On-Line Services and the Internet 📼 1996 VHS 60fps

There are no Long Distance charges!!! But plenty of erroneous backslashes. 1996 Silicon Mountain VHS EP tape.
Time flow:
0:00 Description
3:35 Roll tape!
4:06 Introduction
7:07 Parts of the Internet
10:44 Internet Connections for You
20:23 Resources on the Internet
30:24 Get Going!!!
#internet #vhs #1996

[@vwestlife]

*UPDATE:* After a day and a half, KZbin finally finished processing it, and it's available in 720p60 now. This was captured and uploaded at 720p60, but even after waiting for nearly two days and re-uploading it, KZbin is refusing to show it as anything higher than 360p, even though a shorter video with the exact same encoding settings was processed by KZbin to 720p60 almost immediately.

[@audiocrush]

Maybe this is a current temporary problem. Yesterday I uploaded a short one minute video and it took nearly two hours for the HD version to be available. In the meantime only 360p was available.

[@ParallelSyntax]

It will probably show 720p later sometimes it takes time.

[@jonglass]

At least it's authentic with VHS quality ;-) I actually thought it was intentional!

[@Vuusteri]

Maybe upscale it to 1080p or higher?

[@hfric]

they do a Gui update on YT for Audio detection , it has now a new tab in the description section when you click SHOW MORE... not to mention slowly re-encoding the whole site to AV1 , removing h264 ... not to mention some servers where in Canada when Rogers had a Network issue ... it piles on ... if your not in the right SUB Class on YT , your Encoder queue in moved to the lowest possible right now ...

[@999thenewman]

Looks like KZbin's AI has become sentient, insisting on the vintage aesthetic 360p resolution as a throwback.

[@DerekPower]

ＹｏｕＴｕｂｅ　ｌｏｖｅｓ　ｖａｐｏｕｒ

[@exMuteKid]

SO ITS NOT JUST ME!!! Glitchy app too?

[@ABCEasyas--]

It was likely due to the video needing time to process to the higher resolution. Sometimes when I see a video minutes after it’s uploaded, I don’t have a choice to see it in high res or HD EDIT: it’s still locked at 360p.

[@0ka354]

It selected 144p for me automatically

[@BilisNegra]

It's now corrected. Did it really make a difference? (Bar the introduction before the tape recording itself, that is)?

[@UpLateGeek]

You should do a video comparing those "VHS filter" effects to actual VHS recordings. I see a lot of retro channels using VHS filters in their intros or end screens, but they all seem to way overdo the "dodgy VHS" look. From memory, most of the dodgy VHS look was when you started a recording over another, and it was only for a second or two as it picked up the tracking. But those VHS filters seem to apply the dodginess throughout. Even if you had a damaged section of tape, usually it was completely garbled, not just the consistently dodginess like the VHS filter seem to apply.

[@vylbird8014]

It's the dodgy VHS look of your home videos that have been sitting in the back of a cupboard for the last fifteen years, both recorded and played back on the cheapest VHS player you could buy.

[@1marcelfilms]

obviously fake filter looks fake

[@rippspeck]

Awesome idea!

[@BlameThande]

I very much agree with you, it annoys me no end. I'm currently digitising all my tapes, currently about 400 in, and the only time I see anything like the modern "dodgy VHS filter" is on one or two damaged tapes (from the late 90s when they were cutting corners - the 80s ones are always fine) that I then don't bother copying anyway. Nobody would have put up with anything close to that at the time!

[@dan_from_australia]

Same with vinyl filters. Total exaggeration.

[@Frank_42]

It reminds me of the day when my cousin, a lawyer with an honorary degree from Oxford, asked me the ultimate question: "Why do I need a browser if I already have the internet?" There were people who needed this tape.

[@MrDuncl]

I recall a housemate with a PHD complaining in 1995 that someone had fitted a hard drive in place of one of the floppies into the PC he used at work. Consequently he didn't know how he could use the software he regularly used which had a program disk and a data disk. The funny thing was I didn't know the answer either.

[@Alpha8713]

I mean, technically he didn't need to use the web. Or he could telnet to port 80 or something.

