(Draft for Comment)
The Development of the International Computer Network:
From Arpanet to Usenet News
(On the Nourishment or Impediment of the NET_Commonwealth)
by Ronda Hauben
email: au329@cleveland.freenet.edu
"The method I take...is not yet very usual; for instead
of using only comparative and superlative words, and
intellectual arguments, I have taken the course (as a
Specimen of the Political Arithmethic I have long aimed at)
to express myself in terms of Number, Weight, or Measure; to
use only arguments of Sense, and to consider only such
Causes, as have visible Foundations in Nature; leaving those
that depend upon the mutable Minds, Opinions, Appetites, and
Passions of particular Men, to the Conservation of others."
--Sir William Petty "Political Arithmetic"
"The Nutrition of a Commonwealth consisteth, in the Plenty,
and the Distribution of Materials, Condusive to Life."
--Thomas Hobbes, "The Leviathan"
Preface
In the 1600's Sir William Petty, who has been called the
father of Scientific Political Economy, pioneered the development
of what he called "Political Arithmethic."(1)
Political Arithmethic was the application of the scientific
method elaborated by Sir Francis Bacon and others of the 16th and
17th century to the problems of the economy of a nation.
Political Arithmetic involved the gathering of data distinguished
by Number, Weight, or Measure to determine the factors which
contribute to the material well being of the people of a society
and those which were the impediments to the production of social
wealth. Petty only considered those causes which "have a visible
Foundation in Nature" and discarded those that were dependent on
"the mutable minds, opinions, appetites, and passions of
particular men." The International Global network is one of the
surprising developments of our time. What are the factors that
supported and nourished the growth and development of this
network and what are the impediments to continued development and
expansion.
Introduction
Today there is an international computer network that spans
the globe and connects universities, researchers and computer
workers and users around the world.(2) Twenty five years ago
these developments were nonexistent. This is "the largest machine
that man has ever constructed, the international global
network."(3) This significant world development has occurred in
the past 25 years and though it has involved millions of people
around the world, others who are not participants in this
exciting new global computer community know practically nothing
of its existence. This global network is accomplished by, and
makes possible, a high degree of automation. Society can now
provide for more of the needs of people with comparatively less
labor than ever before.
Probably one of the most important examples of the promise
of this new technology is the creation and expansion of a users
news network called Usenet News. Usenet reaches 3 - 6 million
people worldwide with over 3,500 different newsgroup subjects and
millions of bytes of articles. This news uses no paper, no glue,
no postage. Yet, this technology makes it possible for the users
themselves to determine and provide for the content and range of
information that is conveyed via this new news medium.(4) It also
makes possible the rapid response and discussion of articles
posted and provides a forum where issues can be freely debated
and information exchanged. This news provides for the information
exchange and learning needed by the system administrators,
programmers, engineers, scientists, and users. In turn, they
contribute to the network's development. The continuing growth of
Usenet News is a tribute to the millions of pioneers who have
developed this new technology of computer automation.
J.C.L. Licklider is one of the early network pioneers. His
vision of an Intergalactic Computer Network helped to inspire
these developments. He and Albert Vezza, describing an earlier
network advance, wrote, "Shakespeare could have been foreseeing
the present situation in information networking when he said,
`...What's past is prologue; what's to come, in yours and my
discharge"(5) The story of the network's growth and development
contains important lessons for its continued expansion. The
development of this international network linking millions of
people around the world now stands at a turning point. Will it
continue to go forward or will it be detoured? An understanding
of the environment and policies that nourished the development of
the network provides a scientific foundation on which to base its
further development and to serve its continued contribution to
the NET_Commonwealth.
Part I - The Development of the Arpanet
In 1962, the report "On Distributed Communications" by Paul
Baran, was published by the Rand Corporation. Baran's research,
done under a grant from the U.S. Air Force, discusses how the
U.S. military could protect its communications systems from
serious attack. He outlines the principle of "redundancy of
connectivity" and explores various models of forming
communications systems and evaluating their vulnerability.(6)
The report proposes a communications system where there
would be no obvious central command and control point, but all
surviving points would be able to reestablish contact in the
event of an attack on any one point. Thus damage to a part would
not destory the whole and its effect on the whole would be
minimized.
One of his recommendations is for a national public utility
to transport computer data, much in the way the telephone system
transports voice data. "Is it time now to start thinking about a
new and possibly non-existant public utility," Baran asks, "a
common user digital data communication plant designed
specifically for the transmission of digital data among a large
set of subscribers?"(7)
He cautions against limiting the choice of technology
for such a data network to that which is currently in use.
He proposes that a packet switching, store and forward technology
be developed for a data network. However, because some of his
research was then classified, it did not get very wide
dissemination.
Other researchers were interested in computers and
communications, particularly in the computer as a communication
device. J.C.R. Licklider was one of the most influencial. He was
particularly interested in the man-computer communication
relationship. Lick, as he asked people to call him, wondered how
the computer could help humans to think and to solve problems.
In an article called "Man Computer Symbiosis", he explores how
the computer could help humans to do intellectual work. Lick was
also interested in the question of how the computer could help
humans to communicate better.(8) "In a few years men will be able
to communicate more effectively through a machine than face to
face," Licklider and Robert Taylor wrote in an article they
coauthored. "When minds interact," they observe, "new ideas
emerge."(9)
People like Paul Baran and J.C.R. Licklider were involved in
proposing how to develop computer technology in ways that hadn't
been developed before.
While Baran's work had been classified, and thus was known
only around military circles, Licklider, who had access to
such military research and writing, was also involved in the
computer research and education community. Larry Roberts,
another of the pioneers involved in the early days of network
research, explains how Lick's vision of an Intergalactic Computer
Network changed his life and career. Lick's contribution, Roberts
explains, represented the effort to "define the problems and
benefits resulting from computer networking."(10)
After informal conversations with Lick, F. Corbato and A.
Perlis, at the Second Congress on Information System Sciences in
Hot Springs, Virginia, in November 1964, Larry Roberts "concluded
that the most important problem in the computer field before us
at the time was computer networking; the ability to access one
computer from another easily and economically to permit resource
sharing." Roberts recalls, "That was a topic in which Licklider
was very interested and his enthusiasm infected me."(11)
During the early 1960's the U.S. military under its Advanced
Research Projects Agency (ARPA) established two new funding
offices, the Information Processing Technology Office (IPTO) and
another for behavioral science. From 1962-64, Licklider took a
leave of absence from his position at a Massachusetts research
firm, BBN, to give guidance to these two newly created offices.
In reviewing this seminal period, Alan Perlis recalls how Lick's
philosophy guided ARPA's funding of computer science research.
Perlis explains, "I think that we all should be grateful to ARPA
for not focusing on very specific projects such as workstations.
There was no order issued that said, `We want a proposal on a
workstation.' Goodness knows, they would have gotten many of
them. Instead, I think that ARPA, through Lick, realized that if
you get `n' good people together to do research on computing,
you're going to illuminate some reasonable fraction of the ways
of proceeding because the computer is such a general instrument."
In retrospect Perlis explains, "We owe a great deal to ARPA for
not circumscribing directions that people took in those days. I
like to believe that the purpose of the military is to support
ARPA, and the purpose of ARPA is to support research."(12)
Licklider confirms that he was guided in his philosophy by
the rationale that a broad investigation of a problem was
necessary in order to solve that problem. He explains "There's a
lot of reason for adopting a broad delimination rather than a
narrow one because if you're trying to find out where ideas come
from, you don't want to isolate yourself from the areas that they
come from." (13)
Licklider attracted others involved in computer research to
his vision that computer networking the most important challenge.
In 1966-67 Lincoln Labs in Lexington, Mass and SDR in
Santa Monica, California, got a grant from the DOD to begin
research on linking computers across the continent. Larry
Roberts, describing this work, explains, "Convinced that it was a
worthwhile goal, we set up a test network to see where the
problems would be. Since computer time sharing experiments at
MIT (CTSS) and Dartmouth (DTSS) had demonstrated that it was
possible to link different computer users to a single computer,
the cross country experiment built on this advance."(i.e. Once
timesharing was possible, the linking remote computers was also
possible.)(14)
Roberts reports that there was no trouble linking dissimilar
computers. The problems, he claims, were with the telephone lines
across the continent, i.e. that the throughput was inadequate to
accomplish their goals. Thus their experiment set the basis for
justifying research in setting up a nationwide store and forward
packet switching data network.
During this period, ARPA was funding computer research
at a number of U.S. Universities and research labs. A decision
was made to include research contractors in the experimental
network - the Arpanet. A plan was created for a working network
to link the 16 research groups together. A plan for the ARPANET
was made available at the October 1967 ACM Symposium on Operating
Principles in Gatlingberg, Tennessee. (15)
Shortly thereafter, Larry Roberts was recruited to head the
ITPO office at ARPA to guide the research. The military set
out specifications for the project and asked for bids. They
wanted a proposal for a 4 computer network and a design for a
network that would include 17 sites.
The award for the contract went to the Cambridge,
Massachusetts firm Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc. (BBN).
The planned network would make use of mini computers to
serve as switching nodes for the host computers at sites that
were to be connected to the network. Honeywell mini computers
(516's) were chosen for the network of Information Message
Processors (IMP's) that would be linked to each other. And each
of the IMP's would be linked to a host computer. These IMP's only
had 12 kilobytes of memory though they were the most powerful
mini computers available at the time.
The opening stanzas of a poem by Vint Cerf, an Arpanet
pioneer, describe these early days of networking(16):
Like distant islands sundered by the sea,
We had no sense of one community.
We lived and worked apart and rarely knew
that others searched with us for knowledge, too.
Distant ARPA spurred us in our quest
and for our part we worked and put to test
new thoughts and theories of computing art;
we deemed it science not, but made a start
Each time a new machine was built and sold,
we'd add it to our list of needs and told
our source of funds "Alas! Our knowledge loom
will halt 'til it's in our computer room.
But, could these new resources not be shared?
Let links be built; machines and men be paired!
Let distance be no barrier! They set
that goal: design and build the ARPANET!
On Sept 1, 1969, the first IMP arrived at UCLA which was to
be the first site of the new network. It was connected to the
Sigma 7 computer at UCLA. Shortly thereafter IMP's were delivered
to the other three sites in this initial testbed network. At SRI,
the IMP was connected to an SDS-940 computer. At UCSB, the IMP
was connected to an IBM 360/75. And at the University of Utah,
the fourth site, the IMP was connected a DEC PDP-10.
By the end of 1969, the first four IMP's had been connected
to the computers at their individual sites and the network
connections between the IMP's were operational. The researchers
and scientists involved could begin to identify the problems they
had to solve to develop a working network.(6)
There were programming and technical problems to be
solved so the different computers would be able to communicate
with each other. Also, there was a need for an agreed upon set of
signals that would open up communication channels, allow data to
pass thru, and then would close the channels. These agreed upon
standards were called protocols. The initial proposal for the
research required those involved to work to establish protocols.
