If the Internet does not seem like it can actually be 40-years-old today, that is because it is not. Sure, there was the proto-Internet, called ARPANET, in those early years. Nevertheless, for many of us, the modern Internet began in 1990 or later.

By then, many of us were experts at using CompuServe, The Source, America Online, and other dial-up services. Some of us had our own computer bulletin board systems, too.

However, the Internet was different. Where the earlier services were destinations, the Internet was, yes, "an information superhighway" that could connect all these services together, eventually bringing hundreds of millions of users and destinations online.

The reason I chose 1990 is because that was the year when you could buy a dial-up Internet connection for the first time and it was also when the first World Wide Web server came online.

It is also the year the first machine to be remotely controlled over the Internet appeared at Dan Lynch's Interop conference. It was the "Internet Toaster," created by the great John Romkey, who was kind enough to share a piece of toast with me. It was an exciting time.