You Got Mail!

I almost forgot that this month marks a little milestone in my life: ten years ago, I went online for the first time. Well, not exactly. In August 1994, I moved into my own apartment. One of my goals was to buy a new modem (a sizzling 14K model!) and set up an account with America Online to meet other guys. Until then, my sole online experience was with my parents' Prodigy service. Remember Prodigy? Yeeks.

Anyway, you have to remember that in the early '90s, AOL promoted itself monstly through free floppy discs placed in computer magazines. These were great because, unlike the CDs, you could erase the disc content (what, like a whopping 80K of memory) and store your own stuff on them. The first time I logged onto AOL, it was astonishing. A nice graphical menu greeted you, and everywhere people were talking about the things they loved. It was a real community, albeit a dorky one that was still trying to figure out what to do with this internet thing. With every dialup, I would get a little thrill of anticipation - would I be greeted with a "you got mail!" sound or silence? It seems inconceivable in this spamming day and age, but sometimes days would go by and nothing would show up in that little AOL inbox.

It was fun but the honeymoon was short-lived, however. Having never liked chat rooms or the forum postings of silly, boring mainstream types, the novelty started wearing off quickly. Eventually, I would only log on only to check email and click the "World Wide Web" button for the big bad territory beyond AOL's paltry borders. So, in '96 it was bye-bye but thanks for the memories.
Posted by mhinrichs at August 19, 2004 01:21 PM