Subj : Re: Internet Availability
To   : Mortar
From : poindexter FORTRAN
Date : Wed Nov 13 2024 06:59:03

-=> Mortar wrote to Nightfox <=-

 Mo> It would probably be more accurate to say "publicly aware" as the Net
 Mo> was accessible years earlier.  For the most part, if the average person
 Mo> wanted access, you had to go to a college/university or high-end
 Mo> library as connections were rather expensive at the time.

 I worked for a company that was in Albany, CA - next to Berkeley, home
 to UC Berkeley. We bought a connection into UCB's network in 1993-1994,
 $6000/year for a 56K leased line!

 We were transferring mostly text email, IRC and news articles at that
 point, for 70-80 people - and it worked.

 I think that was about when the commercial restrictions on the NSFnet
 backbone went away.

 I didn't get a shell account until 1996 or so.

 > hadn't heard of the internet at the time, and I'm sure very few people had
 > at the time, so I don't think the internet was really a thing for most
 > people at the time.

 Mo> Quite true.  It wouldn't be until 1993, when Windows 3.11 was released,
 Mo> that most people would take their first steps into the online world,
 Mo> thanks to improvements to the Windows networking subsystem, making
 Mo> services like Compuserve, America Online and Prodigy viable.

 3.11 was a watershed moment. Having to set up packet drivers and the
 windows "shim" with 3.1 was a pain. When we rolled out 3.11. being able
 to configure networking through a control panel was nice.

 I had a tech support team that decided to do everything they could do
 with it - they set up a Microsoft Mail post office, used the mail and
 schedule apps, used Chat and WinPopup internally for collaboration, and
 set up a file share for the group.

 We used Eudora and WinVN for mail and news - I can still hear that
 Eudora new mail sound in my head.





  But it
 Mo> was in 1995 that the Iternet really took off.  Online services now
 Mo> provided gateways to the Internet, as well as dedicated ISPs started to
 Mo> pop up, and thanks to DSL, you could use your current modem if you
 Mo> didn't have cable.  It was a wonderous time. --- SBBSecho 3.21-Linux
 Mo>  * Origin: End Of The Line BBS - endofthelinebbs.com (46:1/194)
 
--- MultiMail/Win v0.52
 * Origin: realitycheckbbs.org -- yesterday's tech today (46:1/115)

.