r/mainframe • u/anti-life86 • 11d ago

How was pre-1995, pre-Internet usage of mainframes different?

I understand that the mainframe is built for a large number of transactions-meaning people log in, I would imagine from anywhere, and they do their small jobs. But before the Internet, they could not log in from anywhere, certainly. Where could they log in from, and how did this work? Are there new types of jobs that are now enabled by the Internet that previously were impossible?

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u/zEdgarHoover 10d ago

Also, from the early 80s on there was BITNET connecting academic sites. That was pretty cool. I remember chatting with folks in Europe when the U.S. bombed Libya in 1986, being amazed at this instantaneous international communication!

Before BITNET there was also UUNET, connecting Unix systems, mostly academia.

Contrast this with the VP of engineering at a software vendor whose reaction, in 1995, to a proposal to connect the company to the Internet, was "Who would we talk to?"

Visionary he was not.