Kind of old-school here; when I first used the Arpanet at Tektronix in 1985, using a screen name was considered pretty uncool, the kind of thing BBS'ers and the hacker community did. So I've always posted as "lynno" - my account on the VAX 11/780 machines in Building 58 of the Beaverton Tek campus - or my real name.

The Internet retained its Arpanet character, limited to university sites and companies like Tek and Boeing, until it was opened to the public by the advent of privately owned ISP's in the early Nineties. The BBS'ers shut off their sites and poured into the rapidly growing net, taking their on-line etiquette - if I can call it that - with them. The net changed its character pretty rapidly after that, kind of like the difference between licensed ham radio operators and the CB radio crowd.

I wasn't a fan of the shift in character, and was *very* glad when moderated groups like "rec.audio.high-end" finally appeared. Man, I really date myself with that reference ... oh well.