Themiclesian Internet café
Themiclesian Internet cafés have existed in Themiclesia since 1981 and provide customers with a computer with access to the Internet. Fees for this service are usually charged by the hour. Since their advent, Internet cafés have become places for meals, social gatherings, and even political activism.
History
Along with competitors in Fyrland and Kerenevoi, Themiclesia's Data Processing Systems was one of the first companies to commercialize computer technology, which had evolved from unit-record equipment and acquired more flexible means of input and output in the late 40s. Early computers were massive compared to common microcomputers today, and access to them was, since the 1960s, usually shared between multiple simultaneous users through terminals. Also in the 60s, technology for remote access to computers appeared, since they could not be installed at every location, as well as technology for the exchange of information between computers. The mid-1970s saw the advent of personal computers, which were designed around a single user and did not initially have native capability to communicate over an open network.
In 1973, the first bulletin board system in Themiclesia, Rak BBS, went online in service to Rak University, whose students could post and read personal messages, usually about rents and public events. Within four years, RBBS was accessible in multiple Themiclesian university campuses by means of fixed terminals connected through modems, which modulated digital messages into analogue signals and sent them to a receiving modem, masqueraded as a "telephone set" to the telecom company, that demodulates the audio signal into digital information. For security, the telephone number of RBBS's modem was not publicly dislcosed, since any person who knew the number could, theoretically, send unauthorized signals to the computer via its modem.
BBS became more integrated to Themiclesian life in the 80s, when many institutions established their own BBS, which often integrated private messaging as an associated function. In 1983, The Times of Themiclesia signed the first-of-its-kind BBS subscription, whereby its content would be posted for a subscription fee based on the membership of the BBS. As boards multiplied, methods to access multiple boards developed first through manual directory listings to fixed-address codes; competing standards for communication also existed. In February 1981, the first "Internet café" appeared in 1981 on Prer Street in Kien-k'ang, when the owner of an existing coffee house installed six terminals, sharing a single modem, to provide access to "22 BBS systems from one terminal". Because "BBS Coffee House" was registered, imitators often created their own names; there were over 30 cafés providing BBS access in Kien-k'ang in 1985.
Owing to the prepondrance of old mainframe terminals that displayed pure text on a green monochrome screen, these places were also called "green screen cafés". In the 22 February 2018 episode of National Broadcasting, the veteran Internet user Kup said "the Internet was green".
Features
Fee
Most Internet cafés charge walk-in patrons by the hour, usually between $8 and $12 per hour, up to $20 for premium locations.
However, providers also often offer "club rates" for those who frequent the operation on a regular basis, for a fixed but discounted fee per month or year. "Club rate" holders usually have unlimited access for the duration of the membership. Sometimes lower rates are offered for patrons who visit only during off-peak hours, such as afternoons and evenings. Club rate holders also frequently have access to a number of cafés within the same membership alliance.
Food
Typical Internet cafés in Themiclesia provide breakfast food in a buffet format throughout the day, at no extra charge to patrons already paying for Internet access. This includes savoury and sweet pastries, potted stews, cold meats, jellies, preserved vegetables and fruits, porridge, tea, coffee, but no alcohol. Hot meats and fishes are usually not seen. The articles that should be served warm would usually be kept that way under a heat lamp or a stove. Most of these are served as miniatures on skewers so as to minimize clutter (as well as cleaning work) on the patron's computer desk.
Internet cafés are often rated by their patrons by the quality of the food served.
Other amenities
The Cloud Eight, on Tre Street, Kien-k'ang, is an Internet café on the ground floor but includes a gymnasium on the storey above. Patrons may use the gymnasium at the same rate as the Internet café.
Politics
Larter remarks, "In an age when most newspapers refused to publish anonymous and opinionated material, and those that did were rarely read and advertised on, bulletin boards provided a place for individuals to publish about sensitive topics, free of responsibility." In so saying, he compares the all Internet cafés, as a unit, to the coffee house of the 17th century, which were places where eminent individuals and intellectuals met and exchanged views.
Kimmel, on the other hand, says that Internet cafés are often vectors for not only the exposition but re-inforcement of nationalism, racism, sexism, ableism, nativism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, republicanism, and other forms of discrimination that are normally "firmly in check by social decency". He alleges that while victims of these discriminations are dehumanized through the filter of the Internet by way of their relative silence, those who are united by these unsavoury opinions are humanized to each other instead by the same filter of the Internet by way of their relative volume.