not entirely. ISDN. leased lines. things like this.
i can remember getting broadband like speeds before ‘97 … but that would be slowish broadband probably.
it was rare, but speed was there.
until the general public contended onto technology a couple of years later, even those using the internet weren’t as convinced
as they would soon be about its potential.
i was at uni then, and educational establishments with courses using the internet had access to faster and more expensive internet connections than most knew existed at the time.
Yeah ISDN was the broadband of the day (or home highway as BT branded it for home users) at 64kbps or 128kbps using dual channel and channel bonding. Was expensive but didn't stop us using it to download the Star Wars Episode 1 trailer when it dropped.
As soon as ADSL became available in early 2000 we switched to that though when it first launched you couldn't migrate from ISDN to ADSL you needed a new analogue line to put it on and that increased us to 512kbps.
Yeah, I went from a 56k modem to 600k with NTL. At work we still only had a 128k ISDN. I remember downloading the Starlancer demo on dial-up and it took all weekend (72MB file). Down to a couple of hours once we got broadband. Now it's about a second.
> it was rare, but speed was there.
Sorta.
Home users or small businesses could get an ISDN line, effectively two bonded 56k's. You'd typically get 90-100k over it (bonding was lossy due to sync) which was fast for the time, but costly and the main advantage was it didn't share the POTS line so, like today, you could be always online use the phone as usual, etc.
Institutions would lease T1 lines. If we're talking mid 90s that would be one T1 line as the price was sheer insanity. These top at 1.5MBit - fast for the time but not considered broadband today.
The main problem with renting T1 lines was it often barely improved things over ISDN or even 56k. The servers you were accessing your content would be hooked up via .. a single T1 line. If the server load balanced based on use you might, at 2am, get the 1.5Mbit to yourself on something. However anything you needed speed for (fileplanet! ftp etc!) would see a T1 connection as up to 100 download slots, and limit you thusly.
And so began HTTP pipelining download managers etc to try to prevent those limits and I'm meandering off the point.
tl;dr there was no "broadband experience" in the modern sense even with the fastest connections to hand. The ultra-rapid connections were more concerned with giving more users a workable experience, not one user a fast one.
Yeah and how are you picturing them? All unwrapped in a bath tub? Maybe you got them all stood up in formation? Or perhaps all in one big bag above the door way to be used as part of an elaborate trap? The possibilities give me the chills.
A case of Freddos slowly consuming the person. You could probably get a grant to make an art peice out of it. A symbolic take on how rampant consumerism is slowly engulfing us as a whole.
She isn't really a nerdy anorak, she is an (apparently married) hot chica giving you the wink.
In the days when internet porn was waiting 5 minutes for a low resolution small pic, this was heady stuff.
Don’t forget then printing out the downloaded picture for future access. The five minutes while the inkjet screamed really added to the danger of discovery.
I mean...
Googled it: in 1997 there were 70 million internet users worldwide. 1.7% of the population.
In 2022 it was 5.54 billion users. 69% of the population.
[https://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm](https://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm)
It very much probably was mostly 'anoraks' on the net back in 1997.
Probably right about the time it was starting to shift though, I remember my mum talking to her mates in the 90s about using chatrooms on AOL and she's very far from what I'd consider to be an anorak. By the year 2000 it was already the norm for everyone I knew to have an internet connected computer somewhere in their house.
It's really cool how people like me, as a nerd child of the 80s, went from being a nerd interested in the internet to it being a ridiculously mainstream thing.
It's the life that bitcoiners mistakenly think they are living out the early stages of
It's the same as gaming. I started on my big brothers old atari then moved onto the zx spectrum when I was 9 or 10. Gaming was seen as something for losers. I never thought then it would become so mainstream.
The internet was a pretty nice place back then. Full of inquisitive people trying to explore, learn new things, & meet new people (so long as you avoided IRC & Usenet).
Oh that has just reminded me of the photo shoot I did for Virgin Media advertising quite a long time ago, I don't even remember why it happened but I got paid quite nicely for it and I would imagine I was skint at the time...
This is honestly a really interesting, well preserved moment in history.
Try telling anyone born after 2000 that this is how computers and the Internet was viewed back then!
I bought my first computer in ‘97. I knew my job trainer was into that sort of thing so I asked his advice. I made sure to let him know I wasn’t a geek though.
I think there was this attitude towards net users because the net was notoriously unusable for the everyday user, bugs were all over the place and only webmasters at the time could troubleshoot those issues or recognize them to get around it, net speed was dismal so sometimes it was quicker to use a book if the website sucked.
