I vaguely remember watching someone demonstrate email around 1989 or so. It sounded like a way to send messages that very few people could read, in a very difficult way, over a very expensive long phone call. Instead of a letter or phone call. Crazy.

But first contact? Maybe 1993, using a dialup BBS at a local library. I noticed it could launch some sort of browser at a link list with a ton of topics.

Also, some FTP sites. Trying to sneakernet some software home over Kermit transfers and floppies. Didn't succeed most of the time.

There was a Usenet client with even more reading. I'm not sure if there was even an IRC client or did that come later, but some people were playing MUDs. There was an email client as well, and that started to make a little more sense.

It was a keyhole view into a bigger world. And it would only keep growing.