In April 1969, the first meeting of the group to discuss
establishing these protocols took place. They put together a set
of documents that would be available to everyone involved for
consideration and discussion. They called these Requests for
Comment (RFC's) and the first RFC was April, 1969.(17)
As the problems of setting up the 4 computer network were
identified and solved, the network was expanded to several more
sites. (18)
By April 1971, there were 15 nodes and 23 hosts in the
network.
These earliest sites attached to the network were connected to
Honeywell DDP-516 IMPs. These were
1 UCLA
2 SRI
3 UCSB
4 U of UTAH
5 BBN
6 MIT
7 RAND Corp
8 SDC ? (Systems Development Corporation)
9 Harvard
10 Lincoln Lab
11 Stanford
12 U of Illinois (Urbana)
13 Case Western Reserve U.
14 CMU
15 NASA-AMES
Then smaller minicomputers, the Honeywell 316, were introduced.
They were compatible with the 516 IMP but at half the cost) were
connected. Some were configured as TIPs (i.e. Terminal IMPs)
beginning with:
16 NASA-AMES TIP
17 MITRE TIP
(Listing of sites based on a post on Usenet, but the Completion
Report also lists Burroughs as one of the first 15 sites.)
By January 1973, there were 35 nodes of which 15 were TIPs.
Early in 1973, a satellite link connected California with a
TIP in Hawaii. With the rapid increase of network traffic,
problems were discovered with the reliability of the subnet and
corrections had to be worked on. In mid 1973, Norway and England
in Europe were added to the net and the resulting problems had to
be solved. By September 1973, there were 40 nodes and 45 hosts on
the network. And the traffic had expanded from 1 million
packets/day in 1972 to 2,900,000 packets/day by September, 1973.
By 1977, there were 111 host computers connected via the
Arpanet. By 1983 there were 4000.(20)
As the network was put into operation, the researchers
learned which of their original assumptions and models were
inaccurate. For example, BBN describes how they had initially
failed to understand that the IMP's would need to do error
checking. They explain:
"The first four IMPs were developed and installed on
schedule by the end of 1969. No sooner were these IMPs in
the field than it became clear that some provision was needed
to connect hosts relatively distant from an IMP (i.e., up to
2000 feet instead of the expected 50 feet). Thus in early
1970 a `distant' IMP/host interface was developed. Augmented
simply by heftier line drivers, these distant interfaces
made clear for the first time the fallacy in the assumption
that had been made that no error control was needed on the
host/IMP interface because there would be no errors on such
a local connection."(21)
The network was needed to uncover the actual bugs. In
describing the importance of a test network, rather than trying
to do the research in a laboratory, Alex McKenzie and David
Walden, in their article "Arpanet, the Defense Data Network, and
Internet" write:
"Errors in coding control were another problem. However
carefully one designs, codes, and performs quality control,
errors can still slip through. Fortunately, with a large
number of IMPs in the network, most of these errors are
found quickly because they occur so frequently. For
instance, a bug in an IMP code that occurs once a day in one
IMP, occurs every 15 min in a 100-IMP network.
Unfortunately, some bugs still will remain. If a symptom of
a bug is detected somewhere in a 100-IMP network once a week
(often enough to be a problem), then it will happen only
once every 2 years in a single IMP in a development lab for
a programmer trying to find the source of the symptom. Thus,
achieving a totally bug-free network is very difficult.(22)
In October 1972, the First International Conference on
Computer Communications was held in Washington, D.C. A public
demonstration of the ARPANET was given setting up an actual
node with 40 machines. Representatives from projects around the
world including Canada, France, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Great
Britain and the U.S. discussed the need to begin work on
establishing agreed upon protocols. The InterNetwork Working
Group (INWG) was created to begin discussions for such a common
protocol and Vinton Cerf, who was involved with UCLA Arpanet was
chosen as the first Chairman. The vision proposed for the
architectural principles for an international interconnection of
networks was "a mess of independent, autonomous networks
interconnected by gateways, just as independent circuits of
ARPANET are interconnected by IMPs."(23)
The network continued to grow and expand.
In 1975 the ARPANET was transferred to the control of the
DCA (Defence Communications Agency).
Evaluating the success of ARPANET research, Licklider
recalled that he felt ARPA had been run by an enlightened set of
military men while he was involved with it."I don't want to brag
about ARPA," he explains, " It is in my view, however, a very
enlightened place. It was fun to work there. I think I never
encountered brighter, more creative people, than the inhabitants
of the third floor E-ring of the Pentagon. But that, I'll say,
was a long time ago, and I simply don't know how bright and
likeable they are now. But ARPA didn't constrain me
much."(24)
A post on Usenet by Eugene Miya, who was a student at one of
the early Arpa sites, conveys the exciting environment of the early
Arpanet. He writes:
"It was an effort to connect different kinds of
computers back when a school or company had only one (that's
1) computer. The first configuration of the ARPAnet had only
4 computers, I had luckily selected a school at one of those
4 sites: UCLA/Rand Corp, UCSB (us), SRI, and the U of Utah.
Who? The US DOD: Defense Department's Advanced Research
Projects Agency. ARPA was the sugar daddy of computer
science. Some very bright people were given some money,
freedom, and had a lot of vision. It not only started
computer networks, but also computer graphics, computer
flight simulation, head mounted displays, parallel
processing, queuing models, VLSI, and a host of other ideas.
Far from being evil warmongers, some neat work was done.
Why? Lots of reasons: intellectual curiosity, the need to
have different machines communicate, study fault tolerance
of communications systems in the event of nuclear war, share
and connect expensive resources, very soft ideas to very
hard ideas....
I first saw the term "internetwork" in a paper by folk from
Xerox PARC (another ARPANET host). The issue was one of
interconnecting Ethernets (which had the 256 [slightly less]
host limitation). Schoch's CACM worm program paper is a good
one.
I learned much of this with the help of the NIC (Network
Information Center). This does not mean the Internet is like
this today. I think the early ARPAnet was kind of a wondrous
neat place, sort of a golden era. You could get into other
people's machines with a minimum of hassle (someone else
paid the bills). No more....
He continues:
Where did I fit in? I was a frosh nuclear engineering
major, spending odd hours (2am-4am, sometimes on Fridays and
weekends) doing hackerish things rather than doing student
things: studying or dating, etc. I put together an
interactive SPSS and learned a lot playing chess on an MIT[-
MC] DEC-10 from an IBM-360. Think of the problems: 32-bit
versus 36-bit, different character set [remember I started
with EBCDIC], FTP then is largely FTP now, has changed very
little. We didn't have text editors available to students on
the IBM (yes you could use the ARPAnet via punched card
decks). Learned a lot. I wish I had hacked more.(25)
One of the surprising developments to the researchers of the
ARPANET was the great popularity of electronic mail. Analyzing
the reasons for this unanticipated benefit from their network
development, Licklider and Vezza write, "By the fall of 1973, the
great effectiveness and convenience of such fast, informed
messages services...had been discovered by almost everyone who
had worked on the development of the ARPANET -- and especially by
the then Director of ARPA, S.J. Lukasik, who soon had most of his
office directors and program managers communicating with him and
with their colleagues and their contractors via the network.
Thereafter, both the number of (intercommunicating) electronic
mail systems and the number of users of them on the ARPANET
increased rapidly."(26)
"One of the advantages of the message system over letter
mail," they add, "was that, in an ARPANET message, one could
write tersely and type imperfectly, even to an older person in a
superior position and even to a person one did not know very
well, and the recipient took no offense. The formality and
perfection that most people expect in a typed letter did not
become associated with network messages, probably because the
network was so much faster, so much more like the telephone...
Among the advantages of the network message services over the
telephone were the fact that one could proceed immediately to the
point without having to engage in small talk first, that the
message services produced a preservable record, and that the
sender and receiver did not have to be available at the same
time.(27)
Describing email, the authors of the Completion Report
write:
The largest single surprise of the ARPANET program has been
the incredible popularity and success of network mail. There
is little doubt that the techniques of network mail
developed in connection with the ARPANET program are going
to sweep the country and drastically change the techniques
used for intercommunication in the public and private
sectors.(28)
Not only was the network used to see what the actual
problems would be, the communication it made possible gave the
researchers the ability to collaborate to deal with these
problems.
Summarizing the important breakthrough represented by the
Arpanet, they conclude:
"This ARPA program has created no less than a
revolution in computer technology and has been one of the
most successful projects ever undertaken by ARPA. The
program has initiated extensive changes in the Defense
Department's use of computers as well as in the use of
computers by the entire public and private sectors, both in
the United States and around the world.
Just as the telephone, the telegraph, and the printing
press had far-reaching effects on human intercommunication,
the widespread utilization of computer networks which has
been catalyzed by the ARPANET project represents a similarly
far-reaching change in the use of computers by mankind.
The full impact of the technical changes set in motion
by this project may not be understood for many years."(29)
Notes for Part I
(1) "The Writings of Sir William Petty," ed Hull, London, 1899,
reprint edition Kelley Publishers.
(2) "Internet Society News," vol 1, no. 2, Spring, 1992, back
inside cover.
(3) Ithiel de Sola Pool, "Technologies Without Boundaries,"
Cambridge, 1990, p. 56.
(4) See for example, Michael Hauben, "Social Forces Behind the
Development of Usenet News," The Amateur Computerist, vol 5, no.
1-2.
(5) "Applications of Information Network", Proceedings of the
IEEE, vol 66, No. 11, November, 1978, p.57.
(6) Ibid., September, 1962, pg. 2.
(7) Ibid., p. 40.
(8) "Man Computer Symbiosis", in "In Memoriam: J.C.R. Licklider
1915-1990."
(9) See "The Computer as a Communication device" in "In
Memoriam:J.C.R. Licklider 1915-1990", p. 21.
(10) See "The Arpanet and Computer Networks" reprinted in "A
History of Personal Workstations" ed by Adele Goldberg, N.Y.
1988, p. 143.
(11) Ibid., p. 143-144. See also "The Arpanet and Computer
Networks," Ibid.
(12) "Workstations", Ibid., p. 129.
(13) "Some Reflections on Early History," Ibid., p. 118)
(14) See for example, "Toward a Cooperative Network of Time-
Shared Computers," by Thomas Marill and Lawrence G. Roberts,
Proceedings - FJCC, 1966, p. 426.
(15) Roberts, p. 146.
(16) From "Requiem for the Arpanet" by Vint Cerf reprinted in
"ConneXions," vol 3, no. 10, Oct. 1989, p.27.
(17) See "The Completion Report," by F. Heart, A. McKenzie, J.
McQuillian, and D. Walden, BBN Report 4799, January 4, 1978.
(18) Ibid.
(19) Joel Levin on Oct. 17, 1990.
(20) See "Completion Report" and "Arpanet, the Defense Data
Network, and Internet" in the "Froehlich/Kent Encyclopedia of
Telecommunications," vol 1.
(21) "The Completion Report," p. III-55.
(22) See "Completion Report" and "Arpanet, the Defense Data
Network, and Internet" in the "Froehlich/Kent Encyclopedia of
Telecommunications," vol 1, p 361.
(23) Ibid. p. 361-2.
(24) "Workstations," p. 126.