[@AutistCat]

The first time I used the web, I was at a library and they had a “phone book” of website urls! This was in 1995. It took me forever to type in the urls, I remember that 😅

[@compu85]

I wonder if the content in this actually helped anyone figure out what they needed to do to get online in 96. It's so condensed it's like reading the glossary in the back of a book!

[@agingmillennialmainer]

I was a kid without internet at the time so I watched it a few times.

[@ceticobr]

The first time I ever had access to the internet the web was not a thing yet (not available to the average person). The services available to me were: email, gopher, veronica, telnet, ftp and newsgroups - all of them were text based. Nonetheless this video takes me back to my teenage years. The nostalgia is strong on this channel.

[@HorrorUberAlles]

14:36 "Some online services limit the content that the user can access on the internet. While it is appropriate to do this for children, adults should be given the choice to view and read what they wish." 26 years later: If only you knew how bad things really are, VO lady...

[@davesecx]

I really hate when people say a / is a "backslash". It's NOT a backslash! \ is a backslash!

[@TheEpicOne007]

i caught the tail end of this era being born in the very late 90s. love these bits of technological history!

[@bradleybrown8428]

same.

[@cocusar]

This sounds like the intercom voice on Half Life 1's tram ride. Amazing. Thanks for the upload!

[@sali-ali]

Exactly, it might be the same voice actor.

[@WDC_OSA]

@@sali-ali Kathy Levin, who did the HL1 tram voice, has "many corporate videos" listed among her past work on Voice123. I think there's a real possibility that this is her.

[@JesterDyne]

@@WDC_OSA I think she is it. Welcome to the Black Mesa Research Facility Transit System

[@BobM925]

I was 16 in ‘96, we got “the internet” for Christmas that year in the form of a 33.6 modem. I remember submitting one or two assignments for school which were lifted off the early ‘net… Who was going to check?

[@mushroomsamba82]

I love Sony's branding here 3:26 "Remote Commander" 😆It doesn't merely control... it COMMANDS. Sounds like a serious piece of equipment!

[@jonytube]

Fun fact, in Portuguese we say "comando" which is short for "tele-comando". With "tele" being the Greek prefix for remote, at a distance and "comando" meaning, well, command. I think I'll be calling them commanders from now on lol.

[@vwestlife]

And it glows in the dark, too!

[@Melmelbaton]

this was very popular terminology for sony - they tended to be very dramatic when describing the functions of their equipment they also liked to use terms like "ATTENUATOR" instead of volume control, and then they had famous marketing jargon like "SIMULTANEOUS TWIN DRIVE"

[@TRS-Eric]

@@jonytube as an owner of a remote commander it is indeed a serious bit of kit!

[@ran2wild370]

Obrigado! 😄😄todo bom commando!! (I don''t know Portuguese, but it is what I remember from soap operas broadcasted back in 2000s)

[@MarshalArnold]

Ah, yes back when the internet was fun and exciting!

[@frankowalker4662]

And no bloody cookies. :)

[@MarshalArnold]

@@frankowalker4662 right!! I do remember pop-ups being quite annoying though 🙄

[@WannabeMarysue]

Yes! US News, US Government, and the Universal movie homepage!

[@FBAV]

Ehm no it wasn't really by 1995... By 2000 it was fun and interesting... But by 2010 that was already mostly gone.

[@MrDuncl]

I ordered a CD from the USA using my credit card back in around 1997 and despite using Windows 3.1 without any virus protection didn't have any problem (except U.K, customs charging me a load of import duty).

[@2dfx]

14:45 "adults should be given the choice to view and read what they wish" How quickly we have forgotten this.

[@BaconMinion]

It's sad, really. As a kid I had much more freedom in seeing and reading what I wanted. But as an adult, well, I guess government/media/whoever know what's best for me.

[@Zippy_Zolton]

"virtual security guard" really gets me for some reason

[@matthewlawrenson3628]

I got on "the internet" for the first time on April 1, 1997. Yes, I should have taken the hint. It truly was "all fields" back then. And thank god for that, as I had a 33.6k modem and was paying 1.5p a minute (off peak) or 4p a minute (peak) for the privilege. I remember downloading a file of around 1 Meg back then. Took an hour, and I was praying that the connection wouldn't drop or someone would call the landline during the download, meaning all my time and money would be wasted. I tell this stuff to kids now and I can see the "old man yells at cloud" meme forming before their eyes. But it's all true. It did happen. I'm 47 on December 8th. I had hoped getting old would happen rather later.

