The hippest internet café of 1995
September 7, 2016 11:00 AM Subscribe
Take a trip down memory lane to the hippest internet café of 1995 (SLYT).
I wish they'd just have just shown the original segments without commentary.
Sometime in the last decade, the middle 90s have started to look like The Past in a way that, at least to me, they didn't before. It tempers any sense of superiority one gets from having more historical perspective with the certain knowledge of impending death.
posted by ryanshepard at 11:09 AM on September 7, 2016 [14 favorites]
Sometime in the last decade, the middle 90s have started to look like The Past in a way that, at least to me, they didn't before. It tempers any sense of superiority one gets from having more historical perspective with the certain knowledge of impending death.
posted by ryanshepard at 11:09 AM on September 7, 2016 [14 favorites]
That was pretty entertaining. It's not a surprise that they only lasted for a year, especially with $9,000 extra bucks in overhead (at least - that's not counting their hardware costs and software licensing). Right now, in not-hip-at-all suburban Maryland, I can go down the street to an obscure little cybercafe called Dunkin Donuts and get blazing fast wifi for the cost of a small coffee.
posted by codacorolla at 11:16 AM on September 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by codacorolla at 11:16 AM on September 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
I love the story about the job to drag garbage cans full of ice into the server room every two hours to keep it cool. I feel like there are lessons that are still only being learned slowly and by a small part of the population...
posted by meinvt at 11:24 AM on September 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by meinvt at 11:24 AM on September 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
I remember a bar in Kingston - not an internet cafe, just a regular bar - that had an internet kiosk shaped like an old arcade terminal you could pay to use; one or two bucks for a few minutes of mid-'90s INTERNET. I only used it once, to show my friends my Geocities page and they were impressed that I had my own website.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:38 AM on September 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:38 AM on September 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
I wish I still had my Cyberia shirt.
posted by roger ackroyd at 11:39 AM on September 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by roger ackroyd at 11:39 AM on September 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
I was just going to say London had it first and I was there! (old person)
posted by Coda Tronca at 11:42 AM on September 7, 2016
posted by Coda Tronca at 11:42 AM on September 7, 2016
Sometimes I'm sad that my local-ISP website no longer exists but then I remember that the content of said website mainly consisted of rants about how affirmative action was evil and other such nonsense.
I'd cringe at the memory, except that I mostly feel pity for the poor kids growing up in the Facebook era who won't actually have the luxury of letting the world forget about the dumb things they believed when they were kids.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:44 AM on September 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'd cringe at the memory, except that I mostly feel pity for the poor kids growing up in the Facebook era who won't actually have the luxury of letting the world forget about the dumb things they believed when they were kids.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:44 AM on September 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'm surprised people didn't know what the @ sign was. The internet and computer use were pretty common in nearly all businesses back then. This is 1995 with Windows 95, wasn't exactly the stone age.
posted by geoff. at 11:54 AM on September 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by geoff. at 11:54 AM on September 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
The internet and computer use were pretty common in nearly all businesses back then.
In 1996, one of my daily duties was to print out my commander's emails, drop them in his inbox, collect the previous day's emails with his handwritten notes on them, and send the replies. This was a Military Intelligence unit with literally hundreds of millions of dollars worth of computer equipment.
Oh, and also, his email account was associated with his position. He literally did not have a personal email account at all, work or no.
posted by Etrigan at 12:01 PM on September 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
In 1996, one of my daily duties was to print out my commander's emails, drop them in his inbox, collect the previous day's emails with his handwritten notes on them, and send the replies. This was a Military Intelligence unit with literally hundreds of millions of dollars worth of computer equipment.
Oh, and also, his email account was associated with his position. He literally did not have a personal email account at all, work or no.
posted by Etrigan at 12:01 PM on September 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
The internet and computer use were pretty common in nearly all businesses back then. This is 1995 with Windows 95, wasn't exactly the stone age.
In spring 1992, my college first began handing out Unix email accounts to non-CS majors, upon request. (Previously there were VM accounts that I don't think anyone but non-majors could find useful.) When I got mine, I could see the folders of the people in my year--there were maybe ten of them. And I didn't go to Deep Springs. I had email, but I had practically no one who I didn't already know from, like, telnet BBSes, to email.
Even though this was a wealthy school, we had computer labs in every dorm on the assumption that many students would not have their own computers.
