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madriver
Oct 4, 2006, 9:20 PM
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In reply to: Former page shares Foley messages Oct. 4: MSNBC's Rita Cosby talks to Tyson Vivyan, a congressional page in 1996 and 1997, who claims that Rep. Mark Foley contacted him via instant messenger and that -- almost immediately -- the conversation turned sexual. does anyone know if IMing was around in 1996?
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wjca
Oct 4, 2006, 9:28 PM
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I know AOL had it then.
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styndall
Oct 5, 2006, 3:15 AM
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It wasn't IM'ing proper, but I was using chat functions on dial-up BBSs by about 1993, over a 9600 baud modem.
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rhaig
Oct 5, 2006, 3:25 AM
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look the origins of the company ICQ. next IM client bits after AOL. first widely available outside AOL.
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clausti
Oct 5, 2006, 7:16 AM
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1996... so i would have been 11... 6th grade... oh yeah. way availible. availible and easily usable by your average middle school kid, to say nothing of someone old enough to be a congressional page.
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madriver
Oct 5, 2006, 1:41 PM
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In reply to: 1996... so i would have been 11... 6th grade... oh yeah. way availible. availible and easily usable by your average middle school kid, to say nothing of someone old enough to be a congressional page. ...so you were using IM on a regular basis in 1996? The reason I ask is that my kids weren't using it until say 3-4 years ago. I didn't think it was a widespread tool 10 years ago.
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arrettinator
Oct 5, 2006, 1:46 PM
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http://en.wikipedia.org/...nt_messaging#History I really didn't get into computers till '96 when I graduated high school. AOL had their IM then. It was built into AOL software, but I don't know if there was a seperate piece of software, like there is today.
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robbovius
Oct 5, 2006, 3:14 PM
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In reply to: In reply to: 1996... so i would have been 11... 6th grade... oh yeah. way availible. availible and easily usable by your average middle school kid, to say nothing of someone old enough to be a congressional page. ...so you were using IM on a regular basis in 1996? The reason I ask is that my kids weren't using it until say 3-4 years ago. I didn't think it was a widespread tool 10 years ago. I was chatting real time on various IRC channels in late 1995, and then on ICQ round about '99-'00. it wasn't exactly what you'd call private though. anybody on the channel could see what you were typing. there were also text-based chatrooms linked ot websites, kinda like fast response BS deals, like we have here, only with constant postiong and refreshing. the current IM deals are a little more user friendly. finding a good IRC channel/port could sometimes be a real pain in the ass. Around '96 I also used this IM-window-style thing called POW-WOW.
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rhaig
Oct 5, 2006, 3:14 PM
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In reply to: To be honest, AIM and similar systems offer very little advantage over the old IRC clients. I was using IRC every day for business by 1995. yeah... and we haven't even talked about multi-user server's chat capability (mesg or talk on unix based systems) that go way back too. but for the IM popup-type thingy it was AOL, then ICQ (the wikipedia article someone referenced has actual dates).
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clausti
Oct 5, 2006, 3:23 PM
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In reply to: In reply to: 1996... so i would have been 11... 6th grade... oh yeah. way availible. availible and easily usable by your average middle school kid, to say nothing of someone old enough to be a congressional page. ...so you were using IM on a regular basis in 1996? The reason I ask is that my kids weren't using it until say 3-4 years ago. it was embedded in my aol account. i wouldnt say "regular" basis in 1996, but it was availible. regular basis woulda started about 1997.
In reply to: I didn't think it was a widespread tool 10 years ago. probably not all *that* widespread, but it doesnt strike me at all implausible, if the OP is a bit skeptical that the senetor in question could have been communicating with the page in question via IM. all the kids i know who went to be congressional pages went to private school, had rich parents, had computers all their lives, ect. the really bad IM that I saw was supposed to be from 2003, when everyone and their dog and their 10 year old was on IM. i think even my mom had an IM name by then.
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