On Tuesday, September 15, 2015 at 8:03:26 PM UTC-5, taxed and spent wrote:
"Uncle Monster" wrote in message
...
On Tuesday, September 15, 2015 at 6:36:00 PM UTC-5, taxed and spent wrote:
"Steve Stone" wrote in message
...
On 9/15/2015 3:20 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 15 Sep 2015 13:47:08 -0400, Steve Stone
wrote:


I remember E-mail long before the internet was available to the
masses. Services like Compuserve were out there when PCs in the home
were still fairly rare. By the time the IBM PC started rolling out in
any real quantity we had Prodigy and later AOL. They were fairly
mature services by the time the internet was added.

Internally many companies had E-mail under different names and there
was usually a dial up portal into the network.


I was a Fidonet SysOp for a few years, running RBBS-PC on an 8088 based
IBM PC with over 500 users.

Prodigy was originally called Trintex, a joint venture between three
companies.
It was the first online service I had seen with ads running on the
bottom
of the screen.

I go back a ways in telecommunications. My first "IT" job was stripping
down Teletype machines for rebuilding at a Western Union shop in Mahwah
,
NJ


I had my own teletype machines when I was a kid. Cool gear!

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't there an interface to connect a
teletype machine to an early IBM PC? I could swear I saw something like it
in one of the electronics magazines back in the 80's. o_O

yes, TTYs were a common computer interface back then. Where else would you
find a computer printer?

A printer for a computer was quite expensive back in the good old days. I did have an electric typewriter that worked as a printer for a dedicated word processor that I'd picked up as surplus back in the early 90's and it would also hook up to a PC. There were a lot of modified IBM Selectric typewriters around at one time for use as printers for PC's. You have to admit that computers were more fun back when you had to tinker with them all the time like they were British sports cars. Now computers are fraking appliances. Chromie (yea I named him) my cute little Chromebook is pretty much turn on and go. I did add memory to double it to 4Gb and stick a 32Gb memory card in the front slot plus I've installed a number of extensions/apps to modify and improve its operation but all in all it's trouble free. This little Chromebook weighs 3 lb and it's easy for me to handle with my fraked up shoulders. Chromie keeps me from going "completely" bonkers while I'm stuck in this damn bed. ^_^

[8~{} Uncle Bonkers Monster