the job or I didn’t take it, I don’t remember which. I went to a better funded startup that went belly up not much later.</p>
<p>I remember using a program called Minitab. And taking a computer course and learning how to program BASIC, FORTRAN and PASCAL, and writing one of those godforsaken vending-machine scripts.</p>
<p>OMG - this is cracking me up! I worked at a law firm whose secretaries where using IBM selectrics, but there was that “data center” where, if you were lucky, you could submit you job for word processing on the Wang computer. We had these 288mb “removable” hard drives that sat in these drives that were the size of washing machines. The drives had these “platters” that looked like LPs stacked on top of each other and weighed a ton. I really enjoyed lugging them accross the Loop for offsite storage. </p>
<p>When modems jumped from 4800 to 9600 baud US Robitics gave out free t-shirts that said “9600 Screaming” - Wish I still had it!</p>
<p>I still have my aol email - I am trying for a record!</p>
<p>We actually had an internet “phonebook.” It was a big yellow pages that was printed monthly so you could find webistes. There were no meta search engines, you had to know which search engine to use depending on what you were searching for - I remember thinking that I was soooo cool because I was using “Dogpile” and “Metacrawler.”</p>
<p>I too was able to bring home a “portable” computer. It came with it’s own heavy duty roller cart and it was so heavy that I would have to have a train conductor help me get in on the train. It also came with a sweet thermal paper printer.</p>
<p>Ah, the good old days.</p>
<p>I remember using a search engine called Altavista?</p>
<p>I remember the first Leisure Suit Larry game on the big floppy disk -
also had one of the earliest AOL screen names (which I stupidly gave up after five or so years - not thinking)
<a href="mailto:Amy@aol.com">Amy@aol.com</a> :)</p>
<p>I remember AltaVista. There was another popular search engine that was still around in some form just a few yens ago.I think it had “net” in it. Was it Netscape?</p>
<p>Hmmm…I think we’ve “done” this thread before…</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/643267-anyone-remember-subscribing-prodigy.html?highlight=compuserve[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/643267-anyone-remember-subscribing-prodigy.html?highlight=compuserve</a></p>
<p>Mommusic, I did it that way, as well.</p>
<p>TooRealistic, we used to snicker when someone would ask where the secretary was & the response was, “She’s on the Wang.”</p>
<p>I, too, learned to program in Basic, Fortran, COBAL, Pascal (and used a program called GSPP SLAM, as I recall, for simulations). Useless now, as I can’t recall a thing about any of it.</p>
<p>When I share my ancient history with the “kids” at work, they are totally amazed!</p>
<p>I’ve still got my aol e-mail, it’s not like I pay for it. I know I should switch to something else because I’m pretty sure their days are numbered.</p>
<p>The twisty little passages versus the little twisty passages - yup I remember those too. And there was a “room” which was just a very long description of the view. Completely pointless, but amusing.</p>
<p>My main email is my work email, but I still have an AOL email that I use for some purposes (like iTunes and getting onto email lists), as does my spouse. They’re free; why should we get rid of them? Yeah, I know there’s supposedly some stigma around it (training wheels for the internet and all) but given that I don’t need to impress anyone with an email address and I’m not in the tech field, what’s the big deal?</p>
<p>I think the stigma of an AOL e-mail for my kids was that we were paying for it at the time and there was free e-mail out there. I don’t think there is anything weird about it now.</p>
<p>When I was in HS (graduated in 1975) there was some sort of computer club with just a few very nerdy guys and some big computer that filled up a small room. I had no clue at all what they were doing.</p>
<p>Our first home computer (1986) had a 20 MG hard drive. Dot-matrix printer, too. State of the art, baby! </p>
<p>We also did Prodigy.</p>
<p>CoutingDown, we could not afford a computer in 1986, but a bit later when H got a real job, we bought one with a whopping 40 Mb HDD, dot matrix printer and the whole nine yards! 
