My first encounter with the Internet

[igenlode]

This is what the Internet (Usenet not the World-wide Web) looked like to a computer novice circa 1994...

The Internet is a sort of computer network which R__ and O___ keep talking about, that I finally managed to get onto. It reminds me of a sort of cross between a multi-user telephone line and the letters page of a newspaper. Basically people seem to post messages and remarks in appropriate newsgroup headings (like 'bonsai' or 'asimov' or 'british-accent' and other people put up replies and comments. It is full of Americans because apparently it extends all the way across the United States as well as reaching here.