[@x86-64]

You had to pay 1.5 pounds a minute to use the internet? That’s absolutely ridiculous. I find it fascinating how companies were trying to figure out how to sell the internet to customers back when it was new, they had some wacky practices. I’m glad it is the way it is now

[@CheaddakerT.Snodgrass]

All familiar. Born in 74 and was on the internet on my Atari 800 computer with a 300 baud modem paying long distance phone charges to call into pretentious BBS's

[@dialupdude]

@@x86-64 I’m pretty sure they mean 1.5 pence, which are like cents.

[@x86-64]

@@dialupdude oh ! 😅 excuse my ignorance lmao

[@MrDuncl]

@@dialupdude Here in the U.K. you would probably be paying the same to call a friend on the phone. Some parents even went as far as installing private payphones so their kids would chat for too long. I used to call a friend from my parents phone just to tell him which CB channel to go to so we could chat for free.

[@orangejjay]

I love how the audio is higher in quality than the video. VHS HIFI is some cool stuff and you don't have to "be a computer geek" to appreciate it.

[@peetabix]

When she said to check out this site for 'some fun' that could have gone any number of ways. TBH i wasn't expecting sports.

[@MaxStax1]

I first got on-line at home in 1995 with AOL. I don't ever recall any kind of time limits, it was always unlimited. When I moved to a regular ISP a year or so later, I also had unlimited on-line time for one monthly fee. Back then you could call an 800 number for free Microsoft tech support with an actual person. They had a live hold music DJ who also updated various estimated hold times for the different areas. They once sent me a check for a new sound card when I couldn't get any sound after installing the Windows 98 Upgrade, and it worked, had sound after that.

[@gameguy73]

Aol was originally by the hour. You did get twenty hours for every month. They didn't go unlimited until December of 1996.

[@MrDuncl]

There were various tariffs. The free trial seemed to go up and up 10 hours, 25 hours, then eventually 100 hours. However, after you months trial you were down to your 5 hours for the basic fee. After a month in which I ended up with a hefty bill I switched to a different tariff which gave far more hours (maybe unlimited) for about 3 times the price. p..s. In the U.K. with AOL dial up the fee did include the cost of the phone call, which would have been significant otherwise, even if it was just to the local exchange.

[@CT-vm4gf]

Yeah I never had a time limit in 96. You were basically limited to when someone else needed to use the phone line.

[@davidbjork5063]

@@CT-vm4gf In Sweden we did have localphonecall fee. 10 öre per minute in evenings. Daytime 20öre per minute. Only when Adsl came in sometime 2001 we did have flatrate. Then came 3G, 4G with limited data rates. Finland have flatrate on 3G, 4G... 😉

[@albear972]

Daaaang! That's an old school throwback. I first got on the newfangled interwebs on a POS Macintosh LC with a 13K modem. back in 1996 when I was 23 years old and living alone. I remember internet service costing $44.99 a month for 50 hours of usage. Expensive now thinking about it. With inflation, $44.99 in 1996 is worth $84.97 in July 2022. It really was an interesting time back then. I also remember that Netscape Navigator browser. Good times. Then 2 years later I bought myself a PC 1000% more powerful than the old LC. A IBM Aptiva with a 500Mhz AMD K6-2 and 56K modem.

[@steviebboy69]

I remember similar rates as well, then I found one with unlimited hours or well you could be on for 2 or 3 hrs at a time and then would be kicked off if no more dial in modems were available and someone else called in. it did have 500 meg of data and that was a lot back then. phone calls were expensive as well, now I can call Australia to USA on my pre-paid mobile for like 4 cents a minute.

[@ewhitest]

I found the part about the differences between an ISP and an online service to be especially informative. I think I'll call Erol's Internet and set up an account tomorrow.

[@Rmg12]

I miss the old days of the internet. I was a child back then, and I'm sure it's nostalgia but dialing up and browsing in the 90s and 2000s. What ever happened to webrings? Site design was so much more fun back then!

[@BilisNegra]

Your parents for sure do not miss the bills from back then.