One of my student jobs, starting in summer 1994, was "retcon"--typing the data from card catalog cards into the computer so they would appear in the card catalog. This project wasn't finished for years.
IIRC the first website went up in 1993. I remember being thrilled when I got a Mac that could support System 7, which was required for Mosaic use, so I could try out this new technology.
So, no, while computer use was common at work at this time, the Internet in the form most non-tech people would recognize it--the web--didn't exist til 1993ish, and most people didn't see an obvious need to start using it.
posted by praemunire at 12:09 PM on September 7, 2016
In spring 1992, my college first began handing out Unix email accounts to non-CS majors, upon request. (Previously there were VM accounts that I don't think anyone but non-majors could find useful.) When I got mine, I could see the folders of the people in my year--there were maybe ten of them. And I didn't go to Deep Springs. I had email, but I had practically no one who I didn't already know from, like, telnet BBSes, to email.
Even though this was a wealthy school, we had computer labs in every dorm on the assumption that many students would not have their own computers.
One of my student jobs, starting in summer 1994, was "retcon"--typing the data from card catalog cards into the computer so they would appear in the card catalog. This project wasn't finished for years.
IIRC the first website went up in 1993. I remember being thrilled when I got a Mac that could support System 7, which was required for Mosaic use, so I could try out this new technology.
So, no, while computer use was common at work at this time, the Internet in the form most non-tech people would recognize it--the web--didn't exist til 1993ish, and most people didn't see an obvious need to start using it.
posted by praemunire at 12:09 PM on September 7, 2016
In most of the 90's I didn't even consider the internet a necessary part of my computer usage. When I bought my first PC, when I got internet access, when friends got cell phones, the most common response was "why?". Mostly not positive or negative, just mildly curious and mostly disinterested. It's interesting how the narrative of this part of history has changed to everyone being swept up in the revolution. But people have things to sell.
posted by bongo_x at 12:21 PM on September 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by bongo_x at 12:21 PM on September 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
My university offered free email and then dial-up internet access to all students in the early to mid 90s. Most people I knew didn't own a computer until the late 90's and relied on campus computer labs. No-one used email because, well, no-one used email, so what was the point? I saw the same attitude towards the internet in the early days. It was a curiosity used by early adopters.
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:25 PM on September 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:25 PM on September 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
From Newsweek in 1995 on why the Internet will fail.
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:30 PM on September 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:30 PM on September 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
Yeah, but the Space Jam website was pretty cool.
The way that the internet exploded in the 90s means that it's possible for "nobody in my peer group knew or cared about the internet" people to be separated from "I literally grew up on the internet" people by only a year or two, or else simply by geography. I literally grew up on the internet, I got CompuServe and AOL when I was about ten. There are certainly people younger than me for whom nobody in their peer group knew or cared about the internet. I'm sure the same thing was true even of radio and early TV.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:32 PM on September 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
The way that the internet exploded in the 90s means that it's possible for "nobody in my peer group knew or cared about the internet" people to be separated from "I literally grew up on the internet" people by only a year or two, or else simply by geography. I literally grew up on the internet, I got CompuServe and AOL when I was about ten. There are certainly people younger than me for whom nobody in their peer group knew or cared about the internet. I'm sure the same thing was true even of radio and early TV.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:32 PM on September 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure.
Try Newsweek for only $1.25 per week
The placement of that ad insert has to be deliberate.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:33 PM on September 7, 2016
Try Newsweek for only $1.25 per week
The placement of that ad insert has to be deliberate.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:33 PM on September 7, 2016
the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople.
What's missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact. Discount the fawning techno-burble about virtual communities. Computers and networks isolate us from one another. A network chat line is a limp substitute for meeting friends over coffee. No interactive multimedia display comes close to the excitement of a live concert. And who'd prefer cybersex to the real thing?
so right and yet so wrong
posted by polecat at 12:51 PM on September 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
What's missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact. Discount the fawning techno-burble about virtual communities. Computers and networks isolate us from one another. A network chat line is a limp substitute for meeting friends over coffee. No interactive multimedia display comes close to the excitement of a live concert. And who'd prefer cybersex to the real thing?
so right and yet so wrong
posted by polecat at 12:51 PM on September 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
I was a member of San Francisco's Coffee House based SFNet from 1991 through 1995, and loved it. Met some amazing folks.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 12:55 PM on September 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 12:55 PM on September 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
Surely it only the second hippest cyber cafe in 1995, didn't even have a skate ramp ;) #hackthegibson #crashandburn #zerocool Damn the soundtrack of Hackers was amazing, I gotta go listen to it again!
posted by Dr Ew at 1:07 PM on September 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Dr Ew at 1:07 PM on September 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
That Newsweek article is actually pretty accurate. A lot of the information on the Internet is still shit, a lot of internet business is super scammy, and go to the comments section of any YouTube to find a colony of hooting dicks. Regular peoole didn't really start caring about the net until two big, hard to predict changes happened: synchronous web languages made web 2.0 (and therefore social network sites) possible and we all got miniature, user friendly wireless pocket computers with an always on net connection.
posted by codacorolla at 1:16 PM on September 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by codacorolla at 1:16 PM on September 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
For some reason this bit made me think of the absolutely insane Remote Lounge from the early 2000's.
posted by phooky at 1:43 PM on September 7, 2016
posted by phooky at 1:43 PM on September 7, 2016
Regular peoole didn't really start caring about the net until two big, hard to predict changes happened:
I'll give you mobile devices, but I don't think it really took off until the technology became easier, this is two fold:
1. I can open up any new computer and be connected to my wifi in seconds (not to mention actually getting a router going is plug and play now). This was ludicrously hard in the early days. I mean it was definitely doable, but a lot of people didn't want to figure out if (a) there computer was capable of, and had the necessary ports to run a 14.4k modem, let alone install it internally (b) fiddle around with network settings to make it work.
2. On the flip side it became infinitely easier to create a webpage that actually did something. You have a wider pool of people creating software when you don't have to build a CGI server yourself. I can spin up a website with all the plumbing, and host it within minutes. Costs are also non-existent to host, so it is not as if you have to leave a computer running in the basement like the old BBS days.
What's the story about Richard Stallman founding GNU because he was trying to write a driver for a printer but couldn't due to the proprietary nature of the driver? There was actually a time when it wasn't crazy that you wanted to write a driver for a network printer. When technology is easier, everyone benefits.
posted by geoff. at 3:09 PM on September 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
I'll give you mobile devices, but I don't think it really took off until the technology became easier, this is two fold:
1. I can open up any new computer and be connected to my wifi in seconds (not to mention actually getting a router going is plug and play now). This was ludicrously hard in the early days. I mean it was definitely doable, but a lot of people didn't want to figure out if (a) there computer was capable of, and had the necessary ports to run a 14.4k modem, let alone install it internally (b) fiddle around with network settings to make it work.
2. On the flip side it became infinitely easier to create a webpage that actually did something. You have a wider pool of people creating software when you don't have to build a CGI server yourself. I can spin up a website with all the plumbing, and host it within minutes. Costs are also non-existent to host, so it is not as if you have to leave a computer running in the basement like the old BBS days.
What's the story about Richard Stallman founding GNU because he was trying to write a driver for a printer but couldn't due to the proprietary nature of the driver? There was actually a time when it wasn't crazy that you wanted to write a driver for a network printer. When technology is easier, everyone benefits.
posted by geoff. at 3:09 PM on September 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
I saw my first webpages in early 1994. But I wasn't on the web until a year later. I used things like Fetch to grab stuff off the internet, and the mail and IRC clients on the main UNIX server at university.
posted by persona au gratin at 3:40 PM on September 7, 2016
posted by persona au gratin at 3:40 PM on September 7, 2016
In 1995, I began laying the groundwork for a career in CD ROM design. That was far more interesting to me than the internet. I'm not exactly a visionary.
posted by davebush at 5:31 PM on September 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by davebush at 5:31 PM on September 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
I just spent the past hour on Wayback Machine, tracking down multiple inane personal websites I made for myself in high school and feeling equal parts fascination and embarrassment. I blame this post.
But seriously, nifty video. Thank you.
posted by duffell at 6:06 PM on September 7, 2016
But seriously, nifty video. Thank you.
posted by duffell at 6:06 PM on September 7, 2016
I remember buying T1 service for my job at about the same price (~$10,000/mo). Today, I get in excess of 10 times that speed on my phone.
posted by nev at 6:14 PM on September 7, 2016
posted by nev at 6:14 PM on September 7, 2016
I was a student in the early 90s and we carried around our email on a 1.44MB 3.5" floppy disk. The disk contained all of your messages AND the software, which I believe was Eudora.
