Tim May <tcmay@got.net> writes:

...

...

By 1986, numerous clones of the IBM PC and AT existed.

Its quite simple. In 1995 MS released a version of Windoze which included a TCP/IP stack by default. Previously you had to acquire one and figure out how to install it. While fortunes were made on this, the collection of routers known as the Net was unavailable to Joe Sixpack until then.

I don't buy this at all. Maybe there is some subtlety I am missing completely.

I don't buy it either. Prior to that release of Windows I was doing tech support for an ISP in Chicago using MacPPP for the mac and WinSock on Windows. We had several thousand subscribers prior to the time that TCP/IP came installed with Windows, and we had already hit the major upswing in our growth curve at that point. The explosion had more to do with Mosaic and Netscape than with the TCP/IP stack. The default stack in MS just allowed MS to strike deals with bigger ISPs, it didn't significantly streamline our installation process for new customers. The difference between installing from a cab file on your HD or CDROM, and installing from our CDROM, which came with a browser and the other applications that people were actually interested in, is trivial. I suppose one could say that the bundling of ISP services with the default Windows install increased the rate of new internet users significantly, but the explosive growth has already started by then. -- Craig Brozefsky <craig@red-bean.com> "the sacrifice of real, immediate life is the price paid for the illusory freedom of an apparent life." Vaneigem