What Were the Early Days of PF Like for Members in the Twenty-Year+ Club?

[Ivan Seeking]

How many people have been PF members for 20 years or more?

It occurred to me that I joined PF 20 years ago right about now. I remember that a short time later, Greg had to do some kind of reset with the software which reset my join date to April 2003, but it was actually a bit before that. It is hard to fathom that it has been 20 years!!! Wow.

The internet as we know it was just coming into being back then. I can still remember making my first posts, and having responses from people in five or six different countries in only a matter of an hour or so. It was a new and exciting experience. I had been posting on message boards but PF was the first truly global forum I had visited.

What a wild ride it has been since then!

 

[strangerep]

The internet as we know it was just coming into being back then [2003].

Oh c'mon. I was using the internet (email, newsgroups, websites, etc) back in the mid-1990's.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I'm in the club!

 

[DaveC426913]

18 years for me. Still a newbie I guess.

 

[Dr Transport]

19 years next week...., not quite an old guy, but getting to gray bearded status.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Oh c'mon. I was using the internet (email, newsgroups, websites, etc) back in the mid-1990's.

I don't remember exactly when I first got online but it was certainly by the mid 90s. In fact, I tried to start a company very much like Amazon, at about the same time Bezos started Amazon. I called it Factory Indirect. I made deals with local retail outlets to sell their products online. Because they didn't have to carry this inventory it could be sold much cheaper. We could drop ship directly from the factory. And it wouldn't interfere with their local foot traffic. The odds were that no one local would even see it online. They thought it was great and agreed to try it. But I was living in a rural area and could not get a solid internet connection to save my soul. Also, the internet was very young and people weren't really shopping online much. After months of frustration, I finally gave it up. Whoops!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I also remember getting an invitation in 2001 to join PF. But I was posting in some other forum then.

 

[Mark44]

Oh c'mon. I was using the internet (email, newsgroups, websites, etc) back in the mid-1990's.

Late 80s or early 90s for me... I can remember that I had an account on Compuserve about 1990 back in the days when modems made a lot of beeps and peeps.

 

[dextercioby]

It will be 20 years for me, too, in 2023. I am member 1064, or 10 to the power of 3 plus 4 to the power of 3. If we extend 1000 to 1064 (so I am included), there are no more than 10 active members from the first 2¹⁰ + 2⁵ + 2³(logging in here from 01.01.2021 until today).

 

[jtbell]

Oh c'mon. I was using the internet (email, newsgroups, websites, etc) back in the mid-1990's.

Did you ever use Gopher? When I helped set up my college's first internet server in 1993 or 1994, the first three services we offered were email, Usenet and Gopher (a predecessor to the WWW, with a text-based interface). A Web server followed in 1996.

 

[Mark44]

Did you ever use Gopher?

I think I did, at the college where I worked, although it's been going on 30 years. There was also an email or listserv app (IIRC) called PINE. These apps ran on the college's minicomputer that was used for registration and grades and such, but we could remote into that system. Soon after we had internet access via Netscape that we could run directly from our office PCs.

When I helped set up my college's first internet server in 1993 or 1994, the first three services we offered were email, Usenet and Gopher (a predecessor to the WWW, with a text-based interface). A Web server followed in 1996.

In about 1995 I was part of a group of about four instructors who put together online materials for a precalculus class. My involvement was writing 8 or 10 Java applets that were intended to help students visualize certain maximization or minimization problems, such as designing a kite frame by cutting a fixed length of carbon fiber rod in such a way that the area was maximized. The student would enter the position of the cut, and the applet would draw the kite and calculate the kite's area.

 

[dlgoff]

20 years for me this past November:
https://www.physicsforums.com/members/dlgoff.4449/#about

 

[StevieTNZ]

is such a soothing sound.

 

[dlgoff]

is such a soothing sound.

You sure know how to make a man feel old.

 

[jtbell]

There was also an email or listserv app (IIRC) called PINE.

Pine was our most common email app, when everybody had to use text-only terminals in the computer labs, or terminal emulators on Macs and PCs. I used it well into the 2000s on my Macs, via the MacOS Terminal app which provides a Unix-like command line interface and access to Unix tools. I don't remember when I finally switched to using Gmail's web interface for good. Must have been after 2010.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I do know about when I first got online - 1991. I was sooooooooo excited because I was able to download the first photo of Jupiter taken by the Hubble right after it was taken. I was able to download the file from the University of Oregon, which was a long-distance phone call. IIRC, it took 4 or 5 hours to download and cost something like $50 for the phone call.

 

[dlgoff]

... when everybody had to use text-only terminals ...

This brings back memories of bullentin boards:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system

 

[strangerep]

Did you ever use Gopher?

I kinda jumped straight from email+Usenet direct to Netscape.

