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Worth reading even just for this reminder: "The iterative experimentation that eventually birthed the commercial Internet was delayed until the 1990s not becau
by nologic01 3y ago
Worth reading even just for this reminder:
"The iterative experimentation that eventually birthed the commercial Internet was delayed until the 1990s not because the technology wasn’t ready - the underlying infrastructure had been invented in the 1960s. Rather, the problem was that AT&T convinced policymakers that it was too dangerous to give outside players access to their closed access system."
- NtochkaNzvanova 3y agoCorporations were on the Internet before the 90s, so I'm going to assume by "commercial Internet" he means "consumer Internet" (e.g., AOL). I doubt the consumer Internet could have happened before PCs became widespread in the 80s and early 90s, so it's misleading to attribute the delay solely or primarily to regulatory shenanigans by AT&T.
- mistrial9 3y agothere was no "internet" at that time. Corporations mainly had private phone systems, and bought computers from IBM or others.. Some network engineers in Salt Lake City Utah sold custom networking, and from Boston.. but those lines connected only to specific others.. Overall, "no"
- mr_toad 3y agoThere was definitely internet in the late 80’s, it was just largely confined to academia and a few labs. Two things kept it from going mainstream; firstly the lack of a friendly interface (no web browsers), and cost (back then you could be paying more for 2400bps dial-up than you do for modern broadband).
- mistrial9 3y ago.. then we must agree on a definition of "internet"