al ancestor of the modern telephone-accessed computer data
services, such as CompuServe, GEnie or Prodigy. The principle behind
Hirmondo- is also not too far from computer "bulletin-board systems" or
BBS's, which arrived in the late 1970s, spread rapidly across America,
and will figure largely in this book.

We are used to using telephones for individual person-to-person speech,
because we are used to the Bell system. But this was just one
possibility among many. Communication networks are very flexible and
protean, especially when their hardware becomes sufficiently advanced.
They can be put to all kinds of uses. And they have been--and they
will be.

Bell's telephone was bound for glory, but this was a combination of
political decisions, canny infighting in court, inspired industrial
leadership, receptive local conditions and outright good luck. Much
the same is true of communications systems today.

As Bell and his backers struggled to install their newfangled system in
the real world of nineteenth-century New England, they had to fight
against skepticism and industrial rivalry. There was already a strong
electrical communications network present in America: the telegraph.
The head of the Western Union telegraph system dismissed Bell's
prototype as "an electrical toy" and refused to buy the rights to
Bell's patent. The telephone, it seemed, might be all right as a
parlor entertainment--but not for serious business.

Telegrams, unlike mere telephones, left a permanent physical record of
their messages. Telegrams, unlike telephones, could be answered
whenever the recipient had time and convenience. And the telegram had
a much longer distance-range than Bell's early telephone. These
factors made telegraphy seem a much more sound and businesslike
technology--at least to some.

The telegraph system was huge, and well-entrenched. In 1876, the
United States had 214,000 miles of telegraph wire, and 8500 telegraph
offices. There were specialized telegraphs for businesses and stock
traders, government, police and fire departments. And Bell's "toy" was
best known as a stage-magic musical device.

The third stage of technology is known as the "Cash Cow" stage. In the
"cash cow" stage, a technology finds its place in the world, and
matures, and becomes settled and productive. After a year or so,
Alexander Graham Bell and his capitalist backers concluded that eerie
music piped from nineteenth-century cyberspa