I've found this article which tells the fate of Currant Bun and also what happened to the service, including a rebranding as "bun.com" http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2000/ma ... l.efinance
While I'm here, my memories of the first years of going on the web include using Internet Explorer 5 on Windows 98 on our Tiny Computer (the brand, not describing the size!), Freeserve, RealPlayer 8 and Real Jukebox, and websites that are long gone.
Bye bye MSN messenger
-
tillyoshea
- Posts: 371
- Joined: Sun 23 Nov, 2003 14.34
- Location: Newcastle upon Tyne
- Contact:
I don't remember all that much about my early use of the internet. I know that we used CompuServe and had one of those retrospectively bizarre numerical email addresses ([email protected] or similar), and I remember great excitement in the household when CompuServe first offered text-based aliases ([email protected] as I recall). I *think* we were using Windows 3.11 at the time, but might be misremembering. I definitely remember being excited to be able to download new screensavers via CompuServe.
Crikey - I feel like I was really late to the party now. I didn't get online until January 2000. We had Lineone PAYG for the first year-or-so, using ic24 at weekends. After a couple of £70 phone bills we went on to a Pay Monthly Lineone package. Lineone became Tiscali UK in 2002, just before we left for NTL, where we had "broadband" to the tune of 150k. Still felt like a gigantic leap at the time. Parents still have Virgin Media (I ring "to cancel" every year though).
Early browsing memories - South Park pinball and the Cartoon Network Shockwave games (particularly the Cartoon Cartoon Holiday RPGs).
Early browsing memories - South Park pinball and the Cartoon Network Shockwave games (particularly the Cartoon Cartoon Holiday RPGs).
I remember when we got the internet via BT Click. Got a nice little talk21 email with it. IIRC we stayed on PAYG for quite a while, first with BT Click then with Tiny Online (which was much more stable and didn't kick me off so often).
Finally started subscribing properly with BTinternet (which IIRC used a complex system where it had an 0845 number after six and at weekends that was cancelled out on your phone bill, and then a different 0845 number for daytime which wasn't).
Sadly they then decided to introduce a policy of kicking you off after two hours. This was a particular issue as XP SP2 required 2 hours and 10 mins to download and for some reason MS didn't support Download Accelerator Plus for downloading it.
Then it was freeserve (or wannadoo as it was that week) for the final year of dial-up before the magnificence of Pipex 512k ADSL (via the USB frog modem) arrived.
Finally started subscribing properly with BTinternet (which IIRC used a complex system where it had an 0845 number after six and at weekends that was cancelled out on your phone bill, and then a different 0845 number for daytime which wasn't).
Sadly they then decided to introduce a policy of kicking you off after two hours. This was a particular issue as XP SP2 required 2 hours and 10 mins to download and for some reason MS didn't support Download Accelerator Plus for downloading it.
Then it was freeserve (or wannadoo as it was that week) for the final year of dial-up before the magnificence of Pipex 512k ADSL (via the USB frog modem) arrived.
"He has to be larger than bacon"
How about MSN [s]Browser[/s] Explorer? With its MASSIVE interface back in the days of 1024x768 screens.
I think that was the only way @msn.com addresses came about.
I think that was the only way @msn.com addresses came about.
IIRC my first entry online was via Demon circa 1995, supplanted soon after by a BT ISDN line (where 64 kbps *seemed* fast!). After getting cabled up at some point in the interim we moved to broadband with Blueyonder (at a mighty 512 kbps) in I *think* 2000.
It's odd how appreciable the smallest bumps in bandwidth were at the time (whoa, that page only took 10 seconds to load!)
It's odd how appreciable the smallest bumps in bandwidth were at the time (whoa, that page only took 10 seconds to load!)
-
martindtanderson
- Posts: 527
- Joined: Tue 23 Dec, 2003 04.03
- Location: London, UK
- Contact:
World Online, Screaming.Net, Tiscali - then on to BT Broadband
Since potted histories of web access arrangements seem to be where we're going on this thread now (actually really enjoying it, not seen a nice nerdy thread for a while), here's my little contribution:
Pre-Home connection: My school got the internet in 1996 when they got technology college status. They had a 128K ISDN connection shared over a network of almost 200 machines! Although this connection was considered fast at the time, it was nowhere near man enough for the job and quickly demonstrated itself to be unworkable. The solution was to designate a couple of 'internet stations' in each computer room, along with an 'internet suite' of 10 machines in the main open access room. All other machines had internet access 'blocked' ('blocked' meaning that the proxy server entries were removed from Netscape Navigator on those machines - it was a simple matter to look them up from an 'internet station' and get internet access from any machine). This situation went on for a year until they got a better connection and put internet access back onto every computer. At this time most days I used to spend an hour in the open access room after school downloading pictures, audio files, and sometimes complete web pages which I then copied onto floppy disks to use at home.