We paid more money for this state of the art machine than we did for our first family car (a very used Ford). H subscribed to some e-mail service, and we could download our e-mail for 50 cents per minute - woooow…</p>
<p>I used computer and email since my first day at my first job. The company was a premier engineering company that was founded by an MIT guy. Every job after that I have access to a computer through modem, isdn, and such. I don’t remember having AOL or prodicy account, but I know my family was one of the first cable users. We’re hooked to the high speed internet ever since.</p>
<p><wang computer=“”>>
I programmed Basic on these for several years. Remember the company called DEC? or Burroughs (SP?) the precursor to Unisys I think.</wang></p>
<p>Or fortran, where it took 10+ steps to float a dollar sign next to a dollar amount!</p>
<p>sure I remember altavista. How about ‘excite’</p>
<p>I honestly don’t know how I could live today if I couldn’t ‘google it’</p>
<p>Prodigy and AOL. I had a Sinclair something or other, which I gave away. My first real computer was a Northgate in the early 90s I think) with 1 Mb of RAM, 32Mb hard drive, and a 14 inch Princeton monitor. I upgraded from 2400 baud modem to 9600.</p>
<p>I first began using computers at work in 1989. We had Word Perfect 4.2. To this day I still think that WP for DOS 5.1 was the best software program ever written. Yea for reveal codes!!!</p>
<p>Dropped out of a summer computing class as a HS student- BASIC and FORTRAN were too boring to learn. Also dropped out of a summer “personal typing” class for the same reason (still have the book). Now every elementary school kid can type fast- in my day girls who became secretaries learned typing and I was never going to do that- someday I’ll have to leave an unedited for typos post on CC (why don’t we all use a small i for that word…).</p>
<p>College in early '70’s. The UW Computer Science building is still there. I ventured in it once back then to do the only required punch card for the PChem lab- they handed out one card at a time and after several tries I finally got my double digit characters length data correctly punched. The top 10 Chemistry Dept had one basic Wang calculator in our undergrad PChem lab. A friend had a $100 calculator that did the basics. Calculus was a pain doing calculations by hand to graph data points. Typed Senior Honors Thesis on bond paper with my manual typewriter- no Whiteout allowed… Tables were truly painful.</p>
<p>Our staff physician showed us how to play “Lemonade Stand” on an ICU computer while waiting for lab results- it was in black and white. Later ward secretaries knew the magic of how to find labs on their computers- green, then black screens.</p>
<p>Avoided H’s attempts for a home computer in the early '90’s with “what can we do with it” comments. Finally got one when Windows 95 came out- over $3000 for the computer, printer and moniter from Best Buy (not sure if we went for the 120 speed instead of 75- top of the line was 160?). Son and friends did “MathBlaster”- wasting a lot of ink to print out certificates of accomplishment with blue backgrounds. That computer booted up faster- there was nothing for it to do.</p>
<p>Had 2 phone lines so someone could be on the internet and we could still get phone calls- still have one phone jack wired so line 1 is actually line 2 for the computer. Later H had a network using the phone lines- planned family room furniture arrangement to place a small computer cart. Remember adding a phone jack to accomodate it. H spent a lot of time troubleshooting. All cordless phones, extensions included, had to use a phone jack and there were no cell phones for us to use, either.</p>
<p>Was not an early internet adopter- far too slow for me (I’m impatient). The excitement of 5600 speeds being available. Never did AOL.</p>
<p>I remember owning a fat internet yellow pages book, never used it. Also remember the days when various organizations would give out books of internet addresses- hard copy days are long gone. </p>
<p>Had the cable company add gizmos and made sure the cable outlet for the modem is wired without splitting to get best internet access. Now we talk about moving the modem but even though I labeled which cable goes where at the basement ceiling we haven’t bothered to do the switch (also something about an old computer that needs hardwiring to the modem, no slots available for the wireless…). When we built our house in the early '90’s there was a monthly extra charge for each cable outlet so we had the basics and needed to add outside cable to reach some upstairs rooms. We were going all out to have 2 phone jacks in some rooms and 2 line capability back then.</p>
<p>There’s more, but the house still needs hands on cleaning…</p>
<p>sueinphilly…DH used to work at Burroughs (pre-Sperry merger). Programmed on punch cards. We got the PC when he headed to grad school. Cost us $3k by the time all was said and done, with those fine dual 5.25" floppies.</p>
<p>tsdad, I think Bill Gates should burn in you-know-where for not having Reveal Codes. I was a WP fan long after Word came around (and still am).</p>
<p>“Do you remember the early days of the internet?”</p>
<p>Yup, sure do, we are living them early days. Wait until you see what is coming before deciding.</p>
<p>Somebody emailed me a list that was entitled “Ten Dumbest things ever said”. A couple were computer related:</p>
<p>Steve Jobs once said that no computer would ever need more than 128K of memory.</p>
<p>Watson of IBM said back in the 1950’s that about 8-10 computers for the entire country would be sufficient (Of course back then a computer filled a good-sized room)</p>