The internet: So old our children have never known a world without it.

Many years ago - about 1995 in fact - I was [email protected]. It wasn't my first ISP - I seem to remember that was a company called Delphi - but it was the first significant online identity I had outside of closed conferencing systems (bulletin boards notwithstanding). I also had an account with CIX ('timfg'!) - before Compuserve opened up their operation to Europe - and it was primarily the fact that the two services - as well as Usenet - could be accessed with the same Offline Reader (Wigwam, which became PowWow which became Virtual Access) which drew me to Compuserve. And, not long after, a career in IT.

So this is a proper nostalgia trip for me, leaves me moist of eye thinking about my days as a beta-tester for Ashmount Research's fantastic OLR software, now so long-gone that both software and company have dropped off the edge of the interweb. I haven't seen that CIS interface for years!