» A Net Before the Web, Part 1: The Establishment Man and the Magnificent Rogue The Digital Antiquarian

Actually, though, The Source wasn’t quite the first of its kind. Just eight days before, another new online service had made a more quiet official debut. It was called MicroNET, and came from an established provider of corporate time-shared computing services called CompuServe. MicroNET got no splashy unveiling, no celebrity spokesman, just a typewritten announcement letter sent to members of selected computer users groups.