The real story of the Internet
I agree, in my AT&T days, I remember being on the net in 1985, using a Silent 700, with thermal paper print out.
You are remembering Timesharing services which was not the Internet. 110 baud ( 1 start bit , data bits, onstop bit) at 10 cps (characters pers second). This was available in the late 60's Later, early 70's came the Texas Instrument's Silent 700s with a 300 baud ( one start bit, 8 data bits and one stop bit) 30 cps acoustic coupler.
The real start of the Internet was ARPA net which was designed to share university research and had absolutely no security. Also, there were no browsers and golpher or news servers were the best you had.
The Wikipedia explanation of ARPANET gives you an idea. i t was implemented in 1962 which is over 47 years ago! ---- not 20
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET
I should know, I supported timesharing, data communciations and telcommunciations in those early years
Sometime I will tell you aobut the protocol convetpr code I wrote and supported. and about mainframe 3705 Front End Processors and the first 3277 CRTs.
Later,
MidCow2
P.S. - You have to forgive Al Gore, he gets the World Wide Web and Global Warming confused with his arrogance and stupidity.