When did the internet become publicly available?

[NetKitSkike]

One of the Ethernet ports on the AEBS is for your broadband connection only. Are you using that port for your DSL and not for anything else?
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[corkyg]

Come to think of it, I was using the Internet back about 1987 - browser was DOS based, and I belonged to Compuserve.

 

[50]

Will Internet2 ever become publicly available??

 

[smoothvirus]

I was on CompuServe back in the day, and GEnie as well. Usenet was the 1990's for me, if you really want to go back how about FIDOnet?

And I too had the chewing out from the parents for the long distance bills from calling BBS's 50 miles away. Of course the problem was we lived 50 miles out from the nearest big city, we were always 5 years behind everyone else as far as technology went.

 

[Modelworks]

I was on CompuServe back in the day, and GEnie as well. Usenet was the 1990's for me, if you really want to go back how about FIDOnet?

And I too had the chewing out from the parents for the long distance bills from calling BBS's 50 miles away. Of course the problem was we lived 50 miles out from the nearest big city, we were always 5 years behind everyone else as far as technology went.

GEnie was the first online service I ever used. Before that it was local BBS. My mother yelled for me and I could tell she was really angry. The phone company had called her to tell her there were almost $600 in long distance charges on the line and if she was aware of them. I thought I had it covered with using late night hours trying to get the cheapest rates but I miscalculated just a bit.

I ordered a 300 baud modem and when it arrived it was a 25 pin connector and I only had a computer with 9 pin connector so I spent days rewiring the cable. It would be an easy task now, but then there was nowhere to get the information on what wire went where, no books I could find told how , so I did trial and error to make it work.

I can still google post I made in 1995 to usenet, something I really miss is the way usenet was a central place to discuss things. Now everything is spread all over and it makes it hard to get information.

 

[alkemyst]

My FAQ for the IBM PS/2 could have answered that serial issue.

http://ps2page.tripod.com/ps2faq.txt

it was around since about 1992 in current form

 

[eflat123]

I can still google post I made in 1995 to usenet, something I really miss is the way usenet was a central place to discuss things. Now everything is spread all over and it makes it hard to get information.

I had a netcom account in 1994 on the pre-browser internet...way before the ix'ers.

Thankfully, it looks like I was successful in having my old usenet posts removed by google. Usenet posts were *supposed* to expire and go away!!

Remember when aol'ers were given access to the actual Internet?

 

[alkemyst]

what old posts were you so concerned about? I don't know anyone that thought USENET was some sort of private medium.

That's why you had private mailing lists and forums even back in the early beginnings.

 

[Modelworks]

My FAQ for the IBM PS/2 could have answered that serial issue.

http://ps2page.tripod.com/ps2faq.txt

it was around since about 1992 in current form

Wouldn't have helped because I couldn't go online to read it and this was in 1986 too.

 

[coloumb]

C-64 - Compuserve / Quantumlink - 1984/1985ish. It wasn't "Internet" but it was communication with other people around the country.

About 1991 [I think - maybe later] - Metropolis BBS in Lawrence, KS offered "internet" access. It was very clunky - you had to go into a special area, fire up Netscape browser, and then enter the IP address to SLOWLY bring up the web page. Shortly after that - local "ISP's" started offering Internet access [I avoided AOL like the plague]