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January of 1999 for me. I had a secondhand HP desktop 486 computer running Windows 95 and Microsoft Office 97! This computer had an external dialup modem. My first dialup ISP was MindSpring, which eventually was bought by EarthLink. I "graduated" to cable modem in August 2001, exactly a month before the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks.
I voted 1996, as that's the year I first began connecting via CSLIP to a Worldgroup BBS. That's the first time I obtained an IP address and had direct access to the 'net.
I saw people talking about Compuserve, AOL and Prodigy, though. I don't really count those as being on the Internet, as they were all closed systems for a long time. They were online services, but not really connected to the Internet. AOL didn't even start assigning IP addresses until the late 90s - you had to get around on the 'net via IPX through one of their proxy servers.
If we're going to count the closed systems, I'd have to say 1989, as that's when I first started BBSing. I had a Prodigy account in 1991, and later AOL (I don't talk about that, though )
Wow, that question got me digging back in the far reaches of my memory. My first computer was an IBM 286 given to me by my employer. I used it for writing company communications with Volkswriter, which I thought was infinitely slicker than WordPerfect. But I still kept my IBM Selectric to type envelopes.
I had totally forgotten about baud until I read it here; my first modem speed was definitely measured in that. I got connected to the Internet when I was upgraded to a 486. I used to go on it using my real name and posting my E-mail address all over the place! At our company, we didn't have individual printers -- we all sent our work to a shared laser. Sometimes all the pages wouldn't print at once and would spit out hours later. Which is how I found out my boss was having an affair.
We were allowed to buy old computers at my company, so I had a 286 at home for quite a few years. When I decided to go online at home in 1994, I bought a brand new PC and got my dial-up from a local start-up in Pittsburgh called City-Net rather than go the AOL route that most of my friends were on. They were located down the street from my house, so if I had a problem I would just walk over to their office. Don't you wish you could do that with your DSL provider?
What really are you regarding as 'internet access'? For a while there were bulletin boards or dial up portals from which you could telnet, if you knew where you wanted to go. Real Estate organizations had an MLS access. Or for users at work you could use the company network but still had to know where you wanted to go.
I recall a buddy at work first showing me Mosaic. Not long after there was Netscape 1...., about the same time 14.4 modems hit the market. Users with old Packard-Bells had to get new computers because those old machines wouldn't upgrade from 2400 baud to 14.4's.
My first internet connection was with the Houston Area League of PC-Users... HAL-PC. Dave... are you there?
1994 at the house. I was gobsmacked with wonder (still am). I miss the early Internet/WWW. I miss veronica/archie/gopherspace. I miss the tacky WWW homepages on GeoCities and other free webhosts. I miss the wonder of the early search engines like AltaVista. I still enjoy DMOZ and the human element.
I know it sounds crazy, but the WWW was almost a little better back then, maybe because it was new and wondrous. I still love to encounter plain, simple HTML pages with simple photo galleries.
Late 80's on a terminal connected to a Sperry mainframe..... boy did I hate Unix back then.
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At our company, we didn't have individual printers -- we all sent our work to a shared laser. Sometimes all the pages wouldn't print at once and would spit out hours later. Which is how I found out my boss was having an affair. 