You would go to a computer lab, pop in the disk, launch the software, download any new email messages, send out a few, then eject the disk, and you were done with emailing for the day.
I also traveled through Europe in Summer 1995, and was blown away upon my return at how companies had discovered the internet during that time. Before I left, the internet was populated mostly with academics and hackers. After I got back, it seemed like every TV commercial ended with a web address.
Times have certainly changed.
posted by subliminable at 7:40 PM on September 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
You would go to a computer lab, pop in the disk, launch the software, download any new email messages, send out a few, then eject the disk, and you were done with emailing for the day.
I also traveled through Europe in Summer 1995, and was blown away upon my return at how companies had discovered the internet during that time. Before I left, the internet was populated mostly with academics and hackers. After I got back, it seemed like every TV commercial ended with a web address.
Times have certainly changed.
posted by subliminable at 7:40 PM on September 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
You would go to a computer lab, pop in the disk, launch the software, download any new email messages, send out a few, then eject the disk, and you were done with emailing for the day.
Did you have to install from the disk? From what I remember of floppies (and good riddance to them), you couldn't run a program natively like you can with a USB stick.
posted by codacorolla at 8:01 PM on September 7, 2016
Did you have to install from the disk? From what I remember of floppies (and good riddance to them), you couldn't run a program natively like you can with a USB stick.
posted by codacorolla at 8:01 PM on September 7, 2016
Could this cafe BE any cooler?
posted by 4ster at 8:15 PM on September 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by 4ster at 8:15 PM on September 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
I also traveled through Europe in Summer 1995, and was blown away upon my return at how companies had discovered the internet during that time. Before I left, the internet was populated mostly with academics and hackers. After I got back, it seemed like every TV commercial ended with a web address.
I'm on the younger end of the MeFi age scale but I got internet then-ish, as a young lad. I distinctly remember seeing the uptick in the number of businesses sporting their own websites too.
Internets turned out to be a big rabbit hole for me, but at least my embarrassing personal webpages tended to be mundane tributes to bands and things where I was more concerned with making audio play within a webpage and fiddling with HTML, rather than going on ignorant rants. Then I discovered Linux and other Unixes and that was a rabbit hole par excellence which changed the course of my life.
posted by iffthen at 9:39 PM on September 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
I'm on the younger end of the MeFi age scale but I got internet then-ish, as a young lad. I distinctly remember seeing the uptick in the number of businesses sporting their own websites too.
Internets turned out to be a big rabbit hole for me, but at least my embarrassing personal webpages tended to be mundane tributes to bands and things where I was more concerned with making audio play within a webpage and fiddling with HTML, rather than going on ignorant rants. Then I discovered Linux and other Unixes and that was a rabbit hole par excellence which changed the course of my life.
posted by iffthen at 9:39 PM on September 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
Did you have to install from the disk? From what I remember of floppies (and good riddance to them), you couldn't run a program natively like you can with a USB stick.
Depends on the program. I had a license for Eudora, but never tried to run it off a floppy. I loved a word processor called "Yeah Write!" which was template driven and *would* run off a floppy disk.
posted by mikelieman at 10:13 PM on September 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
Depends on the program. I had a license for Eudora, but never tried to run it off a floppy. I loved a word processor called "Yeah Write!" which was template driven and *would* run off a floppy disk.
posted by mikelieman at 10:13 PM on September 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
Nope, looks like Eudora could *store* email on a floppy as a normal thing, though.
posted by mikelieman at 10:15 PM on September 7, 2016
If you use one Eudora floppy disk (a “Mail Disk”) to access your mail from various locations, all your e-mail will be downloaded and stored in one place, your Mail Disk. The Eudora client application program installed on public computers automatically uses the settings, addresses, and mailbox files located on Mail Disk. You can set up any personal computer, including your own at home, to read and write to a floppy disk.And then, of course, the harddrive image for campus would have it configured as the default.
posted by mikelieman at 10:15 PM on September 7, 2016
I was a regular at The CoffeeNet in San Francisco, back in the late 90s. It was all a tax dodge, I believe, but also a great support venue for the local Linux community at the time. It was set up in an old fire station that he originally got the lease for so he'd have a place large enough to set up his enormous electrostatic speaker system.
