It can be easy to take things like modern email for granted, and nothing highlights that more than this clip from the “Database,” an old tech show that aired in the 80s.
In the segment above, you can see what sending and receiving an email was like in 1984, back when you were greeted with prompts like “phone computer” and literally had to dial in using a rotary phone. These were the days when webpages were numbered and email was such a luxury that people would excitedly sign off on messages with phrases like “electronically yours.”
The network shown here is Micronet, an internet portal that Gizmodo points out was a lot like an early version of AOL. Micronet featured online games, a magazine, rudimentary message boards, news, downloadable software, and yes, even email.