(25) From Eugene Miya in alt.folklore.computers, comp.misc, Re:
Internet: The origins, Oct 16 1990.
(26) "Applications", p. 44.
(27) Ibid.
(28) "Completion Report", III, p. 113-116.
(29) Ibid., I, p. 2.
--
Ronda Hauben write for email copy of Winter/Spring 1993 issue
Amateur Computerist articles include Interview on Usenet and C News
ronda@umcc.umich.edu Sir Francis Bacon and Shorter Hours Bill
or ae547@yfn.ysu.edu Social Forces behind Usenet News
From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: alt.amateur-comp,sci.econ,alt.folklore.computers,news.admin.misc
Subject: Re: Draft From Arpanet to Usenet (pt 1 of 2)(long)
Date: 11 Aug 93 19:41:47 GMT
>Alan Perlis recalls how Lick's
>philosophy guided ARPA's funding of computer science research.
>Perlis explains, "I think that we all should be grateful to ARPA
>for not focusing on very specific projects such as workstations.
>There was no order issued that said, `We want a proposal on a
>workstation.'
I thought Perlis passed away a few years ago (or am I wrong?) If so
this sounds eerily current. If I'm correct courtesy might dictate
explaining this to the reader even if it's potentially a little
redundant with the footnotes. One would hate to touch off a spate of
inquiries.
In the comparison with paper mail it might be interesting to dig up
the story about how the UK postal service insisted on a terminal on
the ARPAnet link to GB in order to monitor whether or not messages
were in fact professionally related as claimed and not just chit-chat
avoiding postage. There was a lot of fuss about this. I don't remember
all the details, but I do remember the repeated warnings in the late
70's not to upset them or else the link to UCL might be cut off etc.
--
-Barry Shein
Software Tool & Die | bzs@world.std.com | uunet!world!bzs
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202 | Login: 617-739-WRLD
From: hauben@namaste.cc.columbia.edu (Michael Hauben)
Newsgroups: alt.amateur-comp,alt.culture.internet,alt.folklore.computers,comp.misc,alt.cyberspace
Subject: DRAFT paper on the Vision Behind the Development of the Net
Date: 9 May 1994 13:48:38 GMT
DRAFT OF
The Vision of Interactive Computing and the Future
Comments appreciated
By Michael Hauben
hauben@columbia.edu
Where has the Information Superhighway come from? This is
a very important question which the Clinton and Gore
Administration seem to be ignoring. However understanding this
history is a crucial step towards building the network of the
future. It is my goal in this presentation to uncover the vision
behind the Internet, Usenet and other associated Physical and
Logical networks.
While the nets are basically young (the ARPANET started
25 years before 1994), this 25 year growth is substantial. The
ARPANET was the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects
Agency's experimental network connecting the mainframes of
Universities and other Department of Defense's (DoD) contractors.
The ARPANET initially started out as a test bed of computer
networking, communications protocols, and information/computer
and data sharing. However, what it developed into was something
of a completely different nature. The most wide use of the
ARPANET was for human-to-human communication using electronic
mail (e-mail) and discussion lists (popular lists were the
wine-tasters and sci-fi lovers lists). The human communications
aspect of the ARPANET continues to be today's most popular usage
of the 'Net by a vast variety of people through e-mail, Usenet
News discussion groups, Mailing Lists, Internet Relay Chat (IRC),
and so on. However, the ARPANET was the product of previous
research itself.
Before the 1960s computers operated in batch mode. This
meant that a user had to provide a program on punch cards to the
local computer center. Often a programmer had to wait over a day
in order to see the results from his or her input. In addition if
there were any mistakes in the creation of the punched cards, the
stack or individual card had to be repunched and resubmitted,
which would take another day. This does not account for bugs in
the code, which someone only finds out after attempting to
compile the code. This was a very unefficient way
of utilizing the power of the computer from the viewpoint of a
human, in addition to discouraging those unfamiliar with computers. This
led to different people thinking of ways to alter the interface
between people and computers. The idea of time sharing developed
among some of the computer research communities. Time sharing
amounts to multiple people utilizing the computer (then
mainframes) simultaneously. Time sharing operated by giving the
impression that the user is the only one on the computer. This is
executed by having the computer divy out slices of CPU time to
all the users in a sequential manner.
Research in Time sharing was happening around the country
at different research centers in early 1960s. Some examples were
CTSS (Computer Time Sharing System) at MIT, DTSS (Dartmouth Time
Sharing System) at Dartmouth, a system at BBN, and so on. J.C.R.
Licklider, who was the initial director of ARPA's Information
Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) at the time, thought of
timesharing as Interactive Computing. Interactive computing meant
the user had a way to communicate and respond to the computer's
responses in a way that Batch Processing did not allow.
Both Robert Taylor and Larry Roberts, future successors of
Licklider as director of IPTO, pinpoint Licklider as
the originator of the vision which set ARPA's priorities and
goals and basically drove ARPA to help develop the concept of
networking computers
In an Interview conducted by the Charles Babbage
Institute, Roberts said:
"what I concluded was that we had to do something
about communications, and that really, the idea of the galactic
network that Lick talked about, probably more than anybody, was
something that we had to start seriously thinking about. So in a
way networking grew out of Lick's talking about that, although Lick
himself could not make anything happen because it was too early
when he talked about it. But he did convince me it was
important." (CBI Oral Interview, Roberts, pg 7)
Taylor also pointed out the importance of Licklider's vision to
future network development in a CBI conducted interview:
"I don't think ... anyone who's been in that DARPA position since
[Licklider] has had the vision that Licklider had. His being at
that place at that time is a testament to the tenuousness of it
all. It was really a fortunate circumstance. I think most of
the significant advances in computer technology, especially in
the systems part of computer science over the years -- including
the work that my group did at Xerox PARC where we built the first
distributed personal computer system -- were simply
extrapolations of Licklider's vision. They were not really new
visions of their own. So he's really the father of it all. And
you'll never get him to admit that, because of his modesty." (CBI
Oral Interview, Taylor, pg. 8)
Crucial to the definition of today's Networks were the
thoughts awakened in the minds of those researching
timesharing. Those experimenting with timesharing began to
think about issues related to timesharing. One topic which arose
in people's minds was that of the issues involved with the
formation of communities over the timesharing systems which were
being developed. Fernando Corbato and Robert Fano wrote,
"The time-sharing computer system can unite a group of
investigators in a cooperative search for the solution to a common
problem, or it can serve as a community pool of knowledge and
skill on which anyone can draw according to his needs. Projecting
the concept on a large scale, one can conceive of such a facility
as an extraordinarily powerful library serving an entire
community -- in short, an intellectual public utility."
("Time-sharing on Computers" in _Information_, pg. 76)
Robert Taylor spoke about some of the new circumstances that time
sharing made possible that extended beyond the expected advances:
"They were just talking about a network where they
could have a compatibility across these systems, and at least do
some load sharing, and some program sharing, data sharing -- that
sort of thing. Whereas, the thing that struck me about the
timesharing experience was that before there was a timesharing
system, let's say at MIT, then there were a lot of individual
people who didn't know each other who were interested in
computing in one way or another, and who were doing whatever they
could, however they could. As soon as the timesharing system
became usable, these people began to know one another, share a
lot of information, and ask of one another, "How do I use this?
Where do I find that?" It was really phenomenal to see this
computer become a medium that stimulated the formation of a human
community. ... And so, here ARPA had a number of sites by this
time, each of which had its own sense of community and was
digitally isolated from the other one. I saw a phrase in the
Licklider memo. The phrase was in a totally different context --
something that he referred to as an "intergalactic network." I
asked him about this later... recently, in fact I said, "Did you
have a networking of the ARPANET sort in mind when you used that
phrase?" He said, "No, I was thinking about a single timesharing
system that was intergalactic..." (CBI Oral Interview, Taylor, pg 24)
As Taylor recounts, the users utilizing the timesharing systems
did, usually unexpectedly, form a new community. People now
were connected to others who were interested in these new
computing systems.
Licklider was one of the first users of the new
timesharing systems, and took the time to play around with them.
However, Fernando Corbato called Licklider a visionary, and not an
implementor. This was helpful because with his vision, Licklider
helped establish the priorities and direction that ARPA's IPTO
was attempting to approach with their research monies. Many of
the Interviewees in the CBI Interviews said that ARPA's monies
were given in those days to help seed research which would be
helpful to the general society in general, and only secondary to
the military.
Licklider's visions helped to inspire bright researchers working
on computer related topics. Roberts even goes as far to say that
Licklider's work (and that of the IPTO directors after him) educated the
people who were to become the leaders in the computer industry in
general. Roberts relates Licklider's vision and how future IPTO
directors continued Licklider's legacy:
"Well, I think that the one influence is the one I
mentioned in relation to the net, that is, the production of
people in the computer field that are trained, and knowledgeable,
and capable, and that form the basis for the progress the United
States has made in the computer field. That production of people
started with Lick, when he started the IPTO program and started
the big university programs. It was really due to Lick, in large
part, because I think it was that early set of activities that I
continued with that produced the most people with the big
university contracts. That produced a base for them to expand
their whole department, and produced excitement in the
university" (CBI Oral Interview, Roberts, pg 29)
The influence on Academia led to a profound effect on the future
of the computer industry. Roberts continues:
"So it was clear that that was a big impact on the
universities and therefore, in the industry. You can almost track
all those people and see what effect that has had. The people from
those projects are in large part the leaders throughout the
industry" (Ibid., pg. 30)
Licklider's vision of the "Intergalactic Network" or of a
time-sharing system connecting all of the computer using
communities across multi-galaxy's really spawned the idea of
interconnecting the different time-sharing systems by networking
them. This networking would allow those on the different
time-sharing systems to share data, programs, and later their
research, other ideas and even later anything that could be
written out. Licklider and Taylor collaborated on an article
titled "The Computer as a Communications Device" which foresaw
today's Net. They wrote:
"We have seen the beginnings of communication through a
computer - communication among people at consoles located in the
same room or on the same university campus or even at distantly
separated laboratories of the same research and development
organization. This kind of communication - through a single
multiaccess computer with the aid of telephone lines - is
beginning to foster cooperation and promote coherence more
effectively than do present arrangements for sharing computer
programs by exchanging magnetic tape by messenger or mail."
