A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail.

Publishing words on a computer is not a difficult task these days.

We have so many options to write words and distribute them through a computerized interface that we take the whole process for granted. (You probably published something in the time it took you to read the previous two sentences.)

But there was a time when publishing through a computer was painful, cumbersome, and expensive. It also had little in common with the free-for-all that allows for the creation of all sorts of terrible/fascinating content online by random folks.

During the earliest days of online news, modems used acoustic couplers and it cost a bajillion dollars a minute to read a news story on a computer.

The democratizing element of online journalism didn't come until later. Here's what it was like way back when.

"We believe that this project will lead to enhancements in the content of the magazine. It will keep us in closer touch with the interests of our readers and will help us learn the best ways to use electronic communications in conjunction with our traditional print publication. We'll let you know about new developments in this area as soon as we can."

— A message in BYTE Magazine's October 1984 issue, announcing the launch of BYTEnet, which eventually became the BYTE Information eXchange (BIX). The network may have been the most ambitious online effort by a media outlet in the days before AOL and Prodigy made it easy. The magazine's writers, including "Computing at Chaos Manor" columnist Jerry Pournelle, visited BIX often, sometimes contributing content unique to the network. (Side note: Jerry Pournelle, who is also a famous science fiction author, is pretty much the most awesome human being who ever lived. He's 83 years old and he's been blogging pretty much since they invented wire.)