The Internet in 1995 was still a new concept to many readers, with the World Wide Web having only been made publicly available two years before.
And so in a brief article announcing their online presence that was published on October 5, 1995, the Star’s print edition needed to explain how the Web worked:
“Your Star is reaching a much bigger audience these days – the whole world!
“Advances in information technology have resulted in a rapidly developing global link called the Internet.
“It is accessible to anyone with a modem, a computer and Internet access.”
This was the graphic used by the St Helens Reporter in 1995 for their computer column(Image: Supplied)
Every week a selection of news stories and classified ads were going to be published on this “global link”, with the Star considering its main appeal being for Sintelliners resident in foreign parts:
“It’s great for all those St Helens expats who may now be living thousands of miles away.
“They can keep in touch literally at the press of a few buttons.”
It was also useful for tech-savvy students living at universities in other parts of the country, such as Nicholas Downes.
Advert in the St Helens Star, November 9, 1995(Image: Supplied)
He was studying at Sheffield University and soon had this letter published in the Star: “I am writing to say how pleased I am that stories from the St Helens Star are now available on the Internet service.
“I am a student from Thatto Heath living in Yorkshire and have trouble keeping up on the goings-on at home.
“The Internet news is great, especially the sport.”
St Helens Star, November 16, 1995(Image: Supplied)
In its early days the Star’s website was called ‘This Is St Helens’ and used the web address www.thisissthelens-co.uk.
The Star pioneered St Helens’ newspapers on the Web, with the Liverpool Daily Post claiming to be the first regional online title after its launch in late 1994.
Although the St Helens Reporter did publish an occasional computer column during the mid-‘90s, it was some time before the paper went online itself.
St Helens Star, March 7, 1996(Image: Supplied)
But the Star was far from alone in going on the Web during 1995, with the number of published websites expanding from 10,000 in January to 100,000 in December.
These days there are over 1 billion sites but, of course, the Web was a quite different experience thirty years ago.
Internet Explorer only launched in 1995 and Google was three years away from being available.
And with slow dial-up Internet connections during the 1990s, Skype was a further five years off.
As a result, Internet Video Communications of Warrington was, during the mid-1990s, charging as much as £135 an hour (about £300 in today’s money) for basic video conferencing services.
It was a news story when Merton Bank Primary School got their first computer – St Helens Star, March 21, 1996(Image: Supplied)
Pilkington’s in St Helens had also invested tens of thousands of pounds in similar technology to enable visual communication between its various plants – something that now, of course, costs virtually nothing.
Having trawled through the Star’s 1995 newspaper archive, I have found plenty of adverts throughout the year for the latest technologies – such as NICAM TVs, Video 8 and VHS-C camcorders, Sky TV and 2nd generation mobile phones – but it took me until November to find an ad for computers.
That can probably be explained by the perceived complexity, high expense and limited utility of PCs at that time, which led to demand coming mainly from enthusiasts, rather than the general public.
Many of the latter instead made occasional use of the online computer terminals that from 1992 were made available in Central Library and then later within the town’s branch libraries.
Some St Helens secondary schools also had computers installed during the early 1990s, although without Internet access.
The first school in the North West to go online was Litherland High School, which in June 1995 became part of a project to test the Internet’s potential as an educational aid.
St Helens Star promo from 2000(Image: Supplied)
But few of the schoolchildren in St Helens that developed computer skills would have had access to PCs or Macs at home.
Matters improved with the launch of Windows 95 in the late summer of 1995 which offered many intuitive features.
By November the Norweb store in King Street in St Helens was advertising a Windows 95 PC in the Star for just under £1,000.
In today’s money that’s still £2,500 and not cheap, particularly when extras, such as an expensive Internet connection and printer, are added.
But for many it was a breakthrough price point which encouraged their purchase of a computer that was now easier for ordinary folk to use.
Also in November 1995, Inspiration Computers of Haydock Street in St Helens had an advertising feature published in the Star.
With the Web still in its infancy, Internet access was not being sold as the main advantage of buying a computer.
Instead, Inspiration wrote: “A multimedia PC is a valuable resource for the whole family – it can make learning interesting and can lend a hand with home accounts and correspondence and, of course, allow you to play some incredible games!”
With online gaming also in its infancy, gaming meant buying somewhat blocky games stored initially on floppy disk and then later on CD-Rom.
And the three computer models that Inspiration highlighted in their advert had memory, processor and storage capabilities that would be laughed at today.
My own 10-year-old desktop computer came with up to 16,000 times more RAM memory than those PCs.
But they were still faster than the “giant brains” of the 1960s and ‘70s that some large firms or local authorities with deep pockets and lots of space had bought.
These will be described in the second part of this feature next week.
Stephen Wainwright’s latest book The Hidden History Of St Helens Volume 5 is available from the St Helens Book Stop and The World of Glass and online from Amazon and eBay with free delivery.
Price £12.
Vols 1 to 4 are also still available.