(Licklider & Taylor, pg. 28)
Later in the article, they point out that the interconnection of
computers led to a much broader interconnection than might have been
expected. A new community is described when they write:
"The collection of people, hardware, and software - the
multiaccess computer together with its local community of users -
will become a node in a geographically distributed computer
network. Let us assume for a moment that such a network has been
formed....Through the network of message processors, therefore,
all the large computers can communicate with one another. And
through them, all the members of the supercommunity can
communicate - with other people, with programs, with data, or
with a selected combinations of those resources." (IBID.,pg. 32)
Licklider and Roberts exhibit their interest in more than
just hardware and software when they continue to think about the
new social dynamics the connections of disperse computers and
people will create. The authors continue:
"[The communities] will be communities not of common location ,
but of common interest. In each field, the overall community of
interest will be large enough to support a comprehensive system
of field-oriented programs and data." (IBID., pg. 38)
In exploring this community of common affinity, the pair look for
the possible positive reasons to connect to and be a part of
these new computer facilitated communities:
"First, life will be happier for the on-line individual
because the people with whom one interacts most strongly will be
selected more by commonality of interests and goals than by
accidents of proximity. Second, communication will be more
effective and productive, and therefore more enjoyable. Third,
much communication and interaction will be with programs and
programming models, which will be (a) highly responsive, (b)
supplementary to one's own capabilities, rather than competitive,
and (c) capable of representing progressively more complex ideas
without necessarily displaying all the levels of their structure
at the same time -- and which will therefore be both challenging
and rewarding. And, fourth, there will be plenty of opportunity
for everyone (who can afford a console) to find his calling, for
the whole world of information, with all its fields and
disciplines, will be open to him, with programs ready to guide
him or to help him explore." (IBID., pg 40)
Roberts and Taylor conclude their article on a prophetic
question. The advantages that computer networks make possible
will only happen if these advantages are available to all who
want to make use of them. The question is posed as follows:
"For the society, the impact will be good or bad depending
mainly on the question: Will `to be on line' be a privilege or a
right? If only a favored segment of the population gets a chance
to enjoy the advantage of `intelligence amplification,' the
network may exaggerate the discontinuity in the spectrum of
intellectual opportunity." (IBID., pg. 40)
The question which is raised is one of access. The authors try to
point out that the positive effects of computer networking would
only come about if the ability to use the networks is made easy
and available. Lastly they hold that access will probably be made
available because of the global benefits which they predict would
ensue. They end by writing:
"if the network idea should prove to do for education what a
few have envisioned in hope, if not in concrete detailed plan,
and if all minds should prove to be responsive, surely the boon
to humankind would be beyond measure." (IBID., pg. 40)
Licklider and Taylor raise an important point of saying access
should be made available to all who want to use the computer
networks. Coming back to today, it is important to ask if the
National Information Infrastructure is being designed with the
principle of making equality of access as important. As I have
identified in this presentation, there was a vision of the
interconnection and interaction of extremely diverse communities
guiding the creation of the original Arpanet. In the design of
the expansion of the Network to our society as a whole, it is
important to keep the original vision in mind to consider if the
vision was correct, or if it was just important in the initial
development of networking technologies and techniques. However,
very little emphasis has been placed on either the study of
Licklider's vision or the role and advantages the Nets have
played up to this point. In addition, the public has not been a
part of the planning for the new initiatives which the federal
government is currently planning. This is a plea to you to demand
more of a part in the development of the future of the Net.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Hauben Columbia College'95 Editor of Amateur Computerist Newsletter
by day hauben@columbia.edu by night
Netizen's Cyberstop
From: rh120@namaste.cc.columbia.edu (Ronda Hauben)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: On the Early Days of Usenet:1of3(long)
Date: 4 Oct 1995 19:58:17 GMT
Following is a second draft of an article I am working on about
the early days of Usenet for the updated Netizens book.
I would appreciate any comments or suggestions as I am
trying to finish a revised draft by Oct. 9. Thanks to those
who commented on an earlier draft, as the comments were
very helpful and I have tried to incorporate the suggestions
into this draft.
Ronda
ON THE EARLY DAYS OF USENET:
THE ROOTS OF THE COOPERATIVE ONLINE CULTURE
(Part 1 of 3)
by Ronda Hauben
rh120@columbia.edu
"Without a historical perspective, it's quite easy to get
the wrong impression of how all this came to pass. It is the
result of the work of a large number of individuals, some of
whom have been at it for the last 20 years."
Lauren Weinstein, 1990
"Even if we have shifted away from discussing human networks,
we are getting a first hand EXPERIENCE of what they are
through this mailing list. No amount of `a priori'
theorizing of their nature,' has as much explanatory power
as personal experience. By observing what happens when
connectivity is provided to a large mass of people in which
they can FREELY voice their ideas, doubts, and opinions, a
lot of insight is obtained into very important issues of
mass intercommunication."
Human-Nets Mailing List, 03 June
1981, Jorge Phillips, Subject:
administrivia
Usenet was born in 1979. It has grown from a design
conceived of by two graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis,
at Duke University in North Carolina, to a logical network
linking millions of people and computers to over 9,500 different
newsgroups and millions of bytes of articles available at any
given time at hundreds of thousands of sites around the world.
Yet little is generally known about how Usenet began and how it
developed.
Computer Chess - The Mini Slays the Mainframe
Tom Truscott had a dream. As a kid he had read the book Danny
Dunn and the Homework Machine. He decided that it would be neat
to have a homework machine. Some things caught his imagination
and this particular goal not only set him on a course that would
affect his future, but it also would have an unexpected impact on
the rest of the world. By the summer of 1970, before his senior
year in high school, Truscott had enrolled in a summer computer
program that gave him his first chance to use a computer and to
learn to program in BASIC. "My first large program played
checkers," he remembers of that summer.(1) "It didn't play all
that well," he admits, but it introduced him to some of the power
of computers. As a college freshman at Duke University the next
year Truscott met another student in his chemistry lab who was an
excellent chess player. Truscott describes how he told his
chemistry lab partner Bruce Wright that "we could write a
computer chess program that would beat Bobby Fisher." Wright
"didn't think so, but we started writing the program anyway,"
Truscott continues. "I was interested because of the computing
challenge and no doubt the fame we would garner by defeating
Fisher, and I guess Bruce was interested because he wanted to
learn computing." Truscott describes how the two undergraduates
spent "a LOT of time" writing their chess program and in the
process they learned a lot about how not to write programs.
Truscott was interested in how game programs were like
robots since they functioned as autonomous creatures. "At
tournaments," he points out, "the program tells me what moves to
make for it, asks me how much time it has left on the clock,"
etc. And writing a software robot, Truscott observes, "is a lot
easier than building a real one."
Once Truscott and Wright had set their sights on creating a
championship chess program, Truscott set out to research what
work had been done on the problem. He found that Claude Shannon
had written "a very early paper on how to construct a chess
playing machine."(2) "It was remarkably farsighted given the
state of computing then," Truscott remembers. The next oldest
paper he found was from 1958 by someone who implemented a program
similar to Shannon's proposal. "It played terribly," he
recalls.(3)
Also, by Spring of 1974, Truscott had joined the Association
of Computing Machinery (ACM) to receive notification of the
computer chess tournaments. Reading through the journal
"Communications of the ACM" in 1974, he came across an article
about a new operating system created by research programmers at
Bell Labs.(4) In the article, he noticed that a program created
by a Bell Labs team ran in the background sopping up idle CPU
time and solving simple chess endgames (for example King and Rook
vs. King). Truscott explains how there was no chance he and
Wright could do something like that on the mainframe computer
they were using, since it cost 20 cents per second. But he notes
that their mainframe was about the fastest there was and could
compute rings around the DEC PDP-11 that the Unix operating
system ran on.
He and Wright created their program for the IBM System 370
Model 160 MVT/TSO mainframe computer system at Duke. It had three
megabytes of main memory, which Truscott notes was later upgraded
to "4 megabytes for a mere $100,000." That was, according to
Truscott, "Pretty much the top of the line at the time. We did
our development in batch mode," he remembers, "The source code
was on punched cards and the compiled code was stored on disk."
And in tournaments, he and Wright used the IBM timesharing mode
TSO.
The first computer chess tournament Truscott and Wright
competed in was the North American Chess Championships held at
the ACM Annual Conference in San Diego, California in November
1974. By then, Truscott was in his senior year at Duke. He and
Wright named their chess program Duchess.
Following is Truscott's description of his first tournament
and how he met one of the most respected programmers in the Unix
community during that tournament. Truscott writes:
"There were twelve teams competing in the tournament.
We were on a stage in a large room with seating for
spectators. Each team had a computer terminal (something
like a dot-matrix printer with a keyboard in front and an
acoustic modem on the back). And a telephone. Boy were those
phone calls expensive. But the ACM was picking up the tab,
and Duke was giving us the computer time.
At the 1974 tournament, we knocked off MIT's TECH-II in
the first round. They had come in second the previous year,
and we were a newcomer, so that was something of an upset.
In the second round we got clobbered by the perennial champ,
CHESS 4.0 from Northwestern University.
In the third round we played Bell Labs' Belle. It was
called T. Belle at that point. I had met the author earlier,
before the second round, when he showed me how good
his program was at solving mating problems. I wasn't that
interested in chess, but humored him while he pulled a chess
position out of a library and had the program find a mate in
5 (or some such). I guess if I actually played chess I would
have been impressed.
So when the third round began, Bruce Wright and I were
on one side of a table, and Ken Thompson and someone else
from Bell Labs (who years later I realized was Brian
Kernighan), were on the other. I noticed that when Ken
Thompson logged on, the Bell Labs computer printed:
Chess tonight, please don't compute.
I mentioned that that was really neat to be able to get the
comp center to put out a notice like that. He said something
non-commital in response. So the game began. A few hours and
a few thousand dollars later we really had Belle on the
ropes. All it had left was a lone king and we were about to
queen a pawn! But then our program ABENDed (core dumped) in
a way that caused the phone line to drop. We dialed back in
and set things up, same thing. Every so often it would
actually make a move. But making the phone call was slow (we
had to ask for an outside line from the hotel operator) and
painful (rotary dial you know) and eventually our program
lost on time."
After the tournament was over, Truscott and Wright
examined what had happened and they observed that the problem
was not with their program, but rather with a bug in the
TSO operating system on their mainframe. "Thus was our mighty
mainframe slain by a minicomputer," he admitted, as they had lost
the competition because the operating system of their mainframe
computer had proven inferior to the operating system of the mini
computer used by the Bell Labs Team. "But I didn't realize it was
UNIX," Truscott recalls, noting that the victory went to the Bell
Labs team and their mini computer because of the power of their
Unix operating system.
Truscott and Wright competed in every ACM Computer Chess
Competition [CCC] from 1974 to 1980. The next time he met Ken
Thompson was at the 1976 Unix Users Group meeting at Harvard.
"That was great fun," he remembers. There were about 80
attendees. "Somewhere along the way I made the connection between
Belle and Thompson and UNIX." By this time Truscott was a
graduate student at Duke where he and others had just installed
Unix Version 6 on the CS Department computer.
"I was also at the 1978 UNIX Users Group meeting at Columbia
University, and both Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie were there,"
Truscott continues, "Thompson also competed in the 1978 ACM CCC.
He had some special chess hardware but it was no match for the
much-improved mainframe programs."
"Because of our mutual interests," Truscott recalls,
"Thompson would even call up our computer at Duke from time to
time, and `write' me. That was pretty intense, my trying to pick
perfect sentences to send along to the genius at the other end. I
think it was during one of those `write' sessions in early 1979,
that he asked if I would be interested in a summer job."