 

[DaveC426913]

This brings back memories of bullentin boards:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system

Yep. DarkTerm. Last years of the 80s.
300 baud modems. You could hear the ones and zeros.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I'm in the club!

Greg, when did it first occur to you that PF might be around for decades? IIRC this was a high school project.

Has anyone heard from Monique in recent years?

 

[robphy]

It'll be 18 years for me in April.

Concerning the web...
I remember using NCSA Mosaic and Netscape (which was much better than Gopher),
and, if I recall correctly, they had a version battle as they worked their way to a 1.0 release.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_web_browser#Early_1990s:_world_wide_web has an interesting timeline of web-browsers.

Back then, I remember reading about the forthcoming influx of users from AOL (some comments expressing dread) and how the web will change after that.

 

[DaveC426913]

Back then, I remember reading about the forthcoming influx of users from AOL (some comments expressing dread) and how the web will change after that.

And what a change!

The end of wobbly computer desks and tables forever!

 

[Astronuc]

I also remember getting an invitation in 2001 to join PF. But I was posting in some other forum then.

According to your profile, you joined PF on Apr 30, 2003. You are member 689.

For, it will be 19 years later this year in September. PF was recommended by an inactive member, Orstio who was owner/admin or EverythingScience. He mentioned that PF had a homework forum and discussed physics, math and engineering at a fairly high level. I met Orstio and another ES member Yales at an early forum called NuclearSpace.com. I was one of the few participants with degrees in nuclear engineering and experience with nuclear power applications in space.

 

[anorlunda]

And what a change!

The end of wobbly computer desks and tables forever!

View attachment 321495

I actually started making a collection of those AOL CDs. I asked neighbors to save them for me. My goal was to have enough to replace the shingles on my roof, making a reflective roof that would be notorious to every pilot in the area.

Alas, I never got enough for a roof, but I did have one or two thousand.

 

[pinball1970]

is such a soothing sound.

Ha ha! Not heard that in a while!

 

[anorlunda]

Ha ha! Not heard that in a while!

You're even older if you remember this sound.

 

[dlgoff]

You're even older if you remember this sound.

I got a really bad electric shock from one of those back in the day.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

According to your profile, you joined PF on Apr 30, 2003. You are member 689

Yes, I explained that and Greg mentions the software issue in the history of the site. I had actually joined earlier but my join date was reset later [in April] due to a software issue.

 

[Astronuc]

You're even older if you remember this sound.

I'm that old. I used one in Grade 6 (before 1970). We were learning BASIC language and used the teletype to communicate with a timeshare on a mainframe somewhere.

 

[anorlunda]

Then there are some of us who are Fred Flintstone contemporaries who started with this sound.

 

[DaveC426913]

Then there are some of us who are Fred Flintstone contemporaries who started with this sound.

Yup. I have one of those to thank for ending up in software dev.

We didn't have one in our school in 1979. We had to hand our punch card decks in to the teacher, who would deliver them en masse to the university downtown. And only dropped the stacks occasionally....

 

[Astronuc]

Then there are some of us who are Fred Flintstone contemporaries who started with this sound.

I used punch cards during my first years at university in mid-1970s. Then punch cards got replaced when electronic terminals were introduced, I think around 1976-1977. I had used punch cards during summer school in high school, and also tape.

 

[DaveE]

I kinda jumped straight from email+Usenet direct to Netscape.

Yes me too. The problem with the "when were you online?" question is in the definition of online. Does it count when I was sending text emails from a mainframe terminal at my first real job with a DOD contractor to someone just like me? I don't think so, at least by current standards.

I guess I think "online" means a web browser that can search remote sites. For me that was Spry-Mosaic with Compuserve and an acoustic modem sometime in the early 1980's. It was awful.

Punch cards, teletype terminals, programming uP in assembly language, too -- all awful; barely functional. Waiting 10 hours to find out you made a syntax error and can't try again until tonight; getting kicked out of the HS classroom with the only available TTY terminal because your "graphics" output makes too much noise; ironing the punch tape with the only copy of your program that got crushed... -- awful.

There's no CNTRL-F to find the cards to replace in the stack. That's why Basic and Fortran had line numbers, a GOTO 220 command made a lot more sense in that environment. -- awful.

Anyway, kind of off-topic now. This does explain why I became an analog EE though.

 

[berkeman]

And only dropped the stacks occasionally....

I still remember riding my bicycle to the computer center at UC Davis back in the late 1970s with a box of punch cards in the rack on the back of my bike to submit my latest FORTRAN programming class job to the mainframe. "Please don't crash, please don't crash..." (Yes, the campus was crowded enough with bikes that low-speed collisions and tip-overs were not uncommon)

 

[dlgoff]

And only dropped the stacks occasionally

I had an EE course where the instructor gave you a deck of cards that were intentionally out of order and we had to figure out what the program did.

Somewhere I have a blank card in a book but haven't found it. Will look for it more later.

