Cybercafé
Cyberia, London, 1996 (Photo: Sarchi)
A cybercafé was a café where you could pay to use an Internet-connected beige box for a short amount of time.
In the mid 1990s, home Internet access was limited to dialup connections using landlines. Cybercafés were a simple way to try out browsing the Web without having to first buy a modem, subscribe to an Internet service provider, or install any software.
As a teenager, I myself visited Cyberia in London, downloaded some webpages to 3.5" floppy disk, and examined their source code to teach myself HTML.
Cybercafés have since evolved into gaming cafés with much slicker hardware.
