When did you first learn to use a computer/get online?

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IdahoRose
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26 Jul 2013, 3:56 am

I first started using the Internet at the age of 11. I feel like a late bloomer compared to the other people in this thread, lol.



Apple_in_my_Eye
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26 Jul 2013, 5:49 am

I first learned how to use computers (TRS-80) in a 6th grade summer class in about 1980. Then, after college (1993), I heard about "the internet" on the radio which sounded interesting so I decided to try it out.



The_Walrus
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26 Jul 2013, 6:04 am

My dad tried to show me before I could read, which was the height of folly.

I ended up using the computer regularly after we got broadband, which was probably when I was 8. That was also when my school installed an ICT suite. Before that, I'd rely on my parents to access the internet for me, specifically to print pictures of cartoon characters.



chlov
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26 Jul 2013, 6:23 am

I started using my uncle's computer when I was 6, but had my first computer when I was 7.

I started using internet only when I was 12-13 though.



blue_bean
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26 Jul 2013, 6:37 am

My first experience with computers would have been the old Microbees in primary school (my fave games were Dodgem and Frogger and that one where you had to blast all these buildings away before your UFO hovered too low and crashed into a tower). My first experience with a computer with mouse was those old Macintosh's that had like a 10 inch screen and floppy drive.

I think it wasn't until high school with the net because my primary school didn't have the internet (the school had one IBM which we were only allowed to look at encyclopedia CD roms on)**. We didn't have a computer in the house until my eldest brother bought a PC in the late 90's. He got prepaid dialup internet on it. When I was a teeny bopper at about 14 I started using the net at school to look up my favourite pop bands and stuff, then as I got older I started using the school library internet all the time to obsess over WWE. I didn't get my own first computer until 2005 and we had broadband switched on for the first time in the house soon after.

** To think every kid at school these days get to take their own school provided laptop home :o



Lace-Bane
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30 Jul 2013, 5:50 pm

My parents got a computer in 1995... though I didn't take to computers, and only started using them at about age 14 when schools started requiring their use. I'm a bit antiquated on the inside and prefer old technologies... I still don't like them so much, but now you can't not have one without having to go out of your way with everyone moving to digital bills, accounting, invoices and such, so I learned how to use them fairly well over time, and how not to break them, or let them get ill, but I rarely use them for anything more than the basics, and I have no intent on learning anything more about them. I've been teased by friends for being a young person and not being particularly proficient, but I honestly just don't see the heavy appeal of computers. They are certainly convenient for study and communication, but I can also see living in an alternate universe without them and having to hunt information on foot, and speak to fleshy faces. I type without looking and the stuff I wish them to do in my daily life happens... tis more than enough know how for me >_>



nick007
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31 Jul 2013, 6:22 pm

I hadn't really used a computer at all till I was in high-school. I took a computer coarse in 10th grade that was required & I made a D the 1st 9weeks because I had no background in it. I spent time after school practicing in my Resource class. IMy paretns got the 1st computer & net when I graduated in 2001. I spent alot of time online but the net s#cked because it was dial up & I averaged about 20K. It was another year before something better was available in the area & that was cable.


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Misslizard
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31 Jul 2013, 8:00 pm

I feel like such a dinosaur,I just got on the net a little over a year ago,age 47.I'm like a monkey with a tablet.I just poke at it.


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League_Girl
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01 Aug 2013, 1:38 am

I didn't get on the internet until I was 11 and I was seven when I first used a computer. I had seen one long before that because my Dad used one for work and I remember that noisy printer thing he had and the papers had holes on the sides and were conjoined you had to rip apart like a paper towel. I remember when I was one of the few kids in my class with one at home and by middle school, almost everyone had one.


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GregCav
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01 Aug 2013, 7:59 am

The first computer I used was an Apple 2E in the school library. I was grade 9 and this would have been about 1981. I saved up $600 dollars and bought a Commodor Vic 20. Look that up, lol.

I first got onto private bulletin boards. Before web html was even invented.



Tazweteq
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01 Aug 2013, 3:47 pm

I was using the internet when I was 5.


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01 Aug 2013, 3:50 pm

I only got a computer about 4 years ago.


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kabouter
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01 Aug 2013, 4:38 pm

The first computers I used were at University, I was in my early 20's at the time and the year about 1975.

There were mainframe computers programmed using punched cards or mark sense cards.

To get online I had to build a terminal (connected to TV set) and repair a surplus modem (300 baud) to remotely connect to the universities computer. There was no world wide web then, but the internet was there and you could connect to bulletin boards such as CompuServ. Games were text based, Adventure and Startrek.

Fun Times


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lostgirl1986
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01 Aug 2013, 6:07 pm

I first got introduced to computers when I was in grade 1 so around 1991. I first got introduced to the Internet in grade 6 so around 1996. My family didn't get an Internet connection until around the year 2000.



neurodeviant
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01 Aug 2013, 6:28 pm

The first computer I remember using was a BBC Micro in the late 80s. I also remember my cousins had a Commodore 64, and I was impressed that is plugged into a normal TV instead of a monitor. I got my Commodore 64 in Christmas 1990.

I didn't get on the Internet until late 1999, when my family got their first computer. It was quite cheap, and the graphics chipset was terrible, so games ran slowly, if they did run at all.


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