Truscott accepted Thompson's offer and spent the summer of
1979 at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, the birthplace of
Unix. That Summer, a distribution of the Unix Operating System,
Unix Version 7 was made available to sites with licenses from
AT&T to use Unix. Included in the Unix V7 distribution were a
number of Unix tools such as "sed" "awk" "uucp" and the Bourne
Shell. These tools were very helpful and would prove invaluable
in the creation of Usenet.
Truscott found that Bell Labs provided an exciting and
supportative environment. Following is his account of this
important summer in 1979 that he spent playing volleyball, eating
pizza and working on a daily basis with many of the pioneers of
the Unix community. He writes:
"Woke up at 11 am. Got to Bell Labs at noon so I could play
volleyball out on the front lawn with Mike Lesk and Steve
Bourne and other folks. After a few weeks, the security
folks told us they couldn't have a regulated monopoly
running around loose like that. Lunch at 1pm in the Bell
Labs restaurant. Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie and Greg
Chesson were regulars. They had lunch at 1pm because
sometimes they didn't get to work until then. Sometimes
Dennis Ritchie would entertain us with some horror story
about a non-UNIX system he dealt with recently...."
"At 2pm the day began, which involved doing pretty much
whatever we wanted. Ritchie was working on `streams'. I
think Ken Thompson was working on typesetting software but
mostly working on a chess machine....Often at 7pm a group
would go out for dinner (they liked pizza). Occasionally
someone would host dinner at their home. Afterwards I would
go back to the Labs and work until midnight. And the next
day I would get up `at the crack of noon' as Thompson put
it."
As the summer ended, Truscott left Bell Labs and returned to
Duke.
Using Unix to Create an Online Commmunity
Truscott, describing his return to Duke, writes, "Of course
when the summer was over and I was back at Duke, one of the first
things I did was arrange a uucp connection to research. They
called us nightly, which was great." Truscott and Dennis Ritchie
set up a uucp connection between "duke" a CS Department computer
site at Duke in Durham, North Carolina, and "research" a computer
site at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey.
The uucp program that was part of the V7 distribution of
Unix made it possible to send email and files to other Unix
sites using telephone lines as long as the sending computer had
an autodialing modem and the receiving computer had an auto
answering modem.
But these links did not make up for the fact that by Fall 1979,
Truscott was back at Duke and no longer in the exciting
environment of the birthplace of Unix. After having worked at
Bell Labs for Ken Thompson, where, as in Truscott's words, "I was
in UNIX heaven the whole time, returning to Duke in the fall
meant the end of that." Also, that summer he had attended the
Unix User's Group meeting in Toronto, Canada. Once back at Duke
the primary connection with the Unix community was through the
Usenix newsletter ";Login:". This newsletter, however, hadn't
appeared in a while. That Fall, another Duke graduate student,
Jim Ellis installed the latest Unix (V7) edition on a Duke
Computer Science computer. It broke many old programs, including
a public domain `items' program that had provided a local
bulletin board. Truscott recalls how the program allowed items
to be entered into one of several categories. "It had a number of
problems," he explains, "including a 512 byte limit per item, so
we were thinking about writing a completely new program. Then we
could contribute it to the next user group tape and hopefully
achieve some minor level of fame."
Truscott attributes the creation of Usenet to the confluence
of these events in Fall 1979. He describes a long rambling
conversation he and Ellis had one night considering these
circumstances. The idea for Usenet developed during their
discussion.
Soon afterwards, Truscott and Ellis met with two other
local Unix enthusiasts, Dennis Rockwell, who was a graduate
student and worked in the Physiology Department at Duke, and
Steve Bellovin, who was a graduate student at the neighboring
University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. They decided on the
transfer format, i.e., on what an article would look like to make
it possible to ship files via computers using uucp, and they
agreed on the basic functionality of the software they would need
to create an online network.
Bellovin wrote a shell script using Unix to test the design
concept. Describing the early work to create Usenet, Bellovin
writes:
"The release of the uucp program with V7 UNIX provided the
initial impetus. So did the Bourne shell. So the very first
version of net news was a 3-page shell script. It supported
multiple newsgroups, cross-postings, and subscription lists
implemented as environmental variables. As best as I can
tell, this script has not survived."(5)
Bellovin emphasizes how the ease of testing software design
facilitated by Unix made it possible to create Usenet. "It's
worth noting now that given the speed (or lack thereof) of the
machines we had we utterly relied on the ease of writing shell
scripts to experiment with protocol variants. Compilation would
have taken much too long."
Commenting about the early plan for Usenet, Bellovin notes:
"We estimated a maximum size of 100 sites, and 1-2
articles a day, net-wide...you couldn't read things out of
order. The goal there (and in many other spots) was to have
software free of databases. Instead, we chose to let the
file system do the work."
Bellovin recalls why a news program to replace the one
they had used with Unix V6 was needed. "Another motivation," he
writes, "was some sort of local news system. On V6, Duke and UNC
had a local news system that came from somewhere. But articles
were limited to 512 bytes, and we didn't carry it forward to V7.
A prime requirement was that there be an efficient way to test
for the presence of news (hence the checknews program)."
The Duke and University of North Carolina graduate students
hoped to contribute their news program to the Usenet community to
be used with Unix V7. According to Truscott, the shell script was
slow, but worked. They also decided on terminology such as
'newsgroups' to describe the subject areas they would have as
part of their network. "That was probably due to the newsletter
analogy," he explains since "this was long before the PC and
bulletin boards."(6)
Stephen Daniel, another Duke graduate student soon became
involved and made a substantial contribution to the work.
Truscott writes that Daniel "created the dotted newsgroup
structure that we know today," for the newsnaming scheme (i.e.
NET.xxxx and dept.xxxx) Also, Steve Daniel wrote one of the
earliest versions of the netnews software in the C programming
language. This came to be known as "A-News".
Truscott and Wright continued to participate in the Chess
Tournaments and in 1980 they competed in the 3rd world Computer
Chess Championship held in Linz, Austria. Thompson and Joe
Condon, who was a technician at Bell Labs, were also in the
competition. Truscott notes that Thompson and Condon "had
completed their hardware chess machine and snagged first place.
Duchess came in third. And Claude Shannon was in attendance, and
even handed out the trophies at the awards ceremony. Afterwards
we all went over to a TV studio to watch a West German TV special
on computer chess, and the championship. Claude Shannon and his
wife were very engaging people. Someone took a photo of all of
us, I have a copy buried somewhere."
When Usenet was created, the newsgroup NET.chess was created
as one of the early newsgroups. By developing Usenet, the Unix
community became the force behind the creation of an online
community that would welcome participants into the cooperative
culture that the Unix pioneers had found important in helping
them to create Unix. Graduate students at Duke and the University
of North Carolina were able to use Unix to create an online
community to provide needed technical and social support. They
later named this users network Usenet. The earliest map for
Usenet was made up of the first two computers that were sites for
Usenet:
duke - unc
The sites were:
1) duke Duke University
2) unc University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Another computer at Duke joined the Network. The computer
was named phs. It was in the Physiology Department at Duke
Medical School. The map of Usenet then became:
duke - unc
\ /
phs
The third site was:
3) phs Physiology Department of the Duke Medical School
Soon connections were set up with computers at Bell Labs.
The computer site "research" and then "vax135" at the Labs were
added to Usenet. In the summer of 1980, Mark Horton, a graduate
student at the University of California at Berkeley, brought the
computer site "ucbvax" onto Usenet.(7)
A map of Usenet during the Summer 1980 shows the sites then
connected:
reed phs
\ / \
uok --- duke --unc
/ \
research vax135
|
ucbvax
The additional sites were:
4) reed Reed College
5) uok University of Oklahoma
6) research Bell Labs Murray Hill
7) vax135 Bell Labs Murray Hill
8) ucbvax University of California at Berkeley
Bell Telephone Labs (Murray Hill) operating the computer
named "research" was the first site to pick up the phone bills
for calls between "ucbvax" at the University of California at
Berkeley and "duke" at Duke University via "research." Horton
writes: "The first cross country link was from duke to research,
then from research to ucbvax, all on research's nickel."(8)
Horton recalls how amazed he was to get email messages from
Usenet pioneers at Duke and the University of North Carolina just
a few hours after he had sent them messages, thanks to the
connectivity provided by the Bell Labs computer. "I remember," he
writes, "while at Berkeley, exchanging email with the original
`A-News' developers and being amazed that I could get a reply
back a few hours later, even though `research' was polling both
`duke' and `ucbvax' to pick up waiting mail."
The first newsgroups on Usenet, according to Truscott, were
known as NET.xxxx and dept.xxxx. After Horton joined Usenet, he
began feeding mailing lists from the ARPANET into Usenet. Mailing
lists from the ARPANET fed into Usenet were identified as FA.xxxx
newsgroups. Truscott notes that, "Only when ucbvax joined the
net, did `fa' appear." Truscott explains that he didn't know
about the ARPANET mailing lists until Horton joined Usenet.
At first the Usenet community could only read these ARPANET
mailing lists, but couldn't contribute to them. "It was a one-way
gateway - ARPANET into Usenet only, done with recnews, as I
recall," writes Horton.(9) But at least it was possible for the
Usenet community to follow the interesting discussions carried on
via the ARPANET mailing lists during this early period of Usenet.
Bellovin explains why feeding the ARPANET mailing lists
into Usenet was so important for the development both of Usenet
and of the ARPANET. "Actually in my opinion," Bellovin writes,
"one of the key elements in the early growth of Usenet was when
Mark Horton started feeding the SF lovers and human-nets mailing
lists into newsgroups. Those provided a critical mass of traffic
and served as a lure to attract new sites." He describes how
"The ARPANET was supposed to be a self-contained entity, and only
approved sites were allowed to connect." Therefore, the
connection between Usenet and the ARPANET broke important new
ground. Bellovin writes, "Mail to and from Usenet only sites, was
an interesting test case that *wasn't* stamped out, though I
think it skated on some very thin ice for a while."
The "ucbvax" site at the University of California at Berkeley
provided a crucial gateway between Usenet and the ARPANET. The
University of California at Berkeley could provide the gateway
because it was also a site on the ARPANET. The CS Department vax
computer (csvax) became the site "ucbvax" on the UUCP network.
An internal network Berknet was set up to connect "ucbvax" on the
UUCP network to "Berkeley" on the ARPANET. Horton explains that
Professor Michael Stonebraker and Professor Domenico Ferrari, who
were doing research to develop the Ingres data base, had a pair
of machines (ing70) and (ingvax) which were sites on the ARPANET.
They allowed Horton to use these machines for Usenet. Ing70 was
the site known as "Berkeley" on the ARPANET. Horton and two other
graduate students, Eric Allman and Eric Schmidt, set up the
gateway between Usenet and the ARPANET and made it work. Schmidt
created the local net, Berknet, to connect the ARPANET and the
UUCPnet. The ARPANET and UUCP computers were tied together by
Schmidt's Berknet. The path, Horton explains, went:
"Any ARPA machine to Berkeley via ARPANET mail
Ing70 (aka Berkeley) to csvax via Berknet
ucbvax (aka csvax) to any UUCP machine via UUCP."(10)
Human-Nets and WorldNet
The Human-Nets mailing list [known on Usenet as the
newsgroup FA.Human-nets] provided a mass of interesting
posts to attract Usenet readership at a crucial period in
Usenet's development. The mailing list Human-Nets, Truscott
remembers, was a mailing list from the ARPANET for discussing the
implications of world-wide ubiquitous networking. "This network
of the future," he recalls, was referred to as WorldNet." It was
a very interesting mailing list and possible only due to the
ability of the network itself to permit those interested in this
obscure topic to communicate."(11)
A directory of the ARPANET mailing lists maintained at MIT
during this period lists each of the mailing lists. Describing
Human-Nets, it notes that this mailing list "has discussed many
topics, all of them related in some way to the theme of a world-
wide computer and communications network usually called WorldNet.
