Digital carbon copying of books begins

Many years ago, around 20 to be precise. Frank and Sylvia Thornley established what would become quite possibly the most important business with regard to the future of the Internet in the UK. The Compulink Information eXchange, better known as CIX, started life as a back bedroom BBS which allowed users to download public domain software sourced from trips to the US and chat with other techie types. It quickly went on to become the first commercial online conferencing system in the UK as well as the most influential, what with its membership of journalists and technological innovators. As for why it was so important in the whole Internet scheme of things, considering that for the first ten years of its life it was a dial-up proprietary and private system which hardly scraped the very boundaries of the emerging Internet, well that is simple: it was where UK consumer Internet service provision was born.