Pre-1994 Reference to e-Commerce?

pkaral asks: "Does anyone know a reference to ecommerce that predates 1994 (maybe from sci-fi)? I work with a company facing the Bellboy e-Commerce patent claim. It turns out that the patent must be taken seriously, but can be defeated by a pre-1994 description - fiction or not - of an online purchase."

"Requirements:

(1) Description of someone buying/ordering something over a computer network,
(2) buyer gets real-time order confirmation (a salient aspect of the patent), and
(3) the text was published before Dec 17, 1993.

I figure some author, maybe William Gibson, may have written something along these lines. If the Slashdot community knows of a specific reference we could rid the world of this ridiculous patent."

Comments

Maybe a lead, maybe not

[SecretAsianMan]

Try The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner. It's been a while since I've read it, but I think that it featured a worldwide network where things could be bought.