The topics have ranged very widely from something like tutorials,
to state of the art discussions, to rampant speculations about
technology and its impact."(12)
An article on Usenet about Human-Nets explained that "one
reader expressed a wish for a `World Net' to tie all sorts of
computers worldwide together."(13)
Another article described how WorldNet "was a nice idea to
dream about", but the writer was pessimistic that it could ever
be implemented, at least within the next 10 years. He
acknowledged, however, "Still, it's a fun idea to think about,"
and advised, "Maybe it should be tried on a smaller scale first
(a distributed network of students with PCs at a university,
perhaps a small city, or large community.) Who knows," the poster
observed, "with a PC in almost every home in a few years, maybe
it'll be possible and desirable."(14)
One of the moderators of Human-Nets maintained how
important it was to participate in such online discussion for
those interested in developing ubiquitous world wide networking.
Responding to a departing moderator's complaint that the
discussion on the list had diverged to a variety of topics, the
new moderator disagreed. He retorted:
"Even if we have shifted away from discussing human networks,
we are getting a first hand EXPERIENCE of what they are
through this mailing list. No amount of `a priori'
theorizing of their nature,' has as much explanatory power
as personal experience. By observing what happens when
connectivity is provided to a large mass of people in which
they can FREELY voice their ideas, doubts, and opinions, a
lot of insight is obtained into very important issues of
mass intercommunication."
"The fact," he continued, "that...dissimilar...topics have
been discussed in our own instance of a human network says a lot
about its nature and the interests and nature of its members and
should not be considered as detracting from the quality of the
discussion."
"A human network," he concluded, "is a springboard for human
interaction and thus for human action. Let's view it as such and
keep repression and censorship at a minimum."(15)
UUCPnet and the "Iron Curtain" of the ARPANET
In contrast to the vision of ubiquitous human networking via
computers discussed on the Human-Nets mailing list, the Usenet
community faced a difficult battle when trying to communicate
with those on the ARPANET. Posts on Usenet during the 1981 period
reflect the constant efforts and frustration experienced by those
on Usenet who wanted to contribute to the ARPANET mailing lists.
Another popular ARPANET mailing list during this early
period of Usenet was the Unix-wizards mailing list. It provided
for discussion, the sharing of experiences, of problems, and of
software, and for the debate over various issues that faced the
Unix community. The mailing list was gatewayed from the ARPANET
to Usenet and was available on Usenet as the newsgroup FA.unix-
wizards.
Recognizing the early difficulty that those on Usenet had in
posting to the ARPANET mailing lists, one user asked:
"You mean saying -n fa.unix.wizards doesn't get back to the
arpanet? Does it just get to USENET? Or does it go
anywhere?"(16)
Another post reported the frustration experienced by those
on Usenet who were trying to send messages to mailing lists
carried on the ARPANET. The person wrote:
"With regard to the ARPA/UUCP gateway problem, it appears
that arpanet sites refuse to process mail from UUCP
machines, while UUCP machines typically don't bother
checking who stuff comes from before passing it on. In most
cases this costs real money in terms of phone rates, use of
spool space, etc...."(17)
He proposed that UUCP sites retaliate so that transporting
messages to Usenet from the ARPANET would be equally difficult:
"We could have messages of the type:
`Gateway to UUCPnet Closed...Service Unavailable'"
He asked others on Usenet for "any ideas what kind of
response would result if this was implemented?"
Responding to this proposal, another Usenet user offered his
objection:
"I'd rather see messages of this form going back to ARPA:
`Gateway to UUCPnet open...No Iron Curtain here'"
"Or some such self-righteous garbage. Seriously, the
interchange of information is too useful to get embroiled in
hurt feelings. I get mad when Arpa blindly refuses stuff but
would rather try to shame them (good luck!) than play the
same game."(18)
There were those on the ARPANET who sympathized with the
problems experienced by the Usenet community in trying to
contribute to the ARPANET mailing lists. Commenting on the
frustration, a user at a U.S. government site that was both on
the ARPANET and on Usenet wrote: "I am also concerned about
USENET participants. We really need to be able to interact with
them in a better way, yet UUCP gateways to the ArpaNet are
VERBOTEN".(19)
Often Usenet users would try to send messages to the ARPANET
gateway only to get back notification that their message had
bounced. Common messages notifying Usenet users that their
efforts to send messages to the ARPANET mailing lists had failed
included:
"Sorry not an ARPANET gateway: Unable to deliver Mail"
"unix-wizards@sri-unix... Mail has been disallowed between
the Arpanet and Uucp net"
"unix-wizards@sri-unix... Service unavailable"
Other messages on Usenet during this period describe
similar problems. For example, one user describes how he sent out
5 email messages to the mailing list FA.unix-wizards and each
came back to him undelivered. He then tried to send the messages
to the mailing list again, or in frustration gave up and posted
them on Usenet in the newsgroup "net.general" so others could see
the problems he was having. He reported:
"It doesn't always work, folks! Last week I submitted 5
letters to ucbvax!unix-wizards; and got each one of them
back the very next day, saying `service unavailable.'
Depending on the message I either shipped it back right
away, or just put it in net.general in disgust."(20)
The ARPAnet <=> UUCPnet gateway
The gateway set up to make it possible for uucp users of
Usenet to contribute to the ARPANET mailing list Unix-wizards via
uucp to "ucbvax", from "ucbvax" along Berknet to "Berkeley", the
UCB site on the ARPANET, and from that site along the ARPANET
via email to "sri-unix", a site on the ARPANET that would
distribute the mailing list back to "Berkeley" or send it out on
the ARPANET. The site `sri-unix' was a computer at the Stanford
Research Institute, which was one of the earliest sites on the
ARPANET. Describing how this gateway worked, a user from the
University of California at Berkeley wrote:
"Ucbvax is currently set up such that if you, as a UUCPnet
(Usenet) user, send mail to `...ucbvax!unix-wizards', the
message will be *automatically* forwarded to unix-
wizards@sri-unix (via our internal network and then via the
ARPAnet)."(21)
He describes how `sri-unix' transported the message back to
other sites:
"The message is then redistributed by sri-unix to all sites
on their `master' list, which include `csvax.post-unix-
wizards@Berkeley'."
In this way, the message was sent out on Usenet. "When we at
Berkeley," he explained, "receive something addressed to this
rather baroque-looking recipient, it is handed over to our
network news program. From there, the message is redistributed
via UUCPnet to the rest of the world."
"ARPAnet access," he noted, "is not available (at least
through Berkeley) for `private communications', which would
include someone on the UUCPnet attempting to respond to an
INDIVIDUAL who submitted something via the ARPAnet, or vice
versa."
A user at the Ballistics Research Labs (BRL) noted the
burden the gateway imposed on both the University of California
at Berkeley and SRI and offered to help if necessary. He wrote:
BRL has a strong commitment to UNIX, and we encourage
discussions about UNIX. If SRI gets overwhelmed by the
burden of distributing the list, or if we `clone' several
lists, we will be glad to take the task of mailing the
stuff.'(22)
By September 1981, a post indicated that the ucb<=>sri-unix
gateway for the Unix-wizards mailing list was being changed.
"This is the last message you'll be receiving on Unix-wizards
through SRI-UNIX," the writer reported. "Now the list will be
mailed out of SRI-WARF(host 1/73);" he noted(23).
Posts could still be sent to `sri-unix', but they would then
be forwarded for transporting to `sri.warf'.
Numerous other users commented on the precariousness of this
UUCPnet - ARPANET gateway used by the Usenet (uucp) community
during this period. For example, Dave Farber, at the University
of Delaware, warned, "As to relaying to the ARPAnet,
communications could be stopped easily by some agency stating to
the sites doing the relaying under the table - to stop it."
Farber was part of the effort to have the National Science
Foundation set up a network which was called CSNET as a way to
extend access to the ARPANET to NSF supported academic and
industrial researchers . He expressed his hope that CSNET would
become a force to change the frustrating situation.(24)
Usenet users had to use some kind of gateway to post to
any ARPANET mailing list. "Certain newsgroups (fa.all)," a
user on Usenet explained, "are not supposed to be posted to by
people. Rather, you are supposed to mail to ucbvax! to
get it to the arpanet people too...Another reason was the gateway
restriction-- direct replies didn't work!"(25)
ARPANET users also encountered difficulties with
communication using the ARPANET. Describing the problem MIT
experienced as a result of its efforts to support the ARPANET
mailing lists, a user at MIT wrote: "There is always a threat of
official or public accusations of misuse of the networks for
certain mailing lists. This actually happened with a list called
WINE-LOVERS and Datamation [a technical journal]...The
fiasco, nearly resulted in MIT being removed from the network,
and cost us several months of research time while we
fought legal battles to show why our machines should not be
removed from the ARPAnet. We are all in the hands of our
neighbors. The best thing to do is to ensure that we are all
educated as to how to take care of each other and ourselves."(26)
Usenet as a Public Computer Users Network
While the ARPANET was subject to the regulations and
policies set by the U.S. Defense Communications Agency (DCA),
during this period Usenet was considered a public computer users
network. Policies were proposed, and then were subject to
discussion by the Usenet community.
For example, in October, 1981, Horton proposed the following
statement of policy for Usenet:
USENET is a public access network. Any User is allowed to
post to any newsgroup (unless abuses start to be a problem).
All users are to be given access to all newsgroups except
that private newsgroups can be created which are protected.
In particular, all users must have access to the net and fa
newsgroups, and to local public newsgroups such as general
[net.general].
He continued:
"The USENET map is also public at all times, and so any site
which is on USENET is expected to make public the fact that
they are on USENET, their USENET connections (e.g. their sys
file), and the name, address, phone number and electronic
address of the contact for that site for the USENET
directory.(27)
In another post, the writer describing the wide range of
topic areas on Usenet, explained:
"The net represents a wide spectrum of interest (everything
from the latest kill-the-millions-hardware to the latest
sci-fi movies)."
He also noted the broad range of sites on Usenet, "The
participants of the net, include major (and not so major)
universities, corporations, think tanks, research centers, and
the like."
"All these people seem to have one thing in common -- the
willingness to discuss any idea, whether it is related to war,
peace, politics, science, technology, philosophy (ethics!),
science fiction, literature, etc. While there is a lot of flame,"
he commented, "the discussion usually consists of well thought
out replys to meaningful questions." (He gave the example of
"Should the Postal Service be allowed to control electronic
mail?....")