[@r66fplaysgames]

Diamond Entertainment Corporation was one of those home video companies, like United American Video (UAV) that also released old public domain cartoons on VHS. I am glad that we are no longer limited to 5 hours, a month, & having to pay by-the-hour for internet service. Also, I like how she refers to Windows 95 as "MS Windows 95".

[@Lachlant1984]

I didn't know that web browsers this old would automatically fill in the characters when typing URLs in. I didn't start using the Internet regularly until around 1998, and for years I'd type in , I'm not sure when I stopped typing that in. Of course I don't now.

[@BensSightSoundandAuto]

Hmmmm they have the internet on VHS now, what an age we live in.

[@user-su5sq5ib3i]

You always have the coolest stuff old school stuff thanks for taking the time to share your treasures

[@Vuusteri]

Hmm, Internet eh? It surely looks interesting, but it will never catch on.

[@LakeNipissing]

Wow, this is a trip down dial up memory lane! _SLIP, PPP, Trumpet Winsock, Netscape, FTP..._ And to show how fast things were changing then... by late 1997 / early 1998 I was connecting with high speed (cable) and downloading several mp3 files *_at the same time_* in a minute or less, instead of one mp3 in 30 minutes with a phone modem. Napster, WinMX, AudioGalaxy. This seemed amazing just to get music. We couldn't even imagine what would come next with streaming HD video, as computer processors got faster!

[@MrDuncl]

So you are the one who killed off record shops :-)

[@rizzlerazzleuno4733]

@@MrDuncl Well if the dang tech companies had just perfected the car LP player we would still have Hi-Fi in our Falcons, Corvairs and Valiants.

[@aaronblack9412]

Finally, I’m ready to start using the internet.

[@BocaRetroGames]

That's so cool. I was 12 in 96. I miss the early days of the Internet

[@richneptune]

I'm a little older than you, but I remember all the "old timers" complaining in 96/97 about the decline of the internet due to the barrier of entry coming down! I do miss those early days so much, it was so exciting!

[@TheDylandProductions]

@@richneptune eternal september

[@BocaRetroGames]

@@richneptune it was really exciting. A brand new thing. Genuine content and not this seo, sell crap of today's web...

[@EgoShredder]

@@richneptune 1996 was also my first year of going online with the internet (I had used BBS back in the mid-80s though). I was just a 25 year old kid back in 96, and I was instantly hooked much to the bemusement of my friends.

[@michael1234252]

26 years later so much has change about the internet.

[@joeconti2396]

It's funny. A lot of my companies internal intranet still looks like this.

[@ceticobr]

Sadge.

[@MrDuncl]

At least you will know where to find things. Where I work they change the intranet, all the Config Management and databases about every three years whether they need changing or not.

[@norris5754]

Gee whiz, this internet thing is way easier than I thought! Thanks!

[@Super8Rescue]

I was there at the dawn of dial up. I remember learning how to tune the modem to get the max out of it. My computer had a massive 4gb hard drive.... Happy days

[@domosautomotive1929]

4 gb? My first computer back in 1992 was a Compaq 25 MHz 486SX with 4 Mb of RAM and a 277 Mb hard drive that I was told I would never fill.

[@Super8Rescue]

@@domosautomotive1929 Well, if I go back far enough I can brag about setting up a recording studio at a university. I bought an Atari 1040 to run Pro 12 (later cubase) Want to buy a drawer full of floppy discs?

[@terrydaktyllus1320]

@@domosautomotive1929 I can beat that - my first Internet computer was a Commodore Amiga A1200 running at 14 MHz with 4MB RAM and a 40MB hard disk. I remember using the "iBrowse" browser.

[@DerekPower]

Ehhhh … almost there in parts 😁 I was 14 at the time of this. Funny enough, due to my dad’s graduate education and being in Air Force, we had a computer and an ARPANET connection in the 1980s. But once ISPs were on the scene, we jumped on that bandwagon. Those were the days. Also, the more things change 😁

[@DerekPower]

And speaking of things that was around at the time, my inner MST3K geek was having fun with this 😆

[@guessundheit6494]

I miss HTML 3.2 and web pages less than 25KB (40KB with scripts). Imagine small pages without the bloat (images, autoplay video, oversized CSS and Javascript). "CNN Lite" has the right idea. And I miss Usenet, that was social media at its peak.

