The Virtual World

My first foray into the digital world was circa 1991, late by Internet geek standards. It was mostly on a 286 "laptop" of that era, with its wonderous GWBASIC programming language and Wordperfect 5.0. And, who could forget, typing tutor with it's ever so entertaining letter invaders.

It wasn't until a few years later that I progressed much further than becoming an accomplished Wordperfect typist. After become reasonably skilled with writing crappy GWBASIC programs, I discovered the internet in 1994. Toronto Freenet. 416 780 2010. That number is permanently engraved into my head, the hours I sat there waiting for it to connect. Those lines were clogged, busy, and all so I could check my e-mail or go read a newsgroup or two.

1995 was when I first got onto the world wide web. The earliest post I could find I ever made was on some guestbook. I had some horribly ungrammatical post somewhere asking about strategy in the wonderful game Civilization, but that post has dropped off the face of the universe. Thank god.