Do you want "fun" or do you want "the internet as it was in 1997"? Because those are two different things.
If you want "fun", that's largely a product of the people/culture of the people on the internet at the time (High IQ Boomer and Gen X techno-libertarians); and sadly a lot of those people lost their minds (and their sense of humor) in 2016. The minority who didn't migrated to places like this and the chans.
If you want "the internet as it was in 1997", then wayback machine is probably your bet. Make sure you limit your internet connection speed to 28.8 kbps (we didn't really get 56K modems until later, and some ISPs may not have supported 33.6 kbps even though the modems/standards existed).
Lucky bastard. I was happy enough getting DSL when my friends still had dialup, since we could now use the phone and internet at the same time. (though sometimes noise on our line would cause problems)
My first experience with fast internet was in the freshman dorm at college in the early 00s. I needed to download OpenOffice (90MB) and was dreading it, then to my surprise it downloaded in like 30 seconds.
The V.90 (56k) standard came out in 1998. Depending on what ISP you used they may or may not have had V.90 compatible equipment until later.
Before that there were two competing proprietary 56k standards (K56flex and X2) that existed, but if you bought one of the modems you had to make sure your ISP supported the modem you had to get the full benefit. I have a vague recollection that there was some reluctance among ISPs to pick a standard.
Do you want "fun" or do you want "the internet as it was in 1997"? Because those are two different things.
If you want "fun", that's largely a product of the people/culture of the people on the internet at the time (High IQ Boomer and Gen X techno-libertarians); and sadly a lot of those people lost their minds (and their sense of humor) in 2016. The minority who didn't migrated to places like this and the chans.
If you want "the internet as it was in 1997", then wayback machine is probably your bet. Make sure you limit your internet connection speed to 28.8 kbps (we didn't really get 56K modems until later, and some ISPs may not have supported 33.6 kbps even though the modems/standards existed).
I had ISDN in 1997. IIRC was 128kbps
Lucky bastard. I was happy enough getting DSL when my friends still had dialup, since we could now use the phone and internet at the same time. (though sometimes noise on our line would cause problems)
Yeah I still had to put a line noise canceller on each phone plug as well
My first experience with fast internet was in the freshman dorm at college in the early 00s. I needed to download OpenOffice (90MB) and was dreading it, then to my surprise it downloaded in like 30 seconds.
I remember when it took about 2 minutes to download an mp3
I know that I had a 56k modem by 1998.
The V.90 (56k) standard came out in 1998. Depending on what ISP you used they may or may not have had V.90 compatible equipment until later.
Before that there were two competing proprietary 56k standards (K56flex and X2) that existed, but if you bought one of the modems you had to make sure your ISP supported the modem you had to get the full benefit. I have a vague recollection that there was some reluctance among ISPs to pick a standard.