K6LHA wrote:

The Internet went public in 1991, 19 years old, not "a few years ago".
Compuserve and other network message providers were in existance before
the Internet and Personal Computers were in existence on them by 1978
(text-only for the most part).

Thank you LEN... I have long forgotten when the internet became public,
1991, good to know.. I first logged on to Compuserve as 73455,43 in
1983 using a VIC-20 and a VIC 1011A modem. 300 baud (well you could
push it to 450 for the same price) and folks we paid by the minute for
connect time back then so I used a modified "Fast-Doc" to download
messages fast as the modem could stream them to memory, then print 'em
out and compose replies off line as a script file and upload 'em later.
Not easy on a VIC-20, even with full memory expansion (Which I had)

I'm still on what's left of Compuserve under my call (WA8YXM) though the
Ham Radio forum is long gone... There are still some good groups left
there.. However it's now an AOL-Web Property and farmed out to some
folks who have no concept of how a forum should be hosted so many of the
features that made classic Compuserve the single greatest service in the
world... History. But many of the good people who also helped to make
it great... Still there.

But it's nice to know the internet became "live" in 1991 (Public)
--
John in Detroit E-Dress is smoked, Invalid equals NET.