And he added, "I am told that a lot of traffic on the net is
not discussion, but real honest-to-goodness work. (Code,
applications, ideas, and such.)"(28)
Those posting to Usenet included Unix users, ARPANET users,
Usenet users working at Bell Labs, at other industrial sites, at
University sites, at government sites, etc. For example, both
Thompson and Ritchie, creators of Unix, sometimes responded to
Usenet discussions. Thompson contributed to the NET.chess
discussions and Ritchie contributed occasionally to fa.unix-
wizards, among other newsgroups.
Following is a description of Usenet posted in March
1982.
"USENET is an international network of UNIX sites with
hookups into the ARPA network, too. It is basically a fancy
electronic Bulletin Board System. Numerous BTL [Bell
Telephone Labs] machines are connected at HO, IH, MH,
with a few elsewhere, too.
In addition, there are major sites at universities: U C
Berkeley, Duke, U Waterloo, and so on (...)
And at industry nationwide:
DEC, Tektronics, Microsoft, Intel, etc.
There are numerous bulletin board categories, set up in a
hierarchy."(29)
The article describes how the "fa" newsgroups on Usenet "can
reach a very large user community, including USENET, sites on
UUCP, Berknet, BLN, and the ARPANET, as well as sites on the
ARPANET which are not on Usenet who get the news via direct
electronic mailing." It explains that "Net.all newsgroups are
available to all people on the entire network who read
netnews."Though not all sites got every newsgroup, "Usenet is
defined as all sites that net.all reaches."
Characterizing Usenet as a logical network, as opposed to a
physical network, Horton explains that Usenet is a network of
sites running netnews software:
"For those of you who don't know, USENET is a logical network
of sites running netnews. Netnews is a network oriented
bulletin board, making it very easy to broadcast a query to
a large base of people. USENET currently has about 50 sites
and is growing rapidly."(30)
Horton emphasizes that Usenet is a users' network. He
explains: "USENET exists for and by the users, and should respond
to the needs of those users."(31)
He also notes that "USENET is a cashless network." This
meant that "No person or organization may charge another
organization for news, except that by prearrangement." He
explains that a site could charge only for the extra expenses
incurred in sending Usenet to another site. And almost every site
that received news had to be willing to forward it to at least
two additional sites.
Horton's policy proposal suggested that articles should be
of high quality, signed, and that offensive articles shouldn't be
posted. "Peer pressure via direct electronic mail will,
hopefully, prevent any further distasteful or offensive articles.
Repeated violations," he noted, "can be grounds for removing a
user or site from the network."
Common to many of the posts in these early years, is the
encouragement that users participate and voice their concerns
and opinions, both in the ongoing discussion in various
newsgroups, as well as in determining the practices and policies
guiding how Usenet functions. For example, Adam Buchsbaum, a high
school student who played an important role in Usenet, started
the NET.columbia newsgroups, a newsgroup about space issues. He
posted the opening message inviting participation:
"Greetings fellow space enthusiasts! This newsgroup was
designed to inform people on developments in our space
program. Although named `columbia,' it will contain articles
about the entire space program, including the shuttle for
which it is named. Please feel free to reply, comment,
criticize, and submit your articles. Also, I hope this will
serve as an open ground for discussion about events in the
space program. Comments, etc. can be mailed to myself
(research!sjb) or submitted directly into the newsgroup. In
all, I hope that this will provide an atmosphere for people
who are interested in the space program to discuss it and be
informed of new events."(32)
Such articles on Usenet, welcoming contributions from all
participants, helped to set a firm foundation for interesting and
lively discussion on early Usenet newsgroups.
Changing to B News
The continuing expansion and popularity of Usenet was
creating the need for changes in the software. Describing some
of the problems that the ever larger number of posts was creating
for those using netnews, Horton explains that A News recorded
subscriptions as a one line pattern, and a timestamp recorded
which messages were read so that you were expected to read all
new Netnews at once. He writes:
"In the Spring of 1981, Usenet had grown to the point where
it was awkward to use A News. It was important to read news
in newsgroup order (not by time of arrival) and to quit in
the middle leaving some news unread. Also, the user
interface of A news resembled V7 /bin/mail, and users were
expressing a preference for other e-mail styles (Mail, MH,
etc) and for the Berkeley msgs program."(33)
At the time, Horton was finishing up his dissertation so he
didn't have the time to do the needed work. Fortunately, however,
as Horton recounts, "One day, into my office walked Matt
Glickman. He was a local high school student on spring break,
looking for a computer project. We teamed up to design B news,
and he did most of the coding that week. (The actual production
release of B news was announced by Matt at the Winter 1982
Usenix.) I'll never forget the smile on Matt's face when he told
me, "You know, you've made my spring break!"
Horton explains, "B News was patterned after the Rand MH
e-mail program, and designed to be compatible enough that MH
could be used to read the news. It put each newsgroup in a
separate directory (causing a 14 byte limit on newsgroup names
that lasted until years later when subgroups made subdirectories)
and used a `.newsrc' file to record newsgroup subscriptions and
which messages were read. Horton notes, "It defaulted to a msgs-
style user interface and provided a read-it-all-now escape to a
mail program like Mail. In those days it was also reasonable to
dump it all to a printer and read it like a newspaper."
In a post announcing B News, Glickman described the features
of the new version of Netnews software that was being written:
"I'm working on a new netnews. It is not ready. It is
taking a lot longer that it should. I hope to have a rough
version running locally this week. Initially, the major new
features will be:
1) No more .bitfile, .uindex, or .nindex. Everyone has a
.newsrc file in their home directory which contains a list
of the articles they've already read. This will allow
skipping articles and coming back to them later: random-
access. The same interfaces are around: /bin/mail, msgs,
and print. The -c option still works in the same way, but
I'm beginning work on an improved interface with the
Berkeley Mail program so that netnews will know which
articles were looked at during Mail."
Among the features Glickman describes are a new article
format, an expire feature so articles could be read out of order,
but would be cancelled at a determined date, and the netnews
command was to be split into two commands, inews, to insert news,
and readnews to read news. He also describes how B News provided
directories for each newsgroup in a spool directory and all the
articles had sequentially numbered filenames in their directories.
"I'll try to keep you posted on late-breaking developments,"
Glickman promised.(34)
Automating AT&T and Usenet
In the summer of 1981, Horton received his graduate degree
from the University of California at Berkeley and went to work in
Columbus, Ohio at a Bell Labs facility there.
During this period AT&T was automating much of its
operations and it recognized that helping to develop and
participate in Usenet, and the UUCPnet that was being developed
along with Usenet, could help AT&T solve some of the problems
raised by its pioneering efforts developing large scale software
systems.
Bob Rosin in a post on Usenet, described the difficulties
that those working on large-scale software projects encountered
and the important technological problem this represented:
"There is no cheap, easy way to accumulate the years of
experience necessary to deal with complex software based
systems. One need only examine the ugly reinventions of
assembly language generated by ignorant non-converts and to
watch thousands of neophytes wallow in the pits of personal
computer assemblers to realize that, while software is in
its infancy, people who have studied and built software are
way ahead of the great unwashed."(35)
Recognizing difficulties inherent in large scale software
projects, there were those at Bell Labs who labored to encourage
management to improve the software development environment. This
included adopting and spreading Usenet and email among
programmers. One such article posted on Usenet described these
efforts:
"There is a lot of effort going on now to try to convince
management in Bell Labs to improve the software work
environment. Good electronic mail and bulletin boards are an
important part of that environment. There is a lot of
interest in netnews here, with lots of people from
management and even the legal department looking at it."(36)
During this period, Bell Labs was doing work to develop and
implement the 5 ESS switch. Describing how the 5 ESS was an all
purpose switch that would replace the other switches that had
been developed for particular purposes. John Hobson wrote in
Human-Nets:
"Yes, there is such a thing as a #5 ESS. This is a bigger
and better ESS, designed to be a replacement for all others.
That is, there is one basic configuration, and different
versions depending on the capacity needed. This is an
improvement over the #1/1A, #2, #3 and #4 ESSes, which are
fundamentally different machines, each designed to cover one
range of live trunk numbers. (#1/1A is used in large,
metropolitan switching offices, #4 in small, rural ones.)
The #5 ESS is expected to be out in the field sometime next
year."(37)
The 5 ESS project was a large scale programming project
involving many programmers and over a million lines of computer
code. Describing the 5 ESS project in a post that appeared on
Usenet, the writer explains:
"Our project (#5 ESS) uses a lot of remote command
execution to support our multi-machine development scenario
(13 11/70's + 2 VAXes + 1 IBM 3033 - AP). This environment
is treated as though it is what it isn't, a single machine.
That is we have developers spread across 7 - 9 PDP-11's + a
370 and they all work on the same project [We produce `load
modules' for 3 processor types...that way.]"(38)
Several articles on Usenet describe how difficult it often
was for system adminstrators to convince their management that it
was worthwhile to support Usenet at a work site. For example,
describing the situation at Bell Labs, one poster wrote:
"Much of the netnews distribution within bell labs is done
without any explicit approval. I would be surprised to learn
that many of other of the corporate participants in Usenet
had explicit approval from management. This makes us all
very vulnerable."(39)
Another poster from `cincy', a site at the University of
Cincinnati, in the Department of Computer Science and
Engineering, verified that this was the situation elsewhere. He
wrote:
"When I was at cincy, we had a HARD fight to get the
administration to pay the bill."(40)
Because of the difficulties that those at commercial sites
had maintaining their participation in Usenet, a debate developed
between those who felt that Usenet should be uncensored and those
who felt that an uncensored Usenet might lead their management to
cut off access to Usenet. One poster from "tektronix" explained
the dilemna:
"I am beginning to wonder about USENET. I thought it was
supposed to represent electronic mail and bulletins among a
group of professionals with a common interest, thus
representing fast communications about important technical
topics. Instead it appears to be mutating into electronic
graffiti. If the system did not cost anything, that would be
fine, but for us here at Tektronix, at least, it is costing
us better than $200 a month for 300-baud long distance to
copy lists of people's favorite movies, and recipes for
goulash, and arguments about metaphysics and so on. Is this
really appropriate to this type of system?"(41)
There were also those at University and government sites who
were fearful that certain types of posts might jeopardize grants
their sites received. Others maintained that Usenet should be
uncensored, but that sites could decide what newsgroups they
would carry or what posts they might read. For example, one
Usenet user wrote:
"What I would really like is to work out methods that would
allow as free a flow of information as possible. Some of the
problem with the lack of control we have now (i.e. either
too many newsgroups/lists or too many messages on one list)
may be solvable by implementing new tools and conventions
without resorting to brute force. I believe that there are
limits to how much the group of users on one machine can
store and comprehend, and that we ought to try to have this
be what moderates groups (along with a certain amount of
peer-pressure to keep the quality up). Something more along
the lines of democracy or physical law than dictatorship,
anarchy or even socialism."(42)
Some sites felt that the content of Usenet should be
restricted to topics that management or funding agencies would
approve of. Others argued that a site could choose which
newsgroups to carry, but that shouldn't limit the broad range of
newsgroups that would be available. In summarizing a discussion
on this issue that took place at Usenix, Horton noted that
newsgroups that seem trivial to one site might be important to
another and he reported that those discussing the problem at the
Usenix meeting felt that sites could determine what they would
carry, but shouldn't impose their tastes on all of Usenet.
