What was your first experience of the internet?
I was working in the US, c 1997. There was one online computer in the office - using Netscape. I'd go online when I got into work to read what had happened in Brookside. Little images with text underneath, like a comic strip.
I thought it was amazing.
@BeebsyMcA I feel old. Probably using NCSA Mosaic in 1994, but you could maybe say downloading binaries by email in 1993, uk.ac BBSs over cooked book protocols on JaNET in 1990, or email with bang paths (UUCP!) in 1988.
Connecting computers seemed magical at the time. It still seems magical today - and it's wireless now too!
@OpinionatedGeek @BeebsyMcA I used NCSA Mosaic on QUB DECstations too! Those machines also introduced me to Unix.
@seanddotmedotuk @OpinionatedGeek Wow!
Yous were in at the beginning 😁
@BeebsyMcA Compared to @OpinionatedGeek, I'm a newbie.
@seanddotmedotuk @BeebsyMcA I think anyone who used NCSA Mosaic, or even Netscape versions 1-3, deserves some sort of long-service medal. They were simple, great browsers for the time and technology. (Remember dithering?)
@OpinionatedGeek @BeebsyMcA For a while when I only had access to Mosaic, I used Netscape over an X11 connection from another machine that had login credentials that were easy to guess. 😃
@seanddotmedotuk @BeebsyMcA I'm still amazed X gave us transparent networking for applications and displays way back in the 80s, and these days it's hardly used, a bit awkward, and getting worse!
@OpinionatedGeek This is going way off-topic from @BeebsyMcA's original question, but anyone who was interested in computers with their limited facilities back then had to learn a lot more about how computers, networking, OSes etc worked just to get things done. Youngsters nowadays just know how to configure things in GUIs.
One of our most revealing interview questions is "What's an IP address and why is it important." Some of the answers to that are shocking!
@seanddotmedotuk @OpinionatedGeek @BeebsyMcA my favourite interview question (to ask) is “explain the process that occurs when you type a URL into your browser and hit the Enter/Return key”. So much scope for a deep dive.
Of course, a lot of our newer intakes are not used to typing in a URL and believe that the location field is just Google.
@seanddotmedotuk @OpinionatedGeek @BeebsyMcA if it wasn’t for fair employment stuff you could probably give them the job on the spot.
I’ve had people dive all the way down the OSI stack. I nearly proposed.
@mo @OpinionatedGeek @BeebsyMcA The last guy we hired ending up talking about ARP caches when asked the question about IP addresses.
@mo @OpinionatedGeek @BeebsyMcA Someone else had a dictionary definition type answer for the definition that we suspect was written on a post-it note on their monitor.
@mo @OpinionatedGeek @BeebsyMcA You could spend the whole interview answering that. I presume if people start to mention the local DNS cache you give them full marks and move into the next question?