How quick did you adapt to the internet

Now since I'm a disgusting, liberal millennial (24 years young), I adapted fairly quickly to the web, smart phones, and the like. So I'm curious as to how older folks approached what's such a big part of our lives.

Slow but steady having started out using a Commodore 64 all those many years ago. One machine on a wheeled cart shared by approximately 60 Engineers. But before that there was "Fortran." But even now, nothing is intuitive. Every new device or "language" is a challenge. BTW have you asked your parents that question?

My dad said he had a Commodore back when he was younger. I remember playing Putt Putt games on a big fat Macintosh.

Shootist43 said:

Slow but steady having started out using a Commodore 64 all those many years ago. One machine on a wheeled cart shared by approximately 60 Engineers. But before that there was "Fortran." But even now, nothing is intuitive. Every new device or "language" is a challenge. BTW have you asked your parents that question?

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tigris115 said:

Now since I'm a disgusting, liberal millennial (24 years young), I adapted fairly quickly to the web, smart phones, and the like. So I'm curious as to how older folks approached what's such a big part of our lives.

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I dont beleive there are liberals on this forum! This is a joke, right?

Anyway, i am not older generation, but neither i am millenial. I had commodore 64 when i was a kid, and since my first day at work i am using computer or laptop. Switching to modern smartphones was not big deal for me.

But having an experience in pre-smartphone era, i think this toys are steeling childhood from.new generation. They will.more likely learn to play on this things, rather then learn to drive bycicle, use the slingshot, etc.

Bottom line, i am not overly impressed in how these things change our culture.

Could have sworn I saw that title as a headline question on Yahoo! today.

Tbh, most kids I've seen are pretty much the same as they have been when I was their age when I worked at the Bronx Zoo. However, I think that parents need to do a better job at encouraging outside play and creative thinking. Also, I'm not as much a liberal as someone who likes to pick and choose positions based on their personal philosophies. My big one is that the private lives of law abiding individuals should never be infringed upon. I think that covers a decent swath of good things from gun rights to LGBT issues. My 2 other things are the environment (that's where hunting and nuclear energy go) and not being a political sheep, rather you should take in as many ideas as possible to develop yourself.

mark-hunter said:

I dont beleive there are liberals on this forum! This is a joke, right?

Anyway, i am not older generation, but neither i am millenial. I had commodore 64 when i was a kid, and since my first day at work i am using computer or laptop. Switching to modern smartphones was not big deal for me.

But having an experience in pre-smartphone era, i think this toys are steeling childhood from.new generation. They will.more likely learn to play on this things, rather then learn to drive bycicle, use the slingshot, etc.

Bottom line, i am not overly impressed in how these things change our culture.

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Avoided it for several years.
Then my daughter hooked me up with high school friends in literally 5 minutes after 20 years of no contact.
Now it's basic life for everything

Internet access began in my workplace in 1995. I lived and worked in a very rural area at that time with infrastructure that didn't even support dial-up Internet access. The telephone system still didn't even support touch-tone dialing -if you had a pushbutton phone, you had to set it to rotary mode to function. All numbers with the same 3 digit prefix only required the last 4 numbers to be dialed. The office required live telephone receptionists because that area infrastructure couldn't allow any non-human call routing to any extension, and there was no voice mail either. Your messages were scribbled on sticky notes, and stuck to the wall of your office mail slot in the series of such shelves in the reception area. The highest tech phone technology that infrastructure supported was ability to send and receive documents by fax.

I got a fast immersion on using the Internet for work purposes in addition to personal / leisure purposes starting in 1998. I was working as a Process Controls Engineer in a petroleum refinery at that time, and there were genuine Y2K issues with the digital control systems that needed to be reseached, addressed, and documented. That workload took a quantum leap when corporate IT group management washed their hands of doing any Y2K related work on any PC software that wasn't a standard user package application - such as Excel, Word, Outlook, etc and all other software used at the actual manufacturing sites such as the refineries was now also assigned to my workgroup - suddenly and with no discussion - in Spring 1999. So all technical software like AutoCad as an example was thrown in our laps as Y2K workload whether our group used such software or not.

Smartphones, I dragged my feet on as I could see how intrusive things became for early adopters in life away from the workplace. I had a personal flip style cell phone, no company issued mobile phone, and I think I was the last employee to turn in a company issued pager at my final workplace when I retired in Oct 2012. I got my first smartphone in 2014, a Samsung Note 3, that I used until Dec 2019 when I moved to my current Samsung Note 10+.

