Believe it or not, when we were kids the standard way to send a message to a friend or family member was by mail. Not e-mail, mind you, but the physical kind requiring a stamp on the envelope. Fax machines came blazing onto the scene and revolutionized communications because, all of a sudden, you could send a document across the country in a matter of minutes, rather than a number of days. Personal computers were starting to show up in houses, but they generally cost an arm and a leg, and they certainly did not have any sort of way of communicating with the outside.
