Netscape Navigator nostalgia

[Mike-BTU]

Zombie Netscape Won’t Die

The very concept of the web browser began with a humble piece of software called NCSA Mosaic, all the way back in 1993. It was soon eclipsed by Netscape Navigator, and later Internet Explorer, whic…

hackaday.com

Ahhh yes. Good 'ol Netscape! Lookit thoze screenshots. Don't they bring back warm, fuzzy memories?


I think that I still have the silver-gray box that Netscape Navigator came in. Not sure of the exact year I bought it, probably in the early '90s.

(Chromium based, like Vivaldi, my favorite mobile browser.)

 

[Mike-BTU]

Did you buy or use Netscape back then?

 

[KGIII]

I still see Netscape in my server logs.

Also, I think I paid for Netscape, but not for long. Opera was my browser of choice for a long time.

 

[Brickwizard]

This was my favourite not a browser as we know them, but there was not much on the internet back then

 

[Mike-BTU]

This was my favourite not a browser as we know them, but there was not much on the internet back then
View attachment 30191

Oh yeah! I used CompuServe myself. I had forgotten about it.

Also, America Online (AOL).

IIRC, both of those were before Netscape here.

 

[KGIII]

Oh, if we want to go back that far, I used CompuServe early on. At the time, it was largely academic in nature -- even though it was a 'consumer' product. I used ARPNET for a very short amount of time. My earliest 'networked' connection was a dumb terminal attached to a mainframe in Dartmouth.

I also got to use WorldWideWeb, which was the first internet browser. It was written by the dude who invented the WWW. The name was soon changed to Nexus, so it wouldn't be confused with the World Wide Web.

Prior to, and during this era, I was also a newsgroup junky. There were a zillion things to find on USENET. So much of our history comes from USENET. For example, we got TL;DR, RTFM, LMFAO, troll, flame, etc...

I did enjoy the BBS scene as well. For a good while, we could use a local number to dial into services from the university. From there, we could dial out to whatever numbers we wanted (restricted to the US). That was pretty awesome. Otherwise, you had to have some creative ways to keep your phone bill at a reasonable level. (For you young folks, it used to be really expensive to call the next town over, and calling outside of your state was extremely expensive.)

I just looked that last bit up and did some math...

To make a phone call (in 1985) from Massachusetts to California would have cost (adjusted for inflation) $48.15.

Yeah... It was REALLY expensive to make a long-distance phone call. On one hand, you can't blame a person for finding cheaper alternatives. On the other hand, it sure made the penalty pretty high (when laws caught up).

 

[Mike-BTU]

Oh yes, BBSs were great fun! Text only, graphics used ASCII escape sequences (for colors) and characters.

Back then, the phone rates where we lived were significantly discounted in the evening.

My favorite was the FBN (FNB?) BBS.

 

[Brickwizard]

I used CompuServe early on.

It as the early 80's probably 83/4 when i used it

 

[KGIII]

Oh yes, BBSs were great fun!

They were useful, on top of that. Some of them had a 'warez' section, which I'm sure you remember with at least some glee.

It as the early 80's probably 83/4 when i used it

Yeah, I'd have been somewhere in that time range -- maybe slightly earlier, maybe slightly later. I spent an extended period before undertaking grad school, and I would have used it during that time.

 

[Brickwizard]

I spent an extended period before undertaking grad school, and I would have used it during that time.

I had already been working for around 12 years by then and married for around 10

 

[KGIII]

I had already been working for around 12 years by then and married for around 10

I wasn't hatched until 1957 and spent a number of years serving in the military. I graduated at the age of 17, but I then spent some fruitless time with a group of friends so messed up that we couldn't take advantage of a great opportunity. We had the GI Bill (which is so much better today), which allowed 'double-dipping'. That accounts for about eight years of my life.

So, I suppose you could say that I was working. During those nearly-16 years, I was either working for the government or working for myself by learning. (I'd eventually 'work for myself', which is a horrible description because you're still working for others, but by contract.) Of the three, I'd say my time in the military was the easiest and most exciting.

They say that you'll never work harder than you work when working for yourself. I'd have to agree with that, assuming one actually wants to create a sustainable business. If you don't work hard for yourself, you'll probably not see much success.

But, yeah, you're old.

I must confess that there are days when I feel old. Another saying is that getting old isn't for wimps. That's something I think many of us can relate to.

 

[MikeRocor]

Oh yes, BBSs were great fun! Text only, graphics used ASCII escape sequences (for colors) and characters.

I spent quite a bit of time on Z-node 12. I writing a post to the sysop asking form some technical advice and being totally creeped out when he started typing a response in real time - for a moment, I thought my computer was possessed.

 

[theLegionWithin]

ah I remember using netscape and mosiac back in the early 90s

 

[wizardfromoz]

Netscape Communicator was the overall suite, as I recollect. I liked it.

I also used AOL, but they were somewhat cheeky with their advertising in Australia on TV. They had people dressed in their green and orange, to look somewhat like our national sporting colours, which is green and gold.

Don't forget the screeching of the modems, lol.

 

[KGIII]

Don't forget the screeching of the modems, lol.

Once upon a time, I could make convincing MODEM noises. (And, old habits die hard. MODEM was MOdulate and DEModulate. So, I automatically capitalize it, even though 'modem' is now a word and what you're supposed to use. So, I'm now the incorrect person. Go figure?!?)

I'm out of practice. For my own amusement, I used to sometimes answer the phone while making noises that sounded like a fax machine. Back in the day, we'd sometimes get fax machines that called the wrong number. You could make noises back to them for your own amusement.

I wonder if anyone could mimic the MODEM noises well enough to at least get as far as passing the handshake.

I've shared that I was once rather impoverished (by the standards in my country). Well, I had a broken phone that was still old enough to have pulse as an option. The phone supported tone dialing, but they numberpad was broken. I switched it to pulse dialing. Fortunately, I'd been a curious lad. Because of that, I knew that you could press the plunger properly and use that to dial. It took some practice, but I got pretty good at it. Press the plunger down once to dial a one, twice to dial a two, etc... When you want to type a zero, you press the plunger down 10 times.

I'd also sometimes fire up the computer to let that dial the number. I'd just pick up the handset after getting a dialtone.That was a bit annoying, as the computer was connected to a different phone line.

Ah, memories...

I also used AOL,

While it doesn't surprise me, I had no idea that you had AOL over there. Nobody mentioned it to me, or I forgot. My understanding was that Telstra sort of had a lock on the market.

they were somewhat cheeky with their advertising in Australia on TV.

Well, at least they didn't try to rebrand themselves as 'Australia Online'.

 

[noelw]

Good old Netscape. That beautiful ships wheel. Loved it to bits.

 

[noelw]

Just could not help myself.

 

[garyn]

I paid for it, even have the "CD" (remember CD software distribution?) it came on

 

[theLegionWithin]

I paid for it, even have the "CD" (remember CD software distribution?) it came on

lol I wish I could find the pic, at a previous job we were moving from one building to another and I had to clear out a room of file cabinets full of junk - software, licenses/paperwork from decades past, hundreds of "certificates of authenticity" (remember those?) for NT 4 licenses - one file cabinet was nothing but win2k discs - I had a 50 gallon trash bin completely filled to the brim with nothing but those and office 2003 cd's. damn I wish I could find that pic, it looked like microsoft projectile vomited in a bucket.