The Computer Access Center was established on November 15th, 1991 with the help of Community Futures and the Self Employment Assistance program. This business was established to provide a facility where people can go and use the computer equipment by the hour with help.

The Center had a very slow start as not too many people were using computers. A few months after the Center opened, people started coming in and asking for specific help on the use of various programs such as Word Perfect and MS Word or spreadsheet programs and so the Center took a little turn and became a training facility teaching people on a one on one basis.

Back in 1991 Nick Sardy, the owner of the Computer Access Center had a local Commodore 64 club with a newsletter that he had been publishing for a few years already. The slant of this magazine changed from the Commodore 64 club newsletter to the Cariboo Computer Magazine. The publication was geared to reviews of software and hardware and to share information about new technology to the general public. Nick Sardy started to get review and evaluation copies of all kinds of software from different companies to write about in the magazine and this created an immense software library at the Computer Access Center.

These in turn provided the tools to train people in the use of these various programs. In February of this year the Cariboo Computer Magazine had celebrated its 10th anniversary. The magazine today is totally on line at http://www.ccmagazine.com and gets over 730 people a day reading over 790 pages or articles.

On September of 1994, the Computer Access Center had been contacted by the representative of a company that manufactured drawing tablets with regards to getting a demo unit for review. During that conversation the word Internet was first brought up and it really peaked Nick Sardy's curiosity. This curiosity led to more meetings and within one-month The Computer Access Center had an access to the Internet. This connection was expensive because it was through a service provider that just brought Internet into Kamloops (long distance Charges apply!).

At great expense (1995) modems and portmasters and other equipment were purchased and set up and by the end of February 1995, the Computer Access Center in Williams Lake had over 40 people sign up to get access to the internet. The connections were then finally turned on April 1, 1995.

This was the Birth of the Internet for Williams Lake provided by Nick Sardy owner of the Computer Access Center.

We had 8 dial-up phone lines using US Robotics 28,8 modems and the backbone pipe to Kamloops was a 56K line from BC Tell. The number of phone lines increased each year as the number of people signing on increased. Newer modems were added. In 1997 the Computer Access Center changed their backbone pipe to an E1 line (2.048 Megabits per second). This pipe was the largest in Williams Lake to the internet at that time.

On February 16th, 2001 the Computer Access Center had established the almighty Fiber 100Mbps broadband gateway backbone and connected to it is a 46 line Portmaster III fed trough 2 T1 lines from Telus this of course is a great leap from the original 8 phone line and 56K pipe out.

Currently, the Computer Access Center has over 560 Internet clients, and growing, who dial up into our new all-digital system. The Center is rapidly going out of the training business and concentrating on Internet access, website design and hosting. The Centers designers use the latest and greatest Macromedia Dreamweaver software with Flash, Fireworks and Database tools to produce websites to die for.

The Computer Access Center hosts the original Williams Lake Home page located at: http://www.wlake.com

The Center has a CAP (Community Access Program) site where the general public has access to the Internet at no charge. The Chamber of Commerce in Williams Lake can direct tourists to the center for all their emailing and Internet access needs.