I first got the internet at home in 1998, starting out on X-Stream pretty much as soon as it launched, connected by a second hand 14.4K modem which was painfully slow even by the standards of the day (and expensive when x-stream had a national rate number at the time). After about 2 weeks this got replaced by a second hand 33.6K modem (about standard at the time) and then I saved up to buy the holy grail of internet access - a 56K modem!
By the end of 1998 I'd moved to Freeserve. At this point all internet access was through a metered number, so I was restricted to very limited use of it (I was allowed 2 hours per week total 'for free', and had to pay my parents for any more than that!). In the main I was still downloading stuff from school and bringing it home.
Things stayed that way until the middle of 2000 when Freeserve launched their unmetered tarrif. This now allowed unlimited access off peak (albeit with the caveat that the connection timed out after 2 hours, but you could immediately reconnect).
A couple of years later (now at uni) I got my first broadband connection - 512K ADSL awesomeness. This seemed mindblowingly fast compared to any home access I'd had before. Although the provider changed, I always had a connection of about that speed whilst I was there.
Meanwhile at home my parents still soldiered on with dial-up Freeserve until the end of 2003 when they finally went to ADSL with Tiscali, who offered a budget 'broadband' connection ('midband' would probably be more accurate) - 150K ADSL. It was still a significant upgrade from dial up though. This got progressively upgraded (I think ending up at about 2 MB/s in the end), until they moved to BT Broadband in 2006 which they still have to this day. This started off at 8 MB/s, no idea what it's up to now.
Once I moved away from home, I endured years of Virgin Media's marketing claiming that I was running at all the MB/s under the sun whilst the browsing experience was often reminisanct of the dialup days. Finally gave them the shove last year when I went to TalkTalk ADSL. Currently have a 19.7 MB/s connection which is slower than what I allegedly got from Virgin but it feels about 3 times as fast. Quite happy with them!
Pre-Home connection: My school got the internet in 1996 when they got technology college status. They had a 128K ISDN connection shared over a network of almost 200 machines! Although this connection was considered fast at the time, it was nowhere near man enough for the job and quickly demonstrated itself to be unworkable. The solution was to designate a couple of 'internet stations' in each computer room, along with an 'internet suite' of 10 machines in the main open access room. All other machines had internet access 'blocked' ('blocked' meaning that the proxy server entries were removed from Netscape Navigator on those machines - it was a simple matter to look them up from an 'internet station' and get internet access from any machine). This situation went on for a year until they got a better connection and put internet access back onto every computer. At this time most days I used to spend an hour in the open access room after school downloading pictures, audio files, and sometimes complete web pages which I then copied onto floppy disks to use at home.
I first got the internet at home in 1998, starting out on X-Stream pretty much as soon as it launched, connected by a second hand 14.4K modem which was painfully slow even by the standards of the day (and expensive when x-stream had a national rate number at the time). After about 2 weeks this got replaced by a second hand 33.6K modem (about standard at the time) and then I saved up to buy the holy grail of internet access - a 56K modem!
By the end of 1998 I'd moved to Freeserve. At this point all internet access was through a metered number, so I was restricted to very limited use of it (I was allowed 2 hours per week total 'for free', and had to pay my parents for any more than that!). In the main I was still downloading stuff from school and bringing it home.
Things stayed that way until the middle of 2000 when Freeserve launched their unmetered tarrif. This now allowed unlimited access off peak (albeit with the caveat that the connection timed out after 2 hours, but you could immediately reconnect).
A couple of years later (now at uni) I got my first broadband connection - 512K ADSL awesomeness. This seemed mindblowingly fast compared to any home access I'd had before. Although the provider changed, I always had a connection of about that speed whilst I was there.
Meanwhile at home my parents still soldiered on with dial-up Freeserve until the end of 2003 when they finally went to ADSL with Tiscali, who offered a budget 'broadband' connection ('midband' would probably be more accurate) - 150K ADSL. It was still a significant upgrade from dial up though. This got progressively upgraded (I think ending up at about 2 MB/s in the end), until they moved to BT Broadband in 2006 which they still have to this day. This started off at 8 MB/s, no idea what it's up to now.
Once I moved away from home, I endured years of Virgin Media's marketing claiming that I was running at all the MB/s under the sun whilst the browsing experience was often reminisanct of the dialup days. Finally gave them the shove last year when I went to TalkTalk ADSL. Currently have a 19.7 MB/s connection which is slower than what I allegedly got from Virgin but it feels about 3 times as fast. Quite happy with them!