Incidentally, the founder was red-green colourblind, which is why every interface he designed was done in a purple and gold scheme.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 12:38 AM on September 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
Incidentally, the founder was red-green colourblind, which is why every interface he designed was done in a purple and gold scheme.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 12:38 AM on September 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
In 1995, I began laying the groundwork for a career in CD ROM design.
At the start of 1996, I was still getting grumpy with clients who wanted to spend all their money on websites rather than CD Roms.
No tech founder billions for me either.
posted by Coda Tronca at 2:55 AM on September 8, 2016
At the start of 1996, I was still getting grumpy with clients who wanted to spend all their money on websites rather than CD Roms.
No tech founder billions for me either.
posted by Coda Tronca at 2:55 AM on September 8, 2016
Did you have to install from the disk?
It was ages ago, but my recollection is that you launched the software from disk, no installation required.
I remember it feeling like magic, compared to how long it would take to open Photoshop 2 and whatever single black-and-white image you wanted to work with. (Color images had a tendency to crash the computer back then if they were too large or had high resolution.)
posted by subliminable at 4:28 AM on September 8, 2016
It was ages ago, but my recollection is that you launched the software from disk, no installation required.
I remember it feeling like magic, compared to how long it would take to open Photoshop 2 and whatever single black-and-white image you wanted to work with. (Color images had a tendency to crash the computer back then if they were too large or had high resolution.)
posted by subliminable at 4:28 AM on September 8, 2016
CoffeeNet was kind of proto-NoiseBridge in the back. Such memories. Including RMS dancing in the rain out the back door. The one thing I never remember doing there, though, is using the internet.
posted by joeyh at 6:38 AM on September 8, 2016
posted by joeyh at 6:38 AM on September 8, 2016
There was a time, friends, when the only way to run a program (on a home computer, at least) was directly off the floppy disk it came on. I mostly grew up in the post-DOS world where you installed things on a local hard drive, but I do recall encountering these strange, floppy-centric beasts from time to time.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:21 AM on September 8, 2016
posted by tobascodagama at 7:21 AM on September 8, 2016
There was a time, friends, when the only way to run a program (on a home computer, at least) was directly off the floppy disk it came on.
One of my earliest computer-associated memories is the thrill of typing a command into Zork and hearing the computer accessing the drive, meaning that I had actually taken a step in solving a puzzle.
But when you say "only," you are forgetting cartridges.
posted by praemunire at 9:56 AM on September 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
One of my earliest computer-associated memories is the thrill of typing a command into Zork and hearing the computer accessing the drive, meaning that I had actually taken a step in solving a puzzle.
But when you say "only," you are forgetting cartridges.
posted by praemunire at 9:56 AM on September 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
Removable media, then. :)
Point being, internal storage frequently had only enough space to store the operating system and not much more. The notion of "installing" software didn't come along until the DOS era, when storage itself (coincidentally) started getting much cheaper.
posted by tobascodagama at 10:38 AM on September 8, 2016
Point being, internal storage frequently had only enough space to store the operating system and not much more. The notion of "installing" software didn't come along until the DOS era, when storage itself (coincidentally) started getting much cheaper.
posted by tobascodagama at 10:38 AM on September 8, 2016
MetaFilter: TERRIFIED AND EXCITED
My first experience with the Internet was around 1996 in a job fair for schoolkids. I took a few addresses from a story a newspaper ran with sites with international sport. A few were already offline, others were so so slow, and a few were quite usable.
Why we checked that? because I was the only one that any idea where to go. We had no idea what Yahoo was.
posted by lmfsilva at 3:37 PM on September 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
My first experience with the Internet was around 1996 in a job fair for schoolkids. I took a few addresses from a story a newspaper ran with sites with international sport. A few were already offline, others were so so slow, and a few were quite usable.
Why we checked that? because I was the only one that any idea where to go. We had no idea what Yahoo was.
posted by lmfsilva at 3:37 PM on September 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
About 1993 or 1994, Trumpet Winsock and Netscape over a dialup modem.... my mind was blown. Before that it had all been IRC and Usenet and Gopher and .... not terribly user-friendly text based stuff. As soon as I saw Netscape running on a Windows 3.1 machine I started to talking to my tech-savvy mate about setting up and ISP or an internet cafe, but the cost of internet connectivity exceeding a dialup modem was either just not available yet, or way too expensive.
posted by Diag at 3:31 AM on September 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Diag at 3:31 AM on September 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
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posted by Kitteh at 11:05 AM on September 7, 2016 [4 favorites]