Web Fossil Club?

I remember getting on the Internet when it was essentially text-only. It was 1994 for me. I messed around a little in 1992 and 1993, but it was hit or miss with the technology I had. I got a look at what was going on, but that's about it. To tell you the truth, it wasn't all that mesmerizing to me at the time. Looking back, that was a little more than two years after Tim Berners-Lee, CERN and the actual beginning. So it turns out that I plugged myself in soon after it was possible to do it. I bought a Mac with the necessary components, including a modem that pumped data at a staggering 9,600 bps. This was a horse of a setup - especially considering the computer I got rid of had a 20 megabyte hard drive (yes - mega, not giga), and only handled 5.25 inch floppy disks. I can't even remember how much data they held, but it was close to nothing. With the Apple I managed to establish a dial up connection and an account with Apple's eworld which had a graphic skin. Everything was text, but you started out with a cartoon. I used Yahoo in the beginning. Does that make me old?

The content quickly moved to more useful hypertext links and then employed graphics. In a short time, it changed a lot. You know the rest. I moved on to AOL for a couple of years after eworld fizzled and somehow rolled into AOL - there wasn't much choice - what a thrill. The AOL "homepage" concept lost its appeal quickly. As soon as I could get connected on my own, I did. I learned a bit about html and how the web worked. I had a job that demanded my full attention, so I didn't go all-the-way down the tunnel. Still, I had email since the beginning.

I know I'm not, and have never been in the category of the ultra-heavy users. That gets reserved for special people. However, since I was up and using since 1994, always having an active email account - as far as longest continuous users go - I'm up there. If you just consider the number of users added since 1994, it looks like I would be one of the first .01% of active users. Is that right? Not 1%, but point zero one percent. 1/100 of 1%. That's crazy. The other 99.9% of you came after me. Ha! How many people can say that? How many people care? The answer to both questions is probably, "not many".

I may or may not elect to capitalize on my status as a Web Fossil. We'll see.

No wonder I've attracted so much spam.