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Barry Shein Founded the First Dialup ISP (Video)

Back in the dawn of prehistory, only universities, government agencies, and a few big corporations could get on the Internet. The rest of us either had computers connected to nothing (except maybe an electric outlet), Compuserve, Prodigy, AOL or another service or possibly to an online bulletin board service (BBS). And then, one day in 1989, Barry Shein hooked a server and some modems to an Internet node he managed for a corporate/academic wholesale Internet provider -- and started selling dialup accounts for $20 per month to individuals, small companies, and just about anyone else who came along. Barry called his ISP The World, which is still out there with a retro home page ("Page last modified April 27, 2006"), still selling shell accounts. We may run a second interview with Barry next week, so please stay tuned. (Alternate Video Link)

1 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Uh... by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Informative

    IIRC, AOL didn't offer actual internet access until pretty late in the game.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.