When Harry Met Sally in 1989, the world met the World Wide Web. That’s the year Sachin Tendulkar made his international cricket debut, Daniel Radcliffe was a wailing baby in diapers, Taylor Swift and Chris Brown were just born and Luis Suarez was two, and thankfully, biting only on his pacifier. Twenty five years on, the WWW is a global phenomenon and part of our everyday lives.
Most of us got accustomed to the WWW sometime in the mid 90s. Through the years, it opened up a channel of resources that brought great joy and we clapped in delight as we watched the world shrink on our computer screens. Over time slicker forms of entertainment available on the web replaced older ones and we moved on, getting used to newer trends. Now that Orkut’s gone, Hi5, among our generation, is almost history; Facebook is an addiction and Gmail is, well, should I say a necessity. We look back at some features over the last years that got us excited.
The Dial Up modem
Well, this clearly was the entry ticket to the WWW. Remember the strange beeping and shrill sounds the modem made while connecting to the Net? All the while we waited patiently, occasionally letting out impatient sighs as it retried connecting. And then when the lights came on we knew nothing could come between us and our session online, except for phone calls, which ensured that connectivity was lost.
Chat rooms
“Are you on ICQ? Or Yahoo chat?” These were common questions back in the 90’s. Being on one of these chat rooms meant you were part of the cool lot. Chatting with friends and random people from across the globe was a thrilling prospect, with very few actually caring about issues such as safety and privacy. A/S/L was how most online conversations began. Yes, does sound very disturbing now, doesn’t it? Then came MSN Messenger where group chats become a fad with people getting together and chatting. Every time a suspecting parent walked into the room the window would promptly be minimised and instead a Wikipedia page would flash on. The most common excuse? Working on a project.
Chain mails
Creepy chain mails took up a lot of our time. “Forward to 21 people or something bad will happen.” “Forward to 10 people and the love of your life will call you tonight.” “Forward to seven people in seven seconds or you will flunk your exams.” Who would want to take a chance on these things? So, racing against time the mails would be sent to half the contact list and then all would be well with the world. P.S. The ones who flunked the exams know they should have spent time studying rather than forwarding these mails.
Virtual Greeting Cards
Colourful, with chirpy background music and adorable animation — mostly teddy bears sending out kisses and hugs — these virtual greeting cards were a hit. Mostly because they were free and you could send as many as you want. Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Sister’s Day, Valentine’s Day, or just about everyday…there were cards for every occasion. And most days when you opened your inbox there would definitely be one from a secret admirer with a mysterious email id…which takes us to our next point.
Funky email IDs
Most of us may atmost have two IDs, one official and one personal, but back in the day we had at least five.
It was a fascination to have funky email ids…scarletpimpernal, stepintomygrave, loveuhamesha, flowershower, mistletoekiss…you get the drift. Hotmail, Rediffmail, Sify and Mailcity were the popular sites to have accounts with, and there were benevolent sites that indulged us with fancy domain names. Sample this: iexist@cornerpub.com, crazy4u@lovetruly.com... corny, yes, but in the 90s that was our identity and it was cool, okay!
