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Old 07-11-2013, 12:13 PM posted to uk.rec.gardening
Nick Maclaren[_3_] Nick Maclaren[_3_] is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Sep 2013
Posts: 767
Default At the risk of being unpopular

In article ,
David Rance wrote:

I said that it was the first *general* means of electronic
communication. By that I mean available/affordable to all. UUCP may well
have predated it but UUCP was not available to all because of the high
cost of getting connected to the Internet, certainly in the UK, until
1992 when Demon first made it affordable here.


UUCP predated the 'Internet' by some years, and relied on nothing
more than a telephone line and someone who was prepared to talk to
you. Cost was not the issue; the public's perception and lack of
nous was. By the time that Fidonet actually became 'general' (1985),
UUCP was quite widespread among the general public. No, I don't have
figures, but it wouldn't surprise me if UUCP didn't have more members
of the general public using it than Fidonet did until about 1990.
There were versions for MS-DOS by 1985. Of course, their users came
from different communities, so each was and is unaware of the other.

Anyway, this has nothing to do with gardening, so I shall stop here.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.