The Internet has been around since the 70's when the government commissioned the creation of Arpanet. However most non-government and non-engineering based individuals knew nothing about the US inter-network which soon expanded and took on a life of its own. It wasn't until a Browser named Mosaic was created and pages of information changed from dull, boring text to vivid graphics that made people notice the Internet and made it into the center of todays computing.
Long before
the dawn of the graphical Internet, Atari and Control Data Corporation
were working together to allow Atari 8-bit computers the ability to connect
to CDC's Plato network and receive not just images, but animated graphics,
interactive menu's and screens. Plato was an educational network
bursting to with knowledge on-tap for those who needed it.
The service was never advertised the way it should have and most people
never knew of its enormous benefits. Perhaps given time, the
Plato network could have connected to the ArpaNet and eventually could
have been the gateway for Atari 8-bit users to become the Internet crowd
we see today.