 

[dlgoff]

I got a really bad electric shock from one of those back in the day.

That's what happens when you put your fingers where they shouldn't be.

 

[berkeman]

That's what happens when you put your fingers where they shouldn't be.

Oh, so you weren't just typing then, okay now I get it. You had the back off of the machine and were trying to figure out how to make it run faster...

 

[dlgoff]

You had the back off of the machine and were trying to figure out how to make it run faster...

I don't remember why I had my fingers in it, but the shock memory is still clear.

 

[DaveC426913]

I had an EE course where the instructor gave you a deck of cards that were intentionally out of order and we had to figure out what the program did.

That's clever.

 

[berkeman]

That's clever.

I would use a different adjective, which I would have to give myself an infraction for using here at PF...

 

[anorlunda]

You had the back off of the machine and were trying to figure out how to make it run faster

Look in The Hacker's Dictionary. The ritual for "go faster" was to wave your hands and chant "wugga wugga."

 

[pinball1970]

You're even older if you remember this sound.

I think that is before my time. It sounds like a machine gun from a 1940s WW2 film!

The first printers I used were below these at Uni and after to the mid to late 90s.

 

[anorlunda]

The first printers I used were below these at Uni and after to the mid to late 90s.

You would have loved the spectrum of mechanical monsters called line printers. A line printer prints a line at a time rather than a character at a time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_printer

• Drum printers
• Chain (train) printers
• Bar printers
• Comb printers
• Wheel printers

Each had distinctive sounds, and in some cases ear protection would have been welcome.

My favorite was a light printer (using the blueprint process) used in the Saturn V project. I believe it was made by Anadex. It printed 20,000 LMP. Assuming 50 lines per page, that was 400 pages per minute, or 6.6 pages per second. Paper flew out so fast that it soared across the room. They used two of those printers to print the final status of Saturn V telemetry 90 seconds before launch. Each page went to one of 400 engineers. Each one was trained to interpret the data on one specific page. The go/no-go decision required 100% go from all those engineers. [That was the story I heard at the time from the GE Apollo Support Dept engineers. It has the hallmarks of urban legend or just plain BS; but I like the story anyhow.]

@jedishrfu , didn't GE have one of those printers in Schenectady where you worked? I seem to remember getting printed blueprint pages that smelled of ammonia.

 

[jedishrfu]

Not at our site, TIPO. We had online printers for simple jobs and MDS printers for offline printing. We did a lot of that from stock reports to paychecks to all sorts of engineering and multiform paper reports. We had decollators to remove the carbon paper between pages and bursters to break the paper at the perforated seams and strip the edge pinfeeds. We had stuffers to stuff paychecks into envelopes and procedures for everything. You cant lose a paycheck.

For critical docs like paychecks the check had a preprinted number from the printing company. The program that generated the checks had to know the starting number on the check paper and the operator had to carefully lineup the check number with what was going to be printed. One time someone goofed and we had to rerun the job and destroy the bad paychecks ie paper number didn't match the printed number.

We also had calcomp plotters for Turbine engineering drafts and papertape machines to print papertape for running the CNC tools.

The card readers had a unique vacuum sucking sound like star trek photon torpedoes.

 

[dlgoff]

I think that is before my time. It sounds like a machine gun from a 1940s WW2 film!

The first printers I used were below these at Uni and after to the mid to late 90s.

I've got one of those on my weather computer, but haven't used it for a couple years now.

 

[gmax137]

Stop me if I've told this before...

In grad school we had 10 teletype terminals in the computer room. If they were all in use, you had to wait for an opening. Unless... unless you had a friend using one. In that case you could get your friend to type in "USER 6: Please sign out and report to Console Operator..."

 

[jedishrfu]

At GE, we had a programmer who would stand over you while you were using the keypunch machine. It was kind of creepy so we’d finish up fast to get out of there.

Another time, I was using the dept teletype which we shared with 8 other programmers, to do some programming and a coworker wanted it so he sat down at my desk and started eating my snack crackers.

I got even later when he interrupted me while talking to my boss making a snarky joke and I said why don’t you tell him about your stock picks. He used to check them online while at work and used the computer to do some analysis. His face turned red.

 

[Ibix]

Talking of noisy devices, I take it you've seen these things:

 

[pinball1970]

Talking of noisy devices, I take it you've seen these things:

1.08 The solo guy came in flat, there is always one!

 

[pinball1970]

20 years is nuts. Just think about all the stuff you guys would have been discussing as it was actually happening. LHC switch on, LHC fail, Higgs discovery, faster than light neutrinos, LIGO. I am happy I was here for Webb. Luckily I bumped into a fella in the library about 6 years ago who told me about it, otherwise I would not have known till it launched as it had little media coverage here.
That was Astranut who I told to join pf, I didn't ask it was an order! I knew he would like it as he is a nature and aircraft enthusiast.