[meteorite-list] OT: early days of the intenet (ARPANET)

From: Matson, Robert <ROBERT.D.MATSON_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Feb 21 22:10:38 2005
Message-ID: <AF564D2B9D91D411B9FE00508BF1C86904EE6450_at_US-Torrance.mail.saic.com>

Hi Sterling,

> It reminds me of the Days Before the Web, when there was no
> www ... Yes, there was an InterNet for more than a decade before
> Al Gore invented the Web or Steve Jobs invented the HyperText-
> MarkupLanguage, and the sites on it were BBS's, or Bulletin
> Board Systems...

You can go back even further than that. I was logging into the
ARPAnet (dial-up, of course) back in 1982 through both MIT and
MITRE-TIP, and even then I was a relative latecomer. (MIT was
online by mid-1970; MITRE became active in 1971). Well,
"logging-in" isn't quite right -- more like hacking in. (Security
was extraordinarily lax in those days.) There was quite a cottage
industry of sharing/swapping passwords for various user accounts.
Contemporaries of mine (I was born in 1962) may remember the
ADVENT game (e.g. "xyzzy", "plugh", "You are in a maze of twisty
passages, all alike.")

I think most of the computers we logged into were time-shared
PDP-10's, IBM 360/70's and later PDP-11's and VAXs. If it weren't
for Digital Equipment Corporation, virtually everything about
computers and the internet would almost certainly be different
today. Every major operating system today can trace its instruction
set back to the PDP-11.

These days saw the re-introduction of the humorous (in the US,
anyway) banners left on computer terminals when one had to "visit
the facilities", or when one was demonstrating a program to a
larger group:

"ACHTUNG! ALLES LOOKENSPEEPERS! Das computermachine
ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen
der springenwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken mit spitzensparken.
Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen. Das rubbernecken
sichtseeren keepen das cotten-pickenen hans in das pockets muss;
relaxen und watchen das blinkenlichten."

(That one's for you, Moni! ;-) --Rob
Received on Mon 21 Feb 2005 10:11:19 PM PST