Why write about the early web now?
Over the years I’ve found myself telling these stories more and more often. Much of the early web has already disappeared, and with it the everyday experiences of the people who built it. This isn’t meant to be a history of the Internet, but a personal record of what it was like to stumble into a brand-new world while it was still being invented. If it helps preserve a few memories from that remarkable period for future generations, then it will have been worth writing.

Below, you will read an excerpt from Part 1 – Discovery. If you enjoy reading it, you can click on the links below this picture to read all the articles.

Part 1 – Discovery

Note: The names of people are probably aliases.

I arrived at Nortel on a short-term contract as a desktop publishing specialist, where I had to quickly learn Aldus FreeHand. My job was mainly visual: producing brochures, manuals and technical illustrations. Over time I became the person who produced many of the illustrations for their satellite and fibre optic equipment. Some of the diagrams were enormous by the standards of the time – complex FreeHand files with well over a hundred layers, sometimes requiring two people simply to manage the separation of the artwork.

I understood the communications technology visually long before I understood it technically.

The moment that changed everything came in late 1994. I was called into the office of one of the senior engineers, waiting for a photograph of a modified satellite component. While I was watching his computer screen, I noticed a small animated dog running across it. At the time, seeing animation on a computer was unusual enough that I asked what it was.

Links to the full articles

Part 1 – Discovery
Part 2 –