Internet In A Box software

Internet in a Box (IBox) was one of the first commercially available Internet connection software packages available for sale to the public. Spry, Inc. produced the package, as well as starting up a commercial Internet service provider (ISP) called InterServ.

The IBox software included the Winsock and TCP/IP stack that were needed to connect a computer running Microsoft Windows to the Internet in 1994. The IBox package also included a licensed copy of the Mosaic Web browser, AIR Mail (an email client), AIR News (an NNTP news client), AIR Telnet, AIR Gopher, and an FTP Network File Manager.

Combined with InterServ's dial-up access, Internet in a Box provided a complete solution for members of the general public to access the Internet, a network previously available almost exclusively to government and collegiate users, or to the public only indirectly through e-mail gateways provided by hosted systems such as CompuServe. The inclusion of a web browser further gave access to the nascent World Wide Web.

Much of the first edition was written by Sue Schofield, a pioneering Internet writer.

[edit] Spry, Inc.

Spry, Inc. was a small software company headed up by David Pool in Seattle, Washington. In 1995 CompuServe bought Spry, Inc. for $100 million in cash and stock of H&R Block (the parent company of CompuServe).

[edit] External links

• Information Week article about the purchase of Spry, Inc.
• Internet writer Sue Schofield's Web page.