If my memory can function, it started out early 80`s, `90`s as it was all BBS`s and newsgroup protocols and using GOPHER archive search engine out of Univ. of Wisconsin at the local library.
I remember my brothers using TI’s and Commodores in the early 80’s to connect to BBS’ and the money quote that forever haunts me is “Can you imagine being able to connect any library in the world and read every book ever written?”
Told them it was stupid and a waste of time. I also recall those cassettes were, to me, just plain lame.
LOL
And yet, here I sit wasting time and whenever I want I can read just about any book every written....
If I’d only had a little imagination who knows where I’d be today...
The GOPHER search engine came out of the Computer Science labs at the University of Minnesota, home of the Golden Gophers. The first node was at the U of M. But there was also the Archie search engine, and a Veronica search engine.