Early timesharing/BBS systems

Hello, all: I was at VCFe yesterday and I have to say that the speakers and demonstrations were great. Sellam did a fantastic job and where the event was located at the Sun facilities worked out perfectly. One demo that I missed was the ARPANET dial-up simulation which wasn't there when I left at 3:30. Anyway, this demo brings-up an interesting question. What kind of dial-up systems existed in the 70's before consumer-oriented services like CompuServe? I remember the DowJones and CompuServe sign-up packs at RadioShack in maybe 1979 (I joined CIS in 1988. I even remember my ID: 70153,3367). I also remember in high school (around 1983) using a DECwriter to dial into the timesharing computer (at 300 baud; I don't know the host system) at one of the local universities. Just curious. Thanks. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Build Master for the Altair32 Emulation Project Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ /************************************************************/