[@zorka4098]

No matter the resolution, this video sure brought back many memories for this old person. I was in early and recall going through much of what this video was about having personally put up a set of web pages back in 1995 when it was all fun to do. Nowadays it has all become so commercialized and sophisticated, while perhaps sometimes helpful, the hobbiest fun factor is no longer there. Thanks for posting.

[@RyanCoomer]

Awesome yesssss the good ol days I remember them well!!!!!!!!

[@WDC_OSA]

Beautiful. Early videos like these about the Internet serve as such a good sleep aid too. I'll probably return to this a handful of times.

[@WDC_OSA]

Wow, the people who made this really didn't give a shit at all.

[@andrewm478]

Thank you for uploading this.

[@yogi9631]

Nostalgia, Just superb video clip. Can't live without it these days.

[@pureboxofscartcables]

That Internet thing looks like a bad idea. Thank god it didn't catch on.

[@machmodeling]

I’m glad that they included cons when talking about which decisions to make, instead of just pros.

[@Wolf_K]

Your channel is gold, man! 😊

[@sammyspero3648]

It reminds me of so much memories plus the Excel video and the office video.VHS and VCR, plus I have the Rocky collection part 1 to 5, and so much more.

[@CheaddakerT.Snodgrass]

Who remembers Compuserve trial subscriptions being sold at Sears in a security envelope. The type that ihad tear off edges. They would type the information using a printer without ink because inside the envelope was a carbon copy paper.

[@esseferio]

Oh, my… 4:53 I still remember this webpage 😱

[@Starrgroove]

This was a very enjoyable trip back through time. I remember spending hours scouring various newsgroups in hopes of becoming a better Street Fighter II player. 🤜🏼💥🤛🏼

[@AMDRADEONRUBY]

It was a nice video and reminded me good old days Thanks Kevin.

[@RyanCoomer]

Running the phone bill up in 96 from dialing bbs boards hahahahaha heck yessss I miss it! Now the internet is boring. The magic gone

[@dualityk]

8:38 Greffindel the Plaid, of the dragon-type furries, getting pounced and tickled for a cunnilingus joke. What kind of educational film is this!

[@choi13a]

As an olds who spent too much time on Prodigy back in the day, and whose first browser was Netscape 1.1, I approve of nostalgia for the early days of the Internet. Before Facebook and online misinformation echo chambers.

[@FLH3official]

In 1996/1997 I worked in a major record company. I had a personnal internet account in these years and I clearly remember a meeting when I tried to explain to the CEO of this major record company, a big big one, what could happen with the internet and what would maybe be the consequences for the music business. Obviously he wasn't interested at all. 😁

[@NALTOHQ]

“From the home user to the business professional” This makes me remember something I thought about Windows for ages. What the ever loving heck is a Home Professional?

[@macktheinterloper]

There are many things I am nostalgic for, but the 90s Internet isn't one of them. I have seen things I will never unsee.

[@BilisNegra]

Yeah, there are people who aren't really able to drop the rose-tinted glasses.

[@sammyspero3648]

This guy is incredible you are an a genius in everything from old computer objects to today's new technology you seem like you're upgraded and updated with everything you sound better than Bill Gates and E. Musk together, a true technician that knows everything, without a mistake for after all these videos you made I'm guaranteed!

[@sm-jones5911]

Love the background music!

[@teppest111]

Wow that trip back in time. I didn't really spend alot time on the internet back then, being in High School was the only time I really was on the net back in for homework etc. I was in Eastern Connecticut back then I remeber how slow those modem were.

[@stuckin2003]

backslash nightmare

[@farktard2740]

@23:24 love how she narrates a backslash backslash but it's a forward slash...

[@thecountrysheriffacp4524]

Thanks Kevin, found this to be entertaining

[@SuperFinGuy]

Back when search engines were not tempered and were functional. Now your keywords are just suggestions and you get nothing but clutter.

[@diamonddave45]

This is what sadly killed dial-up BBSes. But BBSes still live on!. VWestlife did a video on that a while back.

[@dislikebutton1799]

I miss this internet.

[@gerald8573]

This is surprisingly good.

[@jacobe2995]

In 1998 I used the internet for the first time on a computer at a public library. I remember using it to look for cheat codes for some video games I had.

[@Frank_42]

Hypnospace Outlaw is the bestest, funniest game made for 90s internetites who would appreciate it for what it is.

