The Internet Adapter was software created by Cyberspace Development in 1993 to allow SLIP

Serial Line Internet Protocol

The Serial Line Internet Protocol is an encapsulation of the Internet Protocol designed to work over serial ports and modem connections. It is documented in RFC 1055...

 connections over a shell account

Shell account

A shell account is a user account on a remote server which gives access to a shell via a command-line interface protocol such as telnet or ssh....

. PPP

Point-to-Point Protocol

In networking, the Point-to-Point Protocol is a data link protocol commonly used in establishing a direct connection between two networking nodes...

 was added in 1995, by which time the software was marketed and sold by Intermind of Seattle. Shell accounts normally only allow the use of command line or text-based software, but by logging in to a shell account and starting the TIA daemon

Daemon (computer software)

In Unix and other multitasking computer operating systems, a daemon is a computer program that runs as a background process, rather than being under the direct control of an interactive user...

, a user could then run any TCP/IP-based application, including standard GUI

Graphical user interface

In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...

 software such as the then-popular Netscape Navigator

Netscape

Netscape Communications is a US computer services company, best known for Netscape Navigator, its web browser. When it was an independent company, its headquarters were in Mountain View, California...

 on their computer. This was especially useful at the time because simple shell accounts were much less expensive than full SLIP/PPP accounts. TIA was ported to a large number of unix or unix-like systems.

Usage of TIA declined rapidly with the advent of inexpensive PPP-enabled consumer-level dial-up access

Dial-up access

Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network to establish a dialled connection to an Internet service provider via telephone lines...

. Also, competition from alternatives such as the free software

Free software

Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

 Slirp

Slirp

Slirp is a software program that emulates a PPP, SLIP, or CSLIP connection to the Internet via a shell account. It is largely obsolete for its original purpose, as dedicated dial-up PPP connections and broadband Internet access have in turn become widely available and inexpensive...

 cut its market share. Cyberspace Development later sold its domain name and its owners went on to other projects while Intermind moved on to Push Technology

Push technology

Push technology, or server push, describes a style of Internet-based communication where the request for a given transaction is initiated by the publisher or central server...

and automated data delivery.