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On Mon, 2 Feb 2015 08:50:39 +0000 (GMT), Gordon Henderson <gordon+lug@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >On Mon, 2 Feb 2015, Kevin Peat wrote: > >> On 2 February 2015 08:18:37 GMT+00:00, Gordon Henderson >> <gordon+lug@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >>> On Mon, 2 Feb 2015, Martijn Grooten wrote: >>> >>>> On Sun, Feb 01, 2015 at 08:28:15PM +0000, bad apple wrote: >>>>> On 01/02/15 20:07, Brad Rogers wrote: >>>>>> when the >>>>>> internet was a) much smaller and b) a far more genteel place than >>> it is >>>>>> now. >>>>> >>>>> Good times. Sadly missed :[ >>>> >>>> Blame Microsoft for getting hundreds of millions of people online. >>> >>> More likely Compuserve, AOL and a few others. Microsoft initially >>> ignored >>> the Internet, then tried to do their own, then tried their extend, >>> embrace, extinguish tactic... They almost won that one. >>> >> >> Not so sure. Our kids wanted to get online originally for MS >> Messenger and I don't suppose they were the only ones. > >MS Messenger is only 15 year old - c2000. AOL (as an internet service) >predates that by almost 10 years although it was providing online >dial-up services since 1983. > >Compuserve started in the 80's too. > >General dial-up internet was avalable in the UK in the early 90's with >Demon (as it was then) blazing the trail. I think AOL was initially a >walled garden of sorts, but allowed email exchange with externals, but >there you go. > >I used Prestel (aka Micronet 800) in the 80's. Expen$ive it was ... > Yes, I know that, I started on Compuserve but it's only more recently that "hundreds of millions" of people have come online. Compuserve only had 3 million users at its peak in 1995 and most people today haven't even heard of it. Compuserve was already on the downslope when Internet usage started to pick-up: http://www.siliconbeat.com/2013/04/25/the-digital-divide-persists-1-in-5-americans-not-online/ Kids today get online for Facebook/Snapchat/WhatsApp/etc. but 15 years ago when the numbers started to ramp up it was MS Messenger/ICQ/etc. Kevin -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq