cfbef1c4_web_precursors

Early precursors to the commercial internet

Prior to the commercial internet and the advent of the web, there were services in the 1980s which allowed home computers to connect to limited public networks. Example services: checking one’s bank balance, paying bills, transferring money, booking holidays.

(Presumably, the services would be hosted on a providers’ mainframe or mini-computer, which the consumer would access through something like time-sharing?)

The mechanism of connection was via a modem. A device that connected to your phone’s cradle. Digital signals from your home computer would be converted into sound signals (“tones”) that would travel through the phone transmitter to a receiver at the service provider which you would “dial-up” beforehand.

In the US the main provider was Micronet in the 1970s, which became Compuserve in the 1980s and eventually AOL in the 1990s. In the UK there was Prestel provided by BT, first introduced in 1971.

These services had an expensive subscription model and consequently uptake was limited.

In addition there were bulletin board systems (BBS), typically administrated by hobbyists. Their personal computers acted as servers that other users would dial-up to access. They permitted the sharing of news and messages and later chat-rooms for realtime communication. Some of the biggest BBSs later became the first ISPs.