As far as computer technology I used mainframes in college and after I graduated until 1993 when I got one of the first 386 PC's at that refinery with Windows, before others got PC's with Windows and before Windows was a network application. I used punch cards, systems like a 2 directional teletype with integral printer, and the highest of mainframe access, a remote terminal with CRT and keyboard, in college. The DEC PDP-11 was the computer I used punch cards for programming. It was donated by NASA to the universities. It was so primitive it couldn't perform the mathematical functions of multiplication and division directly. Instead, those operations had to be written as addition and subtraction respectively, as loops. Division was quite complex if there was a remainder. You had to be very careful about which actual memory addresses you used so the remander wouldn't get overwritten. It had an additional upgrade add-on module we were given access to after our initial work with the PDP-11. Named the Extended Arithmetic Element, this allowed mathematical functions such as multiplication and division, directly by invoking it in your program. Programs for that system were written in Assembly Language, literally defined as the closest thing to pure machine language a human being could understand and use. I worked in Fortran and Pascal computer languages when I used then-state-of-the-art 1980s - 1990's mainframe systems, and in Basic for my Radio Shack PC-6 pocket 8K microcomputer that I purchased in 1986 until around 1995 when had 386 PC power at my desk.

Consider that NASA actually got a lot of value from that DEC system before it was donated! When it was state-of-the-art, it was better for precision than tools like the slide rule.

At home I had the Atari competing computer to the Commodore 64 in the 1980's, and replaced it with a 286 PC in 1992 IIRC. I've never owned any Apple product, and never had an Apple product assigned for my use in the workplace.

tigris115 said:

Now since I'm a disgusting, liberal millennial (24 years young), I adapted fairly quickly to the web, smart phones, and the like. So I'm curious as to how older folks approached what's such a big part of our lives.

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I Just turned 60 today My First Combat Deployment was to the Island Of Grenada my last was 2008 to Afghanistan...I patrolled the Iron Curtain East German Border with the USSR and watched the world on fire in Iraq...I hope you make it to the day when you wake up and say WTF happened to the world I grew up with???

That said Internet Porn is awesome and I can buy the perfect Gun just for me and the exact ammo I want and book a hunt anywhere in the world and book just the flight I need with the exact seats I want... The Future is wonderfull...LIVIN THE DREAM!...

I invented it. So, to answer the question; pretty quickly. LOL

BRICKBURN said:

I invented it. So, to answer the question; pretty quickly. LOL

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Better knot tell Al Gore

I don’t think we adapted to the internet, I think it adapted to us.

Fred Gunner said:

Better knot tell Al Gore

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See that's the inside jokes us old shits remember...Your 24 so you probably don't remember when Vice President Al Gore (AKA Mr. Global Warming) Claimed when he was in school he and some pals invented the internet??? But it's ok because your the future good luck?

Adapt? I still don't have any internet connection to my office. No smartphone either. absolutely love it. You want to talk, pick up a phone and call me.
Doesn't mean I can't use it for the things I want, I am just choosing when and where I need it.

I’m kind of old, but feel 24! Ha! Ha! Anyway, the World Wide Web is one of the greatest inventions in history! When I/we of the older generations were growing up and “wondered “ about something/anything, the only sources we had for reference and information were the local library or if lucky enough, a Brittania or World Book encyclopedia set. But, they were outdated as soon as the print dried. They would send you supplements which they too became outdated quickly. Now, one can peruse the world on line without having to leave their home. One can BUY almost anything on line from home. The only downside, is ending up on a social media something (what is AH considered anyway?) such as this, with all these old guys expounding all their expertise and knowledge about everything hunting, firearms, reloading, adventures, etc., etc., and leaving me with less time to do something actually productive! I guess there’s always the power off button! Ha! Ha! Ha!

I like that you can talk to anyone in the world and share ideas. For example, I've got online friends from all over the U.S., the U.K., Indonesia, India, the Netherlands, Brazil, etc.

Didn't take long at all when my employer stopped by the job trailer, ( l was a superintendent for a construction company) and hooked a computer up and said get used to it. It's the future. Think of it as just another tool

I originally got a computer so I could make my invoices more professional and for contact purposes but it soon became more in being able to research various projects and then I found the forums and I was an instant convert.
It was through the internet and this forum in particular that I went from making a knife or two for myself to making very many more. I have made firm friends that I would never have had the opportunity to meet otherwise.

First computer I can remember was Univac. Saw it on TV. It wouldn't fit in a house. First one I ever used was an IBM 1600. Had to use Holerinth cards and FORTRAN for programming. NASA had one whole megabyte of computer power for the first moon landing. Had a Commodore 64 with a 300 Baud dialup internet connection. We have come a long way and the internet, like every other human invention, is wonderful and terrible, depending on how it is used. I hope the millennials learn to use it well.

Prepare for Assimilation. Resistance is Futile.
I will let you know as soon as I adapt. Actually, I adapted to the internet very rapidly. What I have not adapted to yet is the world after the internet. I doubt I will.