Do you recall in 1995, sitting at your computer and listening to the modem’s beeps, screeches, and bursts of static as it negotiated a connection with a bulletin board system or a commercial service like America Online?
I do, all while hoping no one picked up on the extension phone.
Typical modem speeds back then were around 28.8 kbps, and downloading a 1-MB file usually took about five to seven minutes.
As an image downloaded, our patience would be tested as it slowly appeared on the screen, one scan line at a time from top to bottom.
I am not sure today’s youth would have the patience to watch that on their smartphones.
Faster digital service was also available from the local telephone company over existing copper lines through Integrated Services Digital Network, or ISDN.
Using its Basic Rate Interface, or BRI, service, customers had two 64-kilobit-per-second B channels that could be bonded for data speeds up to 128 kbps.
It used a terminal adapter, or TA, rather than a standard analog modem.
At 128 kbps, downloading a 1 MB file typically took about 60 to 65 seconds.
Before websites took off, many companies operated their own in-house dial-up bulletin board systems, or BBSs, allowing users to browse products and make purchases.
Local TV and radio stations often advertised their BBS phone numbers for the public to call in, and newspapers were launching their own systems too.
Schools, universities, and city governments across the country set up BBSs to share information and connect with students, parents, and residents.
In the early 1990s in Minnesota, businesses used BBS platforms where customers could check prices, browse catalogs, and place orders before the internet became common.
Minneapolis-area TV and radio stations promoted their BBS lines for weather, sports, and schedules: a local, text-based online service that predated the World Wide Web.
I started my BBS around 1992, with the desire to become an active participant in the growing local online community scene.
At the time, I subscribed to and learned a lot from a BBS-themed magazine called “Boardwatch,” started by Jack Rickard.
I also watched the PBS program “Computer Chronicles,” hosted by Stewart Cheifet.
Many BBSs ran on a popular software program called “The Major BBS” developed by Galacticomm.
I installed this BBS software on my computer, along with six dedicated local telephone lines connected to 19.2 kbps Hayes modems.
My BBS was called “WBBS OnLine!” (Winsted Bulletin Board Service).
By the mid-1990s, national estimates suggested there were around 60,000 BBSs operating in the US.
In Minnesota alone, archived regional directories show that hundreds of dial-up BBSs were active at the time.
Their use in education was fairly limited, usually restricted to classrooms or labs with only a handful of connected computers.
An Aug. 14, 1995, article in the Willmar, MN, newspaper, West Central Tribune, described senior citizens exploring “cyber space,” with local classes helping older adults.
Many with little or no computer experience were made comfortable with computers and dial-up BBSs.
Seniors could send electronic mail over telephone lines, look up recipes and health information, and chat online with other older adults around the world.
“Just because you’re over 60 doesn’t mean you stop looking forward to tomorrow,” social worker Alice Munro Hilliard said. “Their willingness to learn is phenomenal.”
The article also noted that about 5,000 people age 50 and older nationwide subscribed to the SeniorNet bulletin board system, showing how dial-up communities were already drawing in a wide range of users.
The World Wide Web, or the web, operates over the internet. Mosaic, one of the first widely used web browsers, launched in 1993.
During the mid-1990s, most websites consisted of text and links, with graphics and images that loaded slowly, and BBSs and mainstream commercial dial-up services did not support streaming video.
By 1995, Netscape Navigator dominated the browser market, though Internet Explorer had also entered the scene.
During the 2020-21 COVID-19 pandemic, internet use became vital for work and education, highlighting how far connectivity has advanced since 1995.
Web browsers like Chrome and Safari became standard, while Microsoft shifted from Internet Explorer to Edge.
Education and commerce changed, with live-streaming lessons and global marketplaces becoming common.
Today, internet data travels over fiber-optic cables and optical transport systems, commonly operating at 100 to 400 Gbps, while carriers such as Windstream and Zayo Group have demonstrated 1 Tbps (terabits per second) transmission speeds in real-world trials.
In 2025, about six billion people were online, roughly three-quarters of the world’s population.
Many home internet connections in the United States now exceed 200 megabits per second, about 7,000 times faster than the 28.8 kbps modem connections common in the mid-1990s.
We have come a long way from the days when a single megabyte image took minutes to load, appearing one line at a time on the screen, to today, when it appears almost instantly.
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| Illustration showing how Google’s Nano Banana 2 turns a user’s request into a finished 4K image through Gemini 3.1 Flash Image. Photo by Gemini Nano Banana 2 and Mark Ollig. |
