This was a time before e-mail, before phone cards.
But in the days before e-mail, blogs, and Web sites, a certain decorum usually prevailed.
But even before e-mail, personal letters had shrunk to a tiny share of the flow.
Deeply beloved aunt, great-aunt and cousin, "tele-Peppy" was the fastest disseminator of family news before e-mail.
"What did people do before e-mail and voice mail?" said Terri, who has a demanding job in television.
In the days before e-mail, traders would respond by mail to classified ads in music magazines.
In the spring of 1990, before e-mail, Twitter and instant messaging, if you were going to get information quickly it came by phone.
"I have no idea how anyone managed to have sex before e-mail," he says, and you're apt to believe him.
"This is an archives that was born well before e-mail," said Marcia Reed, chief curator at the Getty Research Institute.
"We now require all contributors to provide us with signed permission letters before E-mail addresses and/ or names can be posted," he said.
