you are assuming my grandparents and parents were of your same social class.
my nana sent telegraphs well into the 1980s. that was the height of tech communications for most poor Puerto Ricans and latinoamericans of not just her generation, mind you. a money transfer is a telegraph and that's how my family circulated money well into the 2000s.
never forget the class divide. Bill Gates was a capitalist nepobaby who had access to computers from a very early age. that's his genius.