access in 1988

[Orangekitty]

how many people had internet access in 1988?

[BadBob]

None. Tim Berners-Lee didnt begin his work on the World Wide Web project untill 1989 which is the internet as we know it. However the internet in its former form had around 10,000 hosts in 1987 and 100,000 in 1989 so anywhere between the 2 would be a good figure. As of 2000 there were about 75,000,000 hosts but I'm sure that number is up somewhat. Source The Art and Science of Web Design by Jeffrey Veen

[jenstar]

To say the web "is the internet as we know it" is a bit silly. It's like saying nobody watched TV in 1960 because it was all broadcast in 405 lines black & white on VHF, and that's not what we have nowadays.

[BadBob]

No its not silly at all. The "internet we know today" did not exist prior to Tim Berners-Lee's introduction of a uniform address structure, a standard set of protocols and a standard language, he and Mike Sendall called this the World Wide Web which is what I mean by the internet we know today. Before this it was a mass of linked computers using bulliten board and FTP style connection and very much on a command line sturcture. I gave all the relevant information for both the old and new internet styles. People use the the words internet and World Wide Web interchangeable these days I was simply answering the question in the fullest way possible. It got three stars so obviously Orangekitty was happy with it :)

[maxi29]

Badbob didn't really answer the question. As Jenstar says, the Internet and WWW are not interchangeable terms and the figures that Babbob gives are for the hosts, not the number of users with access. My guess would be about 20 users per host, so my take on it would between 500,000 and a million users, but that would be a wild stab. Access would have been limited to academic and military institutions and research establishments, primarily in the US, so there would be a limited number.

[honkytonkman]

I agree with BadBob that Internet and World Wide Web are interchangeable terms. In the modern vernacular ' to the majority of people and to all intents and purposes ' they both mean the global information 'thing' you view on your computer at home or work. Business documents frequently refer to web access or internet access.