Omigod, does that bring back memories!  My first computer was an
"Adam".  It had a tape drive.  I used to do online banking on it backin
the 1980s believe it or not.    I remember it took forever to find data
because every search meant it had to rewind and start from the
beginning.

I remember Prodigy too, although I was barely ever savvy enough to
figure out how to make posts.  I remember there were sites like some
kind of bulletin board.  

Ricavito, really dating herself

The Internet wasn't public in 1989.

Much of this discussion hinges on what you define as the Internet.

In the mid-70s, I accessed newsgroups via a number of networked BBSs
using a Teletype Model 33 and a 110 baud modem.

In 1981, GENIE offered newsgroups and e-mail on a much more stable
platform. Access was dial-up at 300 baud on a Teletype 43.

In 1983, I got my first Uunet account which dialed up a Virginia POP
overnight to swap e-mail and news. Instead of a dumb terminal, we used a
PDP11, a VAX, and an AT&T 3B2 via a stack of Telebit modems at 9600
baud. Uunet was the government contractor who provided the backbone for
ARPANET.

If you define the Internet as a network that used TCP/IP, then your
timetable is correct.

Back to diabetes,

Jim

I guess then that my earlier posts, archived on Google (was Deju Vu)
dated 1984 are imaginary. In fact I guess that all non-military,
commercial research, or educational Google posts archived before 1989
must be imaginary.

How remiss of Google, making up posts. They must have been bored at the
time.

  I was a college administrator at the time.  Prior to this, in college

I know nothing of the kind.

I was accessing the net in 1984 via CSIROnet until 1988 when I switched
to connect.com.au and then Pegasus Networks in 1989. CSIROnet had their
own backbone and allowed public access to anyone prepared to pay their
fees. Not many would, in those days it was an enormous amount of money,
you had to be a very determined enthusiast. When connect.com.au kicked
off I was one of their beta subscribers at a much reduced $12.00 per
hour plus bandwidth loading. Pegasus Networks in Northern NSW then
started, using connect.com.au for access and did an even better deal on
costing. I stayed with them until 1994.

You made no mention of newsgroups or of 1979. You claimed that the net
was not "public" in 1989.

No, I was referring to your erroneous claim that the net was not
publicly available in 1989. There weren't a lot of private individuals
around on the net in the early eighties, the costs were too high, but
there were a small group of us, many who were amateur radio hobbyists,
like me, who were fascinated with the new technology. We all tended to
know each other, not like now.

  More likely

Never had anything to do with compuserve or Prodigy. I am in Australia.

My initial experience was with ARPANET while in San Francisco on working
up trials on an Australian warship (Charles F. Adams class) built in the
US for the Australian Navy. I was a very young Midshipman (Ensign) at
the time. In the eighties public access was available but at huge cost,
more than $60.00 per hour, until the late eighties when the access rates
started to fall. Prior to that you could access through connect.com.au,
aunet, biznet.com.au, pro-net, plus various local government or campus
libraries and local councils. Plus the Fido-net gateway of course.

I used CSIROnet when in Canberra, and connect.com.au elsewhere. All of
this prior to 1989. It was quite different - access was via acoustic
coupled 300 baud modems in the early days. Frustratingly slow at those
early hourly rates. I initially used a C/PM based "luggable", then the
CBM 8000 series came out and I stuck with that until the Amiga, followed
by the Macintosh. I still have all four - start a museum one day.

What it all boils down to is that I, and many that I know, are members
of the public and have been accessing the net for twenty plus years.
While the balance of net users may have tended toward commercial or
educational (the Military were pretty much out of it by then) and there
wasn't yet a commercial drive to promote private access, it was still
available at a cost. In 1988/89 it began to become commercially popular,
access cost dropped and promotion started and the whole thing started to
fall apart. Except for the high costs, I preferred the earlier version.

Regards

David