I pride myself on remembering every little detail of my early computing days...but this thread has me scratching my head.
Somehow, everything's gotten jumbled and I can't really separate them into discrete memories.
Back in the mid-'80s, I remember using uucp (UNIX to UNIX copy protocol). At that time I was the programmer and sysadmin at a furniture store chain, and I had replaced their IBM Sys/3 mainframes with a multi-location, multi-user UNIX system. We had 2400 baud modems--that sometimes only connected at 300 or 1200 baud.
I remember upgrading to state-of-the-art 9600 baud modems--and they were expensive!--and how they were like night and day compared to the old ones. But the Internet, per se? I don't think so.
Somewhere around that same time I had a CompuServe account--back when they offered UNIX shell access. I remember when they first offered a web browser, Mosaic, and when it became possible to send/receive e-mail to people outside CompuServe--in other words, Internet mail. When was that?! 1990? '91? I really don't recall. I'll have to look it up.
Also somewhere around the late '80s or very early '90s, I used to connect to various BBSes. I remember FidoNet...but again, it's all kind of fuzzy for me right now.
Finally, I had a service called US Videotel. They provided a terminal--black and white as I recall--and it was text based, but it was really cool. It had message boards and I remember talking to people from all around.
I noticed several comments about the awful screeching sound the old dialup modems made. Um...didn't you know that you could silence the modem?