Chat Rooms

Chat rooms are the traditional means of meeting people on the


Internet. So traditional that they were around way before the World

Wide Web took hold.Before the WWW and the Internet as we know it today (pre


1990s), there were Bulletin Board Systems, or more commonly

referred to as BBSs. Mostly computer hobbyists ran these from their

back room. They had anywhere from two phone lines to hundreds,

and you could dial in and use crude chat software to enable you to

talk to the other people on the same system. There were no such

things as mice, graphical user interfaces, photos, scanners, email

addresses, etc. This was the realm of text-based green screen

monitors, 20MB hard drives, and 300bps modems you had to dial

yourself. Women online back then were as rare as hens’ teeth, and

they were literally swamped by messages from every male online at

the time. It was quite rare to meet anyone but fellow male computer

nerds this way. Online dating back then was almost unheard of, the

Male/Female ratio was just too small, so it wasn’t really thought of

nor attempted (except possibly by yours truly!). Overall, it was

hardly a place for anyone but your stereotypical teenage male

computer geek or electronics hobbyist.

Then came widespread public use of the Internet and chat

programs like IRC, the newer web based chat sites, and finally

instant messaging services like ICQ.