No Maps

I’m old; really old.  When I first started using a computer to communicate with other computers, what we now call the internet didn’t exist outside of a small network of military and educational machines.  The entire routing table for the net would fit on a sheet of paper.  My modem was screaming fast at 2400 Baud.  My PC was a powerhouse 386SX.  Most importantly, there were no search engines as we know them now.  None.  No Google.  No Yahoo.  No Bing.  Nothing.

So, without a map, how did we manage to find our way from Tillery Hill to the Patoka Lake Overlook?  It wasn’t easy.  There were many BBS’s (bulletin board systems—think free standing websites).  They often had the phone numbers of other BBS’s.  Yes, I wrote phone numbers, because remember, this was before the internet.  To get somewhere online, you dialed up someone else’s phone line and coupled with their modem.  It was a one to one relationship.  Want 10 users online at once?  You needed 10 phone lines.

I know what you’re thinking (other than, “jeez, he is old”), how the heck did you find your first BBS with no search engine?  Simple, you asked someone or even more commonly, you read it in the local computer newsletter.  A newsletter printed on dead trees.  Seriously.

Why am I bring all this up?  Just to remind you and me both, search engines changed the world in ways we seldom think of.  They are the basis for an entire economy that wasn’t even a dream in most people’s mind only 20 years ago.  They are the root and guide of nearly everything we do on the net.

Have you hugged your favorite search engine today?