Sept. 24, 1979: First Online Service for Consumers Debuts

(Wired) - 1979: CompuServe begins offering a dial-up online information service to consumers.
The company known as Compu-Serve, and later CompuServe, opened its doors in 1969, providing dial-up computer timesharing to businesses. Over the next decade, it grew into a solid business providing corporations with online data. Continued