Linux and growth of Internet

The Little Garden was doing "nail up" SLIP connections to the net well before 1992 when I took it over. John Gilmore, John Romkey, and Trusted Information Systems shared a 56K circuit to UUnet back when Rick Adams ran it. They figure out "hey we could get onto the inter net for less than $5000!" in feact it cost $15K... 3COM Brouters (ugh, nasty boxen) and old AGSs. 56K from UUnet to TIS, from there to 814 University Palo Alto, there to Gilmore's house in SF. At 814 and toad hall were DOS boxes running KA9Q. Each had 4 serial ports. Each "member" bought a pair of modems (all sorts, from Trailblazers on down) had PacBell install a phone line at 814 Univ. or Toad Hall, and one at their own house. One modem was installed at (say) 814, and connected to a serial port. At the "home" end you'd arrange your machine to dial into 814, *forever*. Works in the U.S. where you got "flat rate" phone service. Telco didn't like it, didn't understand it, and got confused when they saw the line offhook 24/7, clipped on a buttphone and heard Funny Noises. That's "nail up" as opposed to dial-up. I inherited it since everyone else was too busy to add the backlog of people wanting In to this scheme. I regularized it, collected $250 for install (1/4th of a KA9Q box), $70/month and you got a real connection to the internet and a static Class C address block.