CDR: Re: Mac created the modern Internet

[Tim May]

At 11:53 AM -0400 10/19/00, Ulf Möller wrote:
>I'm sure that Mac users added to the momentum, but don't forget online
>services like AOL and CompuServe. They started offering Internet mail
>and Usenet access in 1993, and as people started sending URLs around,
>they inevitably had to offer online access as well.

I support Lucky's version of things.

AOL and CompuServe were dragged kicking and screaming into the modern 
age. A friend of mine was using AOL, against my advice, and finally 
dropped them in favor of Earthlink, around 1996. As of that time, 
they were still making promises on when their customers would be 
given real access to the Web.

By the way, on a historical note, I was a Netcom customer when Netcom 
began offering their own proprietary Web browser solution. I don't 
even recall what they called it. It only ran under Windows, so we Mac 
users had to look elsewhere for our ISPs.

(More's the pity for Netcom, as the general TIA/SLIP/PPP tools were 
available to let Mac users like me use Mosaic and other browsers. But 
Netcom hoped to become a browser company, I suppose. They later got 
absorbed into Mindspring, I think.)

I wouldn't give a _shred_ of credit to AOL, and even less to 
CompuServe. They were drags, in fact.


--Tim May
-- 
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
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