The internet
didn't become a really public thing until around 1994.
Sure it existed in various forms, but when you talk about the
"Internet" (Capital "I"), the public wasn't aware of it or using
it
until late 1994.
Wow, hair splitting EXTREME!
If you count the creation of the _I_nternet as the point at which the
academic networks went public in the early/mid 1990s, well that all
this NSFnet junk in my shop would probably qualify. One clock pulse
after the official ruling, then all these RS/6000s would then be
contenders to be "first". Depending, of course, on which machine got
their clock pulse first.
But I think the _I_nternet was being referred to with the big _I_
well into the 1980s.
It was certainly available to me, and I was using it, before 1990.
Peace... Sridhar