Howdy and welcome Jim Daton,
It may be interesting to you, as a student of internet technology, that all Mudcat threads from the beginning is 1996 are available to browse. The Digital Tradition database goes back to 1988 (before you were born, imagine that!) and was one of the earliest internet applications I can remember using.
- Phil
Mudcat History:
thread.cfm?threadid=99014&messages=28
Digital Tradition History:
http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=3819&messages=19