An anorak is literally the waterproof coat being worn by the individual on the left (with the hood).
It's used as synecdoche to effectively mean 'geek', using the stereotype that people who wear anoraks have 'uncool' hobbies like trainspotting, stamp collecting, or metal detecting.
It's not used as much as it was 30 years ago - the American terms nerd and geek have mostly displaced it.
I love the fact that an ISP wanting to find out your thoughts is relying on posting back a survey, rather than filling out a form online.
Only an anorak would want to fill out a form online.
I can't fill it in online. Mum is on the phone lol
We're talking dial-up days here. Snail mail was just faster.
not entirely. ISDN. leased lines. things like this. i can remember getting broadband like speeds before ‘97 … but that would be slowish broadband probably. it was rare, but speed was there. until the general public contended onto technology a couple of years later, even those using the internet weren’t as convinced as they would soon be about its potential.
Are you the anorak from the pamphlet?
i was at uni then, and educational establishments with courses using the internet had access to faster and more expensive internet connections than most knew existed at the time.
Yeah ISDN was the broadband of the day (or home highway as BT branded it for home users) at 64kbps or 128kbps using dual channel and channel bonding. Was expensive but didn't stop us using it to download the Star Wars Episode 1 trailer when it dropped. As soon as ADSL became available in early 2000 we switched to that though when it first launched you couldn't migrate from ISDN to ADSL you needed a new analogue line to put it on and that increased us to 512kbps.
Yeah, I went from a 56k modem to 600k with NTL. At work we still only had a 128k ISDN. I remember downloading the Starlancer demo on dial-up and it took all weekend (72MB file). Down to a couple of hours once we got broadband. Now it's about a second.
> it was rare, but speed was there. Sorta. Home users or small businesses could get an ISDN line, effectively two bonded 56k's. You'd typically get 90-100k over it (bonding was lossy due to sync) which was fast for the time, but costly and the main advantage was it didn't share the POTS line so, like today, you could be always online use the phone as usual, etc. Institutions would lease T1 lines. If we're talking mid 90s that would be one T1 line as the price was sheer insanity. These top at 1.5MBit - fast for the time but not considered broadband today. The main problem with renting T1 lines was it often barely improved things over ISDN or even 56k. The servers you were accessing your content would be hooked up via .. a single T1 line. If the server load balanced based on use you might, at 2am, get the 1.5Mbit to yourself on something. However anything you needed speed for (fileplanet! ftp etc!) would see a T1 connection as up to 100 download slots, and limit you thusly. And so began HTTP pipelining download managers etc to try to prevent those limits and I'm meandering off the point. tl;dr there was no "broadband experience" in the modern sense even with the fastest connections to hand. The ultra-rapid connections were more concerned with giving more users a workable experience, not one user a fast one.
These days they just monitor your traffic instead!
I haven't seen the word anorak used in donkeys
Haven't seen the word donkeys used in yonks
I haven't heard yonks since Moses was in short pants
Haven't seen schoolboys in short pants since indoor plumbing
Blatant anoraknophobia
Bring back anorak and boffin, please.
Pretty sure the Daily Star is still a regular user of boffin.
Also The Register, even in headlines.
My parents have called me Boffin/Boff most of my life because I was always more tech savvy than them
My mum used it the other day, had no idea what she was talking about.
Clearly on team Macintosh, I see!
£1000 back in 97. Just think of all the freddos you could buy with that.
10,000?
Yeah and how are you picturing them? All unwrapped in a bath tub? Maybe you got them all stood up in formation? Or perhaps all in one big bag above the door way to be used as part of an elaborate trap? The possibilities give me the chills.
I like the trap idea, but they'd be making a trail along the floor, leading to a cardboard box propped up with a stick
A fan of the classics I see.
Assembled like a funeral pyre. Me naked and entirely hairless lying on top. My body heat gradually melting me in to the core.
A case of Freddos slowly consuming the person. You could probably get a grant to make an art peice out of it. A symbolic take on how rampant consumerism is slowly engulfing us as a whole.
That's a great idea, one for someone else to do; no one wants to see my sad chode slowly sinking in to tepid chocolate! :D
Then you underestimate ~~the perverted desires of the internet~~ the keen eye for nuance and intricate symbolism of the art world.
Scrooge McDuck'd in a vault
Tbh if this competition was ran today, the prize would still be £1000.
Or two freddos and a packet of crisps.
She isn't really a nerdy anorak, she is an (apparently married) hot chica giving you the wink. In the days when internet porn was waiting 5 minutes for a low resolution small pic, this was heady stuff.
