Book People Archive

Re: ARPANET Records (fwd)

Michael Hart wrote:

> Let's not confuse the map with the territory.


Let's not confuse rhetoric with reality either.


> Today there are over a billion people reportedly on the Internet
> who send and receive various kinds of emails and files.


How is that relevant to what existed in 1971?


> In 1971 we sent and received emails and files from The Materials
> Research Lab that was physically connected to The Physics Lab or
> Loomis Lab, as it is now named, and perhaps was even then though
> we all called it "The Physics Building."


I have a suggestion for you, Michael. Look up when "email" was 
invented. When you find out, let us know. Here's a place to start looking:

A Brief History of the Internet
http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml

The authors of that article are Barry Leiner, Vint Cerf, David Clark,
Robert Kahn, Leonard Kleinrock, Daniel Lynch, Jon Postel, Larry 
Roberts, and Stephen Wolff. Perhaps you've heard of them. Here's a 
brief excerpt:


"It was also in 1972 that the initial 'hot' application, electronic 
mail, was introduced. In March Ray Tomlinson at BBN wrote the basic 
email message send and read software, motivated by the need of the 
ARPANET developers for an easy coordination mechanism. In July, 
Roberts expanded its utility by writing the first email utility 
program to list, selectively read, file, forward, and respond to 
messages. From there email took off as the largest network application 
for over a decade...."


As for the Loomis Lab, that was the home of the first PLATO lab. (For 
those who don't know about PLATO, it was a remarkable "computer-based 
learning environment" that was already being used by students at UIUC 
during the 1960s--long before Michael became a student there.)

http://www.physics.uiuc.edu/history/PLATO.htm

But the PLATO system was not connected to the ARPANET in 1971.


> By both the standards of the day, and the standards of today, it
> was enough to place us "on the Net."


A local campus network, like PLATO in 1971, was not the same as *the* Net.


> Obviously someone has written a list of nodes, hosts, computers,
> and whatever that did not include the Xerox Sigma V computer, on
> the 2nd floor of The Materials Research Lab.


That's because it wasn't connected to the ARPANET.


> Obviously other people who have read such lists think that these
> lists mean that there was no other way to connect to what should
> later be called "The Internet" than what appears on such lists.


Did you use a tin can and a string? ;) Seriously, Michael, for someone 
who claims that he was "*Internet User ~#100*", you don't seem to know 
much about it. Let me explain something to you. In order to be 
connected to the ARPANET, a computer had to be assigned a Network 
Address. If it didn't have an address, it wasn't connected. In 1971, 
Illinois' node had two--and only two--Network Addresses: 12 and 76 in 
decimal (or 014 and 114 in octal). The PDP-11 was assigned address 12 
(014), and the B6500 was assigned 76 (114). See

http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc247.txt
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc280.txt
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc308.txt

(The first two RFCs used the decimal addresses; the third one used the 
octal values.)

And neither the PDP-11 nor the B6500 was functioning as a server in 
1971. That means people from other ARPANET nodes couldn't have 
downloaded any file you may have made.


> My friends and I have long discussed just how long it would take
> for people to start the process of writing us out of history.


Would that be the same friends from the Xerox Sigma V who have trouble 
remembering what happened 35 years ago or more recent friends? :)


> I recall being told that we sent and received emails from such a
> variety of locations as Harvard and Berkeley, etc., on a network
> that was just starting up going across the continental US when I
> was starting school at the U of Illinois is 1971.


That was a neat trick, managing to send and receive emails a year 
before they were invented. :)


> There of those of us who make history, and those of us who write
> and rewrite history. . .I know which of those I am.


That's funny, considering how often you try to rewrite history on this 
and other mailing lists. Want me to make a list of examples for you? :)


> Once again I remind everyone not to confuse maps with territory.


Once again, I remind everyone not to confuse rhetoric with reality.


> Just think of all the phone numbers you looked up that were some
> other number than you wanted, and things like that.


Uh, huh.


> PS
> 
> Correction:  I did actually receive, "The Illinois Mothers Assn.
> Award" in June of 1971.


Did you have a boy or a girl? ;)


Jose Menendez