IIRC, Windows 3.x didn’t have a TCP/IP stack. One had to install additional software such as Trumpet Winsock in order to connect to Internet.

Thought it was about the limits of netbios and appletalk, but lack of tcpip is probably another factor. I worked with netware/ipx at the time.

Apple had installed the entire networking code from UNIX under appletalk. But Steve personally fired the head of Apple networking. Then he fired the next engineering manager too, until he got one who wouldn't keep trying to expose the full tcp/ip capability that they had built into the Apple kernel. So the initial capability was appletalk with low cost chips, but their tech guys quickly realized that they needed more. There is a lot of unpublished history - a lot of it completely illegal in order to build the fortunes of the tech leaders (and not just Apple, Microsoft, and SCO.)