My first mobile phone was a Nokia 3330, a 3310 with WAP, and a pinball game, my parents were not happy with me when I figured out to browse the web on my phone…
The coolest way I have been on IRC was back in 2011, I had just got my first paycheck from my first job, and I bought the most amazing phone I have ever had, the Nokia E7…
The fold out qwerty keyboard was amazing, and made the phone look like a tiny laptop.
It ran Symbian^3 when I got it, but over the short time I owned it (damn pickpockets) I upgraded it to Symbian Anna and later Belle.
I ran Putty touch on the phone, with the keyboard it was probably the best mobile ssh experience you could have back in the day, as you can imagine I used Putty to connect to a Linux server which ran screen irssi.
I felt like such a hacker when I sat in a hospital lobby with my E7 running Putty with screen irssi, I had even set up touch gestures, swiping up and down would scroll in the chat log, swiping left and right would change window.
It remains the coolest mobile phone I have ever had.
I was using a third party site for AIM or some other instant messaging service (there were so many competing then) that worked on PSP to chat with my girlfriend into the wee hours of the morning without going over my texting limits. Looking back I have no clue how she was responding so late into the night.
It was a magical time in the early days of handheld internet connected devices. Wish I spent that time on someone more worthwhile, but that’s youth for you.
