[ih] Chat room and forum archives

Haudy Kazemi kaze0010 at umn.edu
Thu Sep 1 05:35:11 PDT 2022


If all this is supposed to be set in 1995, there may be a timing issue with
referencing Visicalc and Apple II. They would be around 10 years old at
that time, with both dating to the mid-1980s. All depends on the context.

1995 era spreadsheet software would include Microsoft Excel, Lotus 1-2-3,
and Quattro Pro. Windows 95, Windows 3.1, and DOS versions were available
for at least some of those products.

In 1995, new Apple hardware would be the first gen Power Macintosh.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Macintosh

Intel Pentium and 486 CPUs were common in newer PCs of the time, generally
running at clockrates somewhere in 60 to 133 MHz range.

Intel and AMD based PCs were strongly dominant at the time, at least
outside of schools. Apple started making a comeback with Steve Jobs' return
and the release of the iMac G3 in 1998.




On Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 23:50 Bob Purvy via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> thanks, all. My character, Len, will have just retired from Chrysler
> recently, as a financial analyst. He was fascinated by VisiCalc & the Apple
> II; in fact, he's the one who told his daughter Janet about it, and she was
> working on the Xerox Star! But I don't think he'd be very Internet-savvy,
> at first.
>
> I kinda think it'd be fun to have him be a clueless AOL user at first, and
> then slowly grow in sophistication. I recall that the "walled garden" idea
> was pretty attractive to AOL & others at first -- "the Internet is a scary
> place! We bring you the best of it in a safe way!" as silly as that sounds
> now.
>
> On Wed, Aug 31, 2022 at 6:14 PM Jack Haverty via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
> > IIRC, I had a Compuserve account, although I can't remember exactly
> > when.  But I think I remember that Compuserve's charges were based on
> > hours of connect time.   So there was financial pressure on Users to
> > dial up, do what you wanted to do, and hang up as quickly as possible.
> > That's very different from today's always-connected world.   I thought
> > that might matter for your novel.  Good writing!
> > Jack
> >
> >
> > On 8/31/22 16:42, Bob Purvy via Internet-history wrote:
> > > I should have mentioned that Usenet and mailing lists were kinda techie
> > > back then. I'm thinking my guy would have started with CompuServe,
> > Prodigy,
> > > AOL... something less intimidating for a noobie guy.
> > >
> > > On Wed, Aug 31, 2022 at 4:30 PM Jorge Amodio <jmamodio at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > >> Usenet news was extremely active during those days, you may find some
> > >> archives.
> > >>
> > >> IRC was very popular and cucme, I met my wife on IRC during 1995 ;-),
> we
> > >> had some interesting opers wars to take control of channels.
> > >>
> > >> Cheers
> > >> -Jorge
> > >>
> > >>> On Aug 31, 2022, at 5:53 PM, Bob Purvy via Internet-history <
> > >> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> > >>> Something you wouldn't think would be a problem:
> > >>>
> > >>> I'm planning out my next novel, and I want to have a character
> haunting
> > >> the
> > >>> chat rooms and forums on investing, around 1995 and on. I don't want
> to
> > >>> quote anything or dox anyone -- I just want to get the tone and
> format
> > >> back
> > >>> then, as well as the topics they were talking about.
> > >>>
> > >>> The Wayback Machine seems to have started at the end of 1996. Does
> > anyone
> > >>> have links to earlier archives?
> > >>> --
> > >>> Internet-history mailing list
> > >>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > >>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> >
> > --
> > Internet-history mailing list
> > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> >
> --
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>



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