In my day: 1993 The Internic Help Line to find your way to the Internet — Dial 1–800-…

YouTube recommended this 30 year old Computer Chronicles episode (I remember watching this series on PBS back in the day) to me today and was transported back to the days of Gopher, anonymous FTP logins, Mosaic (the first web browser), and more. I was fortunate to have had Internet access of some kind for several years at that point. After moving jobs, I called my former contact in the U.S. Navy to get access at my new institution. And, when I was at GTE Telephone Operations, a call to GTE Labs got me access via a secure Telnet connection. This video, however reminded me that it was not obvious to everyone how to “get to this Internet thing.”

This episode features a segment with the late Brendan Kehoe who wrote Zen and the Art of the Internet: A Beginner’s Guide (free online text version), which is said to be the first widely available guide to the Internet. Thirty years after this episode aired, I first learned about the Internic Help Line that let you call an 800 phone number to ask for help to find a local ISP of some kind (dial-up, etc.).

This Los Angeles Times article from that period reported:

But the government, eager to fuel Internet use by businesses and individuals, is offering a new service to help ease the pain. Internic, a collaboration of AT&T;’s Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, General Atomics in San Diego and Network Solutions Inc. in Herdon, Va., was created this year to help speed Internet use among non-technical subscribers.

If you want to subscribe to the Internet or need help understanding how it works, your first call should be to Internic (800–NXX-XXXX). The Internic reference desk offers introductory materials and hints on using the network. It can also refer you to the more than three dozen commercial services selling Internet access.

I redacted the phone number because sadly, it was not transferred/maintained by some organization (looking at you US Department of Commerce) interested in its historical importance. Instead, if you call the number (as I did because a quick search did not reveal where it currently goes to), you hear a (presumably) young lady with a vocal fry encouraging you to join an exciting talk line.

So, yep, in my day, you could call an 800 number to learn more about the new fangled Internet.