[@5argetech56]

The Days of Wine and Roses and Dialup Internet! 😆 My first email client was Juno back in 1996. Still have it. It was free and ad sponsored.

[@vwestlife]

My dad's best friend used Juno.

[@KongKingman]

My first “net” experience was not even on a computer, I had a “Web Tv” system

[@RandomRetr0]

Such a time capsule, especially the USENET info

[@MagicFerret69]

It’s called a forward slash

[@veb6814]

My reality has indeed been regenerated!

[@povilasstaniulis9484]

This tape is so 90s :) A web before Google was born. I wonder how many of the links mentioned in the video still work today.

[@karenweiner1857]

I’m seriously tempted to try some of them!

[@Lachlant1984]

I used to subscribe to a magazine here in Australia called Electronics Australia, sadly they don't exist now, because I'm legally blind I used to get the magazine on tape from the library for the blind. The narrator who read the magazine would pronounce www at triple dub.

[@steviebboy69]

I remember reading Electronics Australia in the 80's at school back when it was a real Electronics magazine. I actually have one from 1978 or so around here and it had the Tandy catalogue in the middle.

[@foof811]

8:34 what a weird post to highlight in an internet tutorial video.

[@sideburn]

BACKSLASH BACKSLASH!

[@lumabi25]

Trumpet Winsock. Haven't seen that for quite a while.

[@exMuteKid]

Is the KZbin app acting up for anyone else? Setting resolution to 360p and loading slowly?

[@bland9876]

I'm 27 and I don't think I've ever said "I'm going to surf the web" or ""I'm surifint the web right now" or anything else with the word surf in it relating to the world wide web. There are many others funny things to comment on like how she makes it sound like an ISP is deferent from an SP lol

[@archivushka]

If they only thought that years later we will be watching this introductory tape trough the internet, laying in a comfortable pose while holding a portable computing device, without any constrains or compromises

[@phononut]

What type of information is on the internet? Are you sure you want to know?😎 This really brought back some great memories, thank you!👍🇺🇸

[@Atlink]

Maaaaaan, I miss AOL. Something about it was fun and it just seemed exciting. I liked the idea that it was like this little club where all the cool kids hung out. Everything was right there, ready to access.

[@ABCEasyas--]

“Well not so much anymore.” WhatsApp: Am I a joke to you?

[@thevacdude]

So, I take it that they charged you back in the day to be online. Now you pay a flat fee for Wi-Fi access. Thanks for the video, Kevin.

[@Charlesb88]

Originally, you’d pay by the hour to be online with an Online Service Provider like AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy, Genie, etc. and with the few early publicly accessible ISP’s. If you where lucky to have access to the internet via the government, an educational institution/university, or a cooperation, then you had unlimited “high-speed” access or maybe dial-up through your corporate/university network (which was in turn connected to the internet via a T1 or other broadband connection). When the internet really started to open up to the general public around ‘94/‘95, a rash of new ISP’s started up that offered a certain present number of hours of internet access for a monthly fee beyond which they charge a hourly fee for each additional hour. The around the late 90’s some ISP’s started switching to a flat rate system with flat fee for unlimited hours, as did online services like AOL. This was also the time broadband internet also become an option, at least in larger cities/areas via DSL and Cable Internet. In the late 90’s, some ISP’s operated on a then-new ad supported model where you got some limited access to the internet for free but you had to use their special internet access software which put ads in your face every so often. Juno was one example of a big players in the ad supported free dial-up internet providers (They still exist but no longer offer ad supported Dial-up internet access anymore and neither does anyone else I believe). But I remember back in the day when you had to pay per hours for online access and later internet access and how frustrating it was to have to limit how long you where online per month. Once unlimited internet access for one flat monthly fee became the norm, the internet really took off since no one had to worry about how long they were “online”.

[@MrDuncl]

@@Charlesb88 By the turn of the century there were companies who would even give you a free (really low end) PC in return for being bombarded with adverts whenever you were trying to browse the web. Regarding fees dial up did include the phone call. Here in the U.K. f you had chatted to you mate on the phone for a similar length of time you would have probably ended up with an equally big bill.

