Back in the 90s, at least in the UK, it wasn't called "big tech"; and it wasn't a major part of our direct culture as a family home might have
one personal computer if they were well off but it wasn't all that important.
I suspect that even today you'd have a hard time finding a random person on the street who even knows that Oracle is a company and not a character from The Matrix or ancient Greek mythology. And if you tell them they bought Sun they'll think you mean the newspaper, if you talk about Java they'll either think you mean the island or are talking about a brand of coffee.
