the atari 2600 had the first internet...

[lynn's engraving]

or would have if the video game market crash of '83 hadn't happened. gameline, who was providing games via modem, was on the verge of essentially providing internet services such as email, stock quotes, news and sports scores, etc., all back in the early 80's, when it all came tumbling down. eventually, the people involved in the development started a little company called america online.

from the 'betcha never knew that' files. i'd offer a link, but my right mouse button is on the fritz. for more info, try a search on 'gameline master modem.'

[OvRiDe]

Well some of that is right, but I guess it depends on the perspective. In the 70's there were many series of dialup BBS's that you could get this information from. Some BBS's cost money, some were free, some were interconnected, but most were single systems that you dialed into at a whopping 300bd. Most of the BBS systems offered downloadable games, multiplayer games, messaging, and news... even warez. Compuserve was an early example of these commercial type systems. Later in the early 80's many of these BBS's became internet connected and provided access.

So from a "console" standpoint some of that may be true, but from a computer market there are much earlier examples.

) i'd offer a link, but my right mouse button is on the fritz.

I think your "Shift" key is on the fritz too

[lynn's engraving]

the important thing to note here was the guys that came from this debacle eventually started aol. i'm willing to give atari their props.

i lived for videogames back in the day. i even saved up for the supercharger (which was awesome) ~ not bad for a 12 year old kid then, lol. i wonder how many evening edition papers i had to sling around for that? (yes, kids, newspapers used to come in evening editions, too. ) but, with all my videogame mags i'd get, i for the life of me had never heard of this little gadget, thought it was interesting.

and curious, seeing as how ppl today can't live without their internet that they wouldn't have jumped on it back then. then again, in the era of vhs tapes, when music on vinyl was still around and merlin was *the* hot game, folk just didn't get excited about it as much. i mean, cell phones had been around since, what, the early 70's? RFID was around in WWII. i wonder what other 'ancient' tech will be the next big thing?

[OvRiDe]

Yah, I hear what your saying and I do agree that both camps definitely deserve their props. That industry was very young back then and it was not uncommon for people to do the old hit and miss moving from project to project.

There is no doubt they paved the way for where we are today, and it should be interesting to see where we go next.

[AmEv]

1337-5p33k. WAY older than most people realize.