[@Charlesb88]

@@MrDuncl yes, I know about the “free” Ad-supported PCs, a model that didn’t work out for either the consumer or the computer/ad delivery companies that provided them. As for the phone call charges, here in the U.S. you could dial up local numbers for a flat rate per month so as long as your ISP had local number for you to call it wasn’t too bad cost-wise. Long distance charges on the other hand could be very costly but by the late 90s you had various long distance carrier acts offering long distance calls at around 10-15 cents per minute with celebs like Candace Bergen and Paul Reiser (then stars of Murphy Brown and Mad About You on TV) hawked cheap long distance for those companies. Of course, cheap mobile phone plans have killed on the revenue from land-land long distance and land land providers these days offer unlimited long distance plans. The only remaining long distance providers now all rely on broadband internet service and mobile phone service as their consumer profit centers (landline digital business telephony is still a thing though).

[@MrDuncl]

@@Charlesb88 In the U.K. once people started switching to always on ADSL loads of companies started offering IP Phones (many of which had to be used in conjunction with a computer) so you could make long distance calls on the back of your internet connection. Isn't that basically how Skype started ?

[@Charlesb88]

@@MrDuncl Yes, IP phones became a thing here too in early 2000s, where you could either buy a usb dongle that allowed a standard landline e phone to be used over your computers internet connection and if you had a usb headset (or even an older analog Jack headset that plugged into your sound card), plenty of internet/ip phone service providers existed for cheap phones calls but with the hassle of having to turn on your computer/laptop to make/receive calls. Skype I believe has always been about computer to computer voice/video communication/conferencing (aka videotelephony) from the start but it’s also had the ability to communicate with landline and mobile phones for a fee early on in its history (though only in limited markets at first).

[@MrDuncl]

That music at the start and end sounds as if it came off one of Techmoan's BGM machines :-) 11:56 certainly wasn't my experience with a couple of online services before I tried AOL. The first couple I tried gave a cryptic errors messages like "Can't find file xy767dial.dll". Without the internet there was no chance of finding it anywhere. That was using a 486 PC running Windows 3.1 with a 14K4 dial up modem. Once it was working I was hooked (and still am) No mention on the tape of Altavista which was the search engine of choice back then. A shame that DEC never worked out how to make money from it.

[@BaumInventions]

Reality regenerator engaged.

[@MrDuncl]

Steve Jobs wouldn't have approved. He preferred the "Reality Distortion Field".

[@woofgbruk5947]

I remember having to use Internet Explorer or Netscape to be able to properly view some sites depending on which the site owner designed it for . . . .

[@BliterTV]

In 1996 y usually used my Amiga 1200 with IBrowse 😁

[@JFD62780]

Okay... The final spoken '(back)slash' count is 29. If y'all were playing a drinking game involving that count, my sincere apologies! XD

[@stevenj2380]

And years later, huge corporate media-telecom-ISPs eliminated personal web pages and FTP, newsgroups, and other protocols used to be part of old dial-up, UNIX terminal access from early 90s opening of the internet to public.

[@Eliotime3000]

EP/SLP recording quality often brings you a not so faithful video quality, and it was the most common and cheap way of record the VHS tapes. Unfortunately, during the last days of VHS, the amount of VHS recorders that can record in SP and LP were few.

[@vwestlife]

Every VCR I've ever used can record in SP speed. It's LP speed which got dropped from most VCRs in the '90s and newer.

[@CoreyDeWalt]

MS-Windows 95... that is what really hurt my ears. And now that I've gotten to the end of the video, I hope I never hear the word backslash ever again...

[@Musicradio77Network]

I wish that Benny Boy from “Oddity Archive” would love to see this.

[@MrBillmcminn]

Definitely good Archive Riffs material

[@joeblow8593]

Thanks

[@Finallybianca]

Damn forgot about the monthly charge of 5 hours or more being charged fees.

[@CARLiCON]

interestingly in the section about online services, they only reference AOL...no mention of Prodigy, Compuserve etc...makes me wonder if this was subsidized by AOL

[@AsBi1]

what capture card do you use for composite video to PC transfer?

[@ethan043]

He might have just plugged the camcorder to the VCR

[@KabukeeJo]

What a different time that was.

[@lurkersmith810]

Wow, that background music came in hot and heavy towards the end, didn't it? Like maybe there was some kind of shakeup at the production house and they just rushed the end of that tape to get it done.