Advent Internet

[Twocky61]

Pre 1988 we had no internet

Contacting family/friends other side of world?

Snail mail lol

[Arran]

Re: Advent Internet

Does anybody remember the blue airmail letters? I used to see them around in the 1990s when families communicated with relatives in far flung parts of the world but they seem to have gone into decline now that you can send text messages or WhatsApp which reach their destination in a matter of seconds.

[Richard1978]

Re: Advent Internet

I remember Air Mail latters used to have blue & red stripes around the edges & a label saying "Air Mail - Par Avion".

[staffslad]

Re: Advent Internet

Yes, I remember air mail envelopes and the special air mail writing paper, both extremely thin to save postage weight.

[Arran]

Re: Advent Internet

Air mail still exists although the Post Office stopped selling the blue envelopes a few years ago.

The extra thin paper was cheating because enclosed items were not permitted in the blue envelopes.

[80sChav]

Re: Advent Internet

Pre 1988 we had no internet

Contacting family/friends other side of world?

Snail mail lol

True and right you are here Twocky! I can never think that I'd of imagined "back in the day - Computers would rule for things like contacting people elsewhere/and Overseas

Even only tonight my Uncle was telling me about Postcards him and my auntie posted abroad on Holiday last year and he jokingly said " next time we'll send texts" - that is a beromiter of how far Technology rules now I think!

As interesting and amazing it is though - it scares me and that soon (hopefuly when I am past 80/85) in 40 years that High streets will be "Ghost Towns" and that many many more places will be like Detroit became after Motor City industry collapsed!! Either way i hope I am wrong, but either way too I don't want to see this/and this pace of life 9though at 40 I am no stick-in-the-mood/fuddy-duddy") but this chage is way, way too fast I feel now (in how it's happening)!

80sChav

[staffslad]

Re: Advent Internet

The pace at which computers and the internet have dominated our lives is truly astonishing. In 20 years we have gone from dial-up on very slow desktop and laptop machines to very fast broadband on smartphones having power that would have staggered computer engineers of a generation ago. Goodness knows what we will have in another 20 years time.

[Cartimand]

Re: Advent Internet

Before the Internet, hackers still existed, but they would hack the phone network.
By emulating the clicks, clunks and whistling sounds of old dial up phone exchanges, the hackers (or Phone Phreaks) could chat to their contacts around the world without paying a cent.

http://www.historyofphonephreaking.org/faq.php

[80sChav]

Re: Advent Internet

The pace at which computers and the internet have dominated our lives is truly astonishing. In 20 years we have gone from dial-up on very slow desktop and laptop machines to very fast broadband on smartphones having power that would have staggered computer engineers of a generation ago. Goodness knows what we will have in another 20 years time.

I don't want to see those Days staffslad - though as I say I like to think "I can/do change with the times" I'd rather p0ass-on than live in a souless society and have hundreds of thosands of Detroits in each Country etc!!

Georrge Orwell was'nt exactly right with "!984/Big Brother" - but he was as close to the mark as you will ever get which with PCs, Laptops and Tablets and Tech etc is as good a comparison as any I think to what he was hinting at , years before 1984!!!

80sChav

[Twocky61]

Re: Advent Internet

What brought about SMS cell phone text?

Before we started using them far more than phone phone calls, networks sent texts to their punters as network info; such as network outages

[Richard1978]

Re: Advent Internet

Text started off with pagers, which you could send messages with but not phone calls. Once mobile phones started to be able to handles texts pagers became obsolete, & never really caught on in the UK as much as the USA.

[Mulletino]

Re: Advent Internet

Back in the 90s when I was on-call for the ISP I worked at we had mobile phones and pagers, we'd get paged for a fault then had to call in to action it.

For some reason myself and a mate (both were on call) were playing darts in my local dodgy pub when some guy came up and asked us if we were "coppers", i'm guessing due to the equipment. Most odd.

Luckier than my bro though, when he was on call for the Stock Exchange in the 80s his mobile phone was a big briefcase thing that he had to lug around, even to clubs. XD

[80sChav]

Re: Advent Internet

Back in the 90s when I was on-call for the ISP I worked at we had mobile phones and pagers, we'd get paged for a fault then had to call in to action it.

For some reason myself and a mate (both were on call) were playing darts in my local dodgy pub when some guy came up and asked us if we were "coppers", i'm guessing due to the equipment. Most odd.

Luckier than my bro though, when he was on call for the Stock Exchange in the 80s his mobile phone was a big briefcase thing that he had to lug around, even to clubs. XD

I recall these old Mobile Phones Mullentino indeed! A fair few Comedies - most notably Joey on Bread and Only fools and Horses, made them popular (though of course they were way out of the "Working Man's Leauge" price-wise that time the one Del sold to Mike disrupted his Telly in the Pub and the Ariel cut him

I recall useing as recently as 1995/96 if not later an old BT Cellnet one - which was built like a brick .... and to think I sold many at a pittance (and now they'd be Museum Pieces) if I had known the future!!

80sChav

[Mulletino]

Re: Advent Internet

I still have my first mobile phone from the mid90s in its box.

It's one of these:

[Arran]

Re: Advent Internet

Text started off with pagers, which you could send messages with but not phone calls. Once mobile phones started to be able to handles texts pagers became obsolete, & never really caught on in the UK as much as the USA.

A third of all pagers in the world are used by the NHS. That's one organisation in one country.