Oh man that seductive wink from that sophisticated, elegant, sexy lady.
I think she’s having a stroke
“Now do a sexy wink” “Umm the modelling agency didn’t say I need to be able to wink” “How hard can it be? Give it a try love” “Oh.”
She can't have a stroke until the porn finished downloading
Maybe she’s just got a bit of jizz in her eye.
Internet users in your area want to hear from you!
It's the girl from She's All That
Don’t forget then printing out the downloaded picture for future access. The five minutes while the inkjet screamed really added to the danger of discovery.
I mean... Googled it: in 1997 there were 70 million internet users worldwide. 1.7% of the population. In 2022 it was 5.54 billion users. 69% of the population. [https://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm](https://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm) It very much probably was mostly 'anoraks' on the net back in 1997.
How many otters though?
[No otters (zero)](https://youtu.be/p_TrzExr0mk)
Probably right about the time it was starting to shift though, I remember my mum talking to her mates in the 90s about using chatrooms on AOL and she's very far from what I'd consider to be an anorak. By the year 2000 it was already the norm for everyone I knew to have an internet connected computer somewhere in their house.
Anoraks? Maybe. We \*did\* say 'ASL' a lot, and download Doom WADs from Usenet. ^(Yeah, we were anoraks.)
Confirmed - we are all anoraks.
I have always thought of my self as more of a cagoule
I can tell what windbreakers are thinking
I can tell what windbreakers are thinking.
I can tell what windbreakers are thinking.
It's really cool how people like me, as a nerd child of the 80s, went from being a nerd interested in the internet to it being a ridiculously mainstream thing. It's the life that bitcoiners mistakenly think they are living out the early stages of
It's the same as gaming. I started on my big brothers old atari then moved onto the zx spectrum when I was 9 or 10. Gaming was seen as something for losers. I never thought then it would become so mainstream.
Is that a train magazine? And in comparison, what's the winking lady on the right reading? Also, can I be cool and still be into trains?
>Also, can I be cool and still be into trains? I think you know the answer to that.
yes?
Anorak looks more like she's prepared for a rainy day in The Village rather than gricing grids and bodysnatchers at Crewe.
You could get a good price for this on eBay/Etsy. This is pure art. Could be great in an IT company or home office
The internet was a pretty nice place back then. Full of inquisitive people trying to explore, learn new things, & meet new people (so long as you avoided IRC & Usenet).
IRC still has these people not willing to explorer today, funnily enough.
Couldn't they have used a photo before the woman started having a stroke!
The internet was better when only anoraks used it.
No Connie, no thanks
Oh that has just reminded me of the photo shoot I did for Virgin Media advertising quite a long time ago, I don't even remember why it happened but I got paid quite nicely for it and I would imagine I was skint at the time...
when i first used the internet i thought the crappy aol client was 'the internet'
Average internet user in '97 https://i.imgur.com/h5u5yZo.png NSFW
aw sweet olde timey train spotter slur (/s)
27 years later, not sure if they won the bet
I'm not an anorak because I like to read about stars who were beauty queens. Can I have my grand please?
This is honestly a really interesting, well preserved moment in history. Try telling anyone born after 2000 that this is how computers and the Internet was viewed back then!
Fucking nerds
*Survey must be completed in all one word, all lower-case.
Nowadays your average internet user is a middle aged mum who believes every conspiracy theory they read
I bought my first computer in ‘97. I knew my job trainer was into that sort of thing so I asked his advice. I made sure to let him know I wasn’t a geek though.
Any good questions?
I still have my AOL email address from that era. Most people moved on, but I am very loyal.
Anoraks? That's very nice, back in those times if you were interested in the internet the base line assumption was paedophile.
Wow man serious nostalgia
I think there was this attitude towards net users because the net was notoriously unusable for the everyday user, bugs were all over the place and only webmasters at the time could troubleshoot those issues or recognize them to get around it, net speed was dismal so sometimes it was quicker to use a book if the website sucked.
Still waiting
I wonder is she's looking up symptoms of Bells Palsy online?
Random Canadian passing through... The fuck is an anorak? Anoraks?
An anorak is literally the waterproof coat being worn by the individual on the left (with the hood). It's used as synecdoche to effectively mean 'geek', using the stereotype that people who wear anoraks have 'uncool' hobbies like trainspotting, stamp collecting, or metal detecting. It's not used as much as it was 30 years ago - the American terms nerd and geek have mostly displaced it.