In a message dated 6/10/99 11:15:09 AM Eastern Daylight Time, baughj@rpi.edu 
writes:

<< I believe that he means pre-net as in pre-general use.>>

	If he did, he should have said pre-general use.

<<  Sure, the
 Internet has been around for about 30 years, but it wasn't until
 1994-95 that it started to achieve general use (the rise of the web
 had much to do with this).  You can't count the years of ARPANet and the
 oldschool DOD stuff as "The Internet" as we quantify it today, IMHO. >>
	'94-'95?  Strange, I was hearing about it before then.
	Can't take it very far back, though.  The class formed in the '91-'92 
school year.  (Ahhhh, 3rd grade.  Where I learned to fix computers.)  Anyway, 
my class had two computers, and the 4th and 5th grade versions of my class 
had about four computers between them.  (They pooled their computers.)  I 
would note also that they had the computers long enough by the time I hit 4th 
grade that they had lost the manuals and the disks that came with the 
computers; I discovered this when I started out to learn how to program in 
Basic...
	Also, there was a computer lab in the school, but I'm not sure when 
it had gotten put in.  I think it dates back into '89, or at least the 
budgeting for it would have to.  (I really can't remember if it was there in 
my 2nd grade year.  I more remember my teacher.  I do not remember her with 
fondness.)  None of the computers had 'net access, though, in all the years I 
spent at public school -- we weren't expected to know how, because they 
considered that 8th grade stuff...
	As for the '80s themselves, I was not really paying attention...


		--Ryo Hoshi