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The Victorian Inter-Net

b3ta.com asked: What would the Victorians have made of the Internet?

For starters, being such hyphenation maniacs, they would have called it the “Inter-Net”. After that, b3ta readers came up with a hilarious set of graphics depicting the Internet, had it been created by the Victorians. Some examples:

(Click on any of the pictures to see the whole collection.)

Today, we have RateMyRack.com [Not safe for work!]. The Victorians were — at least in public — considerably more prudish:

Photo: 'Rate my Rack' in the Victorian era.

Here are TLDs (top-level domains, such as .com, .net and .org) in the Victorian era:

Photo: Domain name registration in the Victorian era.

An iPod ad:

Photo: iPod ad in the Victorian era.

When I mentioned b3ta’s “Victorian Internet” gag to Boss Ross, he replied that the Victorians did have an Internet of sorts — the telegraph. Was it like this?

Photo: Spam in the Victorian era.

…or like this?

Photo: MSN Messenger in the Victorian era.

(The Morse Code in the window shown above actually deciphers into real text. Deciphering is left as an exercise for the reader.)

It was the heyday of inventors:

Photo: 'Rate my contraption'.

And here’s what my employer, Tucows — formerly an acronym for The Ultimate Collection Of Winsock Software — would have been like:

Photo: Tucows in the Victorian era.

Other goodies:

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