AHC: An earlier internet, and the effects thereof

[RedBeret]

Though of course the earliest government owned forms of the internet date back to the 1960s, and Usenet was technically accessible from 1980, it was only really after the "eternal September" of 1993 that the Internet really began to take off as something accessible to the masses, ultimately becoming the edifice that it is today.

My question, and challenge, is this: how much earlier could the internet have sprung up as something usable by the public, or just as an establishment in general? What changes might have to be made? And of course, what effects might this have on society, popular culture, etcetera?

 

[Aisha Clan-Clan]

If you have the same personalized advertisement model you simply speed up OTL's current era of hyperpoliticization and culture wars by however many years you speed up internet development.

 

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

In 1993, we had prototypical Internet services (email, USENET, BBS's) available to college students and computer nerds; but there weren't the necessary home computers and high-speed modems to support mass adoption by the average consumer. You'd need to speed up hardware development.

Also, long-distance calling was expensive in the 1980s and 1990s, you'd need earlier AT&T divestiture and/or earlier development of optical fiber by the long distance providers.

 

[marathag]

Also, long-distance calling was expensive in the 1980s and 1990s, you'd need earlier AT&T divestiture and/or earlier development of optical fiber by the long distance providers.

and besides the long distance charge, Compuserve/AOL/Prodigy all had hourly charges as well.

The only way to really do it, would be a very early push for public terminals at libraries or even post offices in the mid 1970s, for an thinly possible earlier e-mail system to be put into place.

These would have minicomputers, as the there were OS that allowed concurrent sessions, multi-user.

But it would be all text, d the learning curve steep.

OTL this happened to a degree, with community colleges in the upper Midwest having minicomputers, that in theory, users could contact each other. That one reason so many of the early internet tools, like Gopher got its start there before the WWW took off.

There wasn't a good way to search for resources at the start, you had to know what was there, before you could go to it.

 

[DominusNovus]

Would accelerating computer development in general be acceptable? Because there are opportunities for earlier transistors.

 

[marathag]

Would accelerating computer development in general be acceptable? Because there are opportunities for earlier transistors.

The problem isn't the computer, as much as the phone system to transmit data between them. While technically the bonded T1 dataline on Copper had been around since 1959 or so, AT&T had things so locked down, it wouldn't matter til after the Carterfone decision in the late '60s, and that was limited to only acoustical couplers, not direct electrical connection at first, so before any information revolution can take place, AT&T needs to be taken out

 

[Thomas Jefferson]

Access to ARPANET was limited to a small number of universities until 1981 due to a combination of funding limitations and the authorization process. If the network had been open to a wider range of universities from its inception, you could move the development of the Internet forward by about 12 years, with commercial use of the Internet beginning around 1980, just in time for personal computers to take off.

 

[Electric Monk]

As mentioned above you’d have to think bigger and 1970s to get a good proper early internet and it would mean real big changes—tons of money for Arpanet, breaking up Ma Bell a decade early, you’d have to find plausible people that early before computing blew up, etc…

Or you could copy the French. Minitel was limited but decent.

The web browser was invented on NeXTSTEP in 1990. Sun Microsystems didn’t start rolling until the mid 1980s. Apple was interested in local networks only for a long time—IIRC a comment was that if Apple had Sun’s network obsessiveness they would have invented the internet. The big boys of IBM and HP and what not are too hide bound.

A decent computer like the Amiga or Macintosh cost you two grand in 1985, that’s four grand today. A bad computer still cost half that. Add a networking Ethernet card for hundreds more, and network service (AT&T wasn’t split up until the 1980s) for a fortune. There’s a reason it started on workstations not personal computers.

Intel pushed IOTL 1970s-2000s Moore’s Law to the max, no way to speed that up to be honest without massive PODs. America already spent trillions developing the military-industrial complex of Silicon Valley, hard to spend yet more lol. Sure earlier transitors you could do—but even IOTL Intel had serious trouble selling early microprocessor, corporations weren’t ready.

 

[DominusNovus]

The problem isn't the computer, as much as the phone system to transmit data between them. While technically the bonded T1 dataline on Copper had been around since 1959 or so, AT&T had things so locked down, it wouldn't matter til after the Carterfone decision in the late '60s, and that was limited to only acoustical couplers, not direct electrical connection at first, so before any information revolution can take place, AT&T needs to be taken out

Certainly. Of course, necessity is the mother of invention. If there's some opportunities that AT&T is holding up, that could push up pressure for the business environment to change.

 

[Nivek]

or even post offices in the mid 1970s, for an thinly possible earlier e-mail system to be put into place.

Maybe US postal push early internet as a 'quickier paperless letter' and help early adoption?

 

[Byzantion]

Though of course the earliest government owned forms of the internet date back to the 1960s, and Usenet was technically accessible from 1980, it was only really after the "eternal September" of 1993 that the Internet really began to take off as something accessible to the masses, ultimately becoming the edifice that it is today.

My question, and challenge, is this: how much earlier could the internet have sprung up as something usable by the public, or just as an establishment in general? What changes might have to be made? And of course, what effects might this have on society, popular culture, etcetera?

OTL the USSR had already an internet Domain. So maybe if the real Internet somehow starts in the late 70es early 80es we could see Cold War being fought Digital. Maybe Eastern Bloc opposition groups try to distribute content online instead leaflets. Eastern Germany could be very interesting with the Stasi probably owning the Internet. Maybe evel illegal rioters and supplies for online access are smuggled through the Iron Curtain on a regular basis.