Compuserve

Compuserve was the first real internets for people like average Joe and Jane. It was first created in 1969 as a network by some greasy nerds (Jeffrey Wilkins, Harry Gard, Dr. John R. Goltz, Sandy Trevor, Doug Chinnock, and Larry Shelley).

The inventor of Compuserve.

Back in those days they didn't really have much computing power, nothing like what we have today with the Intel Pentium II or AMD. No, instead they worked with such machines as the DEC PDP-15 and had to work until the 1980 when the 386 computer and Windows made computers much easier and affordable so people could actually use their dial up network. It was during this time when you could log on to the main screen and use a primitive E-mail system.

You needed to remember your address and your friends. For example 23674,[email protected] might be your mother's e-mail address or not. Long before the age of relational databases, Compuserve was in development for eleven or more years.

Some time later this thing called AOL came around and it was better. It had porn and cyber sex with 16 year old girls. AOL eventually purchased all of Compuserve and it slowly melted away into cyberspace forever.