A similar debate occurred on the Unix-wizards mailing list.
A post reports that some Unix-wizards had dropped off the mailing
list complaining about the trivia on the list. Others responded
that they didn't want anyone deciding what they could read or not
read, so they wanted the list to remain uncensored.
Cross Atlantic Link
Not only were links within North America difficult to
establish, but Dik Winter, from Amsterdam in the Netherlands,
describes how the first cross Atlantic Usenet link was delayed
until 1982/83 because of the difficulty of acquiring an auto
dialer modem that conformed to European standards. "In Europe,"
he writes, the two people responsible for the link were Teus
Hagen and Piet Beertema," both at the Mathematisch Centrum, a
research site in Amsterdam (now called CWI). The Mail link was
between decvax <-> mcvax . It connected the site `decvax' at
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in the U.S. with `mcvax' in
the Netherlands.
Beertema recounts how the early transport of News into
Amsterdam was from "philabs" a site at the North American
research laboratory for the Dutch company Phillips.
Hagen writes that European Unix users who met in European
DEC meetings began to do networking in the late 1970's. He
describes how relationships were established between Peter
Collinson from the University of Kent in England, Simon Kenyon of
the Imperial College in Dublin, Ireland, Yves Devilles from
INDRIA in Paris, France, Keld Simonsen from the University of
Copenhagen in Denmark, Johan Helsingius of the University of
Helsinki in Finland, Daniel Karrenberg of the University of
Dortmund in Germany and others from other university and technical sites
like the Technical University in Vienna, Austria, the University
of Stockholm in Sweden and Siemens and Olivetti, and his site at
the Mathematical Center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Eventually email via UUCP was established with support from
Armando Stettner at DEC laboratories. Hagen describes how those
involved wanted also to have "a regular exchange of news articles
(USENET) as well." Usenet in Europe, he explains, "was born from
a tape I took with me from [the] San Francisco USENIX
conference...back to Amsterdam." At a USENIX conference in San
Francisco, Hagen met Dan Lorenzeni from Philabs. Since Lorenzeni
worked with Phillips, whose Mother firm was from Holland, and
Hagen was from Holland, an agreement was made to have Lorenzeni
send Hagen tapes of news articles. Hagen describes how a 1200
baud UUCP intercontinental link was set up between "philabs" in
the U.S. and "mc" in Holland. He explains that they couldn't use
any 2400 baud modems as that "equipment was unreliable,
expensive, and modems from different manufacturers could not talk
to each other." On one occasion, Hagen remembers he came into the
office "rather early (9:30 am) and noticed that the 1200 baud
modem [was] still running. UUCP US and UUCP Holland were sending
each other resync messages." It was running from 7 pm the
previous night to the [next] morning. "Within 5 minutes," Hagen
remembers, he was in the Director's Office "trying to explain the
high phone bill" which they had run up using "equipment which was
not even allowed" as the law in Holland didn't allow use of a
1200 baud modem. "After that," Hagen continues, "we made an
arrangement with Dan to share more of the costs."(43)
Lorenzeni, who helped to set up the news link between
"philabs" and "mc" concurs. He describes how he worked with
Hagen and Beertema to set up the link. "From the beginning,"
he writes, "they only wanted certain newsgroups. So they supplied
me with the list." Lorenzeni notes, "From the start, I thought
USENET was a great thing and promoted it as much as possible.
Over time the S/N [sound/noise] ratio got worse and worse, but it
was always fun."(44)
Hagen describes some of the frustration that European
participants in Usenet experienced. He writes, "I can remember a
fight in net.general when someone in the U.S...complained about
posts from Europe. The person," Hagen recounts, said "we were
dummies as we introduced errors in the date/time stamp" on the
posts from Europe. "He was complaining," Hagen explains, about
"the fact that he was reading news articles which were replies"
to posts though they were dated "a day earlier [than] the
original post." He forgot, Hagen explains, that the U.S. was in a
different time zone.
Hagen explains how there were several other problems faced by
the European netnews community, such as high phone costs, leading
them to work out a way all would share in the costs. This led to
a well organized network of "backbones" connecting UNIX user
groups in different countries. Also, language differences were a
problem to be dealt with. One of the results, Hagen remembers,
was in a message to all news readers noting that international
meant "not everyone is speaking their own national language."
Hagen also describes how he presented the potential of a European net
at a conference of EUUG (European Unix User Groups) in Paris with
a presentation where he showed e-mail and news and made available
some illegal modems which were spread throughout Europe.
In the following post from 1983, Jim McKie at Mathematisch
Centrum, describes the some of the difficulties confronting these
early European Usenet users. He writes:
"Well, the net isn't collapsing over here, and is already
run on a pay-as-you-read basis. I can't speak for the UK,
and I am sure, as in all things, the UK would not like
somewhere else in Europe to speak for her (the UK is only
GEOGRAPHICALLY close to Europe), but the UK gets it's news
free from vax135; I don't know how much they get. And we get
a small number of groups through philabs, ones which people
asked us to get, not a blanket coverage anymore. Hopefully
we will soon be getting some more news groups from decvax,
and to those sites which ask for them, we will redistribute.
Another major manufacturer has offered some free satellite
time, which we are investigating....We are in the fortunate
position of starting up late and having someone (Teus Hagen)
who put things on a nice footing....But it means we have to
keep trying to find cheaper ways to obtain the groups, so we
can afford to make some mistakes and chuck them later.
However, the real problem is that the (soon to be) 3 news
feeds supply different groups, and there is no net.anything
passed between the UK and Europe, so we would perhaps not
get a fair and unbiased choice...."(45)
Several of the European Usenet pioneers report that DEC soon
became involved in helping to get Usenet to Europe.
Winter also describes the difficulties that those working to
provide a Usenet link to Australia faced, having to transport
Usenet via computer tape via airplane in the earliest days to
provide Australia - North American connectivity.
Setting a Foundation for the Future
Many of the academic, industrial and government sites
participating in the early days of Usenet were involved with
computer software or hardware research. The developing network of
Usenet sites helped to provide the Unix community with the
technical and social support they needed to keep computers
functioning and to deal with the perennial upgrades as computer
development advanced. Often people online would ask for advice or
offer information or programs to others so that people could
build on each other's experiences, rather than "reinventing the
wheel."
In additional to such technical cooperation, newsgroups were
developed to discuss a wide range of topics, including world-wide
ubiquitous networking in the future (Human-Nets), science fiction
(sci-fi lovers), computer games (NET.games), etc. Socializing was
encouraged in NET.singles (or NET.social), recipes were exchanged
in NET.food. Music was discussed and recommended in NET.music.
The developments and problems of the space program were discussed
in NET.columbia (on Usenet) and NET.space (on the ARPANET mailing
list).(46)
As the interests of people were reflected in their
suggestions for new newsgroups, online discussions developed over
how to create a process that would make the desired groups
possible. The early development of a newsgroup creation process
and the discussion over how to structure that process help to
demonstrate that a great deal of effort by many people was
expended to create a functional and democratic procedures
for the early Usenet. The earliest newsgroups were all
unmoderated. Everyone had the right to participate and contribute
their views. A rich and interesting content emerged that
surprised even the participants themselves.
The development and spread of computers require new means
of communication like Usenet. A great deal of effort and
discussion went into creating Usenet. This has provided Usenet
with the strong foundation needed to support the technical and
educational needs that result from the increasing use of
computers in our times. Usenet has grown and flourished and in
turn serves the needs of those using and developing computer
technology.
The Unix community gave the world high tech software tools
that could perform wondrous feats with simple programs.(47) The
Usenet community took these tools and used them to open up and
create channels for communication so that those in the online
Unix community could help each other wield the tools. In a
society that hopes to progress in this era of rapidly developing
computer hardware and growing demands for computer software, more
and more of the population needs to have access both to the tools
and to the means of communication needed to wield these tools.
This is the foundation of the cooperative and democratic culture
that Usenet has pioneered and made possible. It is important to
understand and build on these roots and to nourish and expand
this cooperative culture. It is important to make this
cooperative networking culture, this marriage of an ever larger
network of computers and people, available to ever broader
sectors of the population if the promise of computer technology
to provide a better and more productive world, is to be realized.
We are much closer to the dream of a WorldNet today, than we were
in 1979, thanks to the hard work of the Usenet pioneers in
setting a firm foundation. We will need to build on the
foundation they set, if we hope to make the dream of a WorldNet,
of ubiquitous computer networking, a reality.
-------------------------
Notes
(1) The following account is from email correspondence from Tom
Truscott, which has been compiled into an unpublished interview
"Interview with Tom Truscott: On the Environment and Early Days
of Usenet News."
(2) The paper was by Claude E. Shannon, "A Chess-Playing Machine",
Scientific American, February 1950, p. 48.
(3)The next oldest paper Truscott found was by Alex Bernstein and
M. de V. Roberts, "Computer versus Chess-Player," Scientific
American, June 1958.
(4) This was the July, 1974 paper by Dennis M. Ritchie and Ken
Thompson, "The Unix Time-Sharing System", published in
Communications of the ACM, Vol 17 no 7, pp. 365-375.
A reference to chess is on p. 375.
(5) Usenet Archives, Steve Bellovin, Wed Oct 10 19:48 PDT 1990:
Available via ftp: weber.ucsd.edu .
(6) Email correspondence from Tom Truscott.
(7) Email correspondence with Mark Horton, August 1995. Horton
like Truscott, was introduced to programming using
BASIC. He writes, "It was about all a High School student had
access to in 1970. First on the GE system, but that was
expensive. First Portland and then San Dieguito HS's got
access to HP 2000 BASIC systems with unlimited usage."
In describing what he felt is some of the importance
of BASIC, Horton writes, " I don't know if BASIC itself
is that key in the development of TS systems, but it may be
another example of one thing that drove UNIX: having your
own computer with unlimited cycles is far better than buying
expensive cycles on some other machine you can't control. I
think that's what's made PCs so popular, too."
(8) Mark Horton, Mon Oct 15 19:49 PDT 1990, Usenet History Archives
Available via ftp: weber.ucsd.edu .
(9) Mark Horton, Tue Nov 24 04:51 PST 1992, Usenet History
Archives.
(10) Email communication from Mark Horton.
(11) Email communication from Truscott.
(12) Rich Zellich, 16 Feb. 1982, posted on Usenet in post by
btempleton, watmath.2114, Subject: Arpanet mailing list
directory.
(13) 17 Oct 1982, Zaleski at Ru-Gren, Subject: Why not AT&T for
World Net by Michael Zaleski.
(14) 19 Oct 1982, Greg Skinner, ,
Subject: Worldnet responses.
(15) 03 June 1981, Jorge Phillips, Subject: administrivia.
(16) cincy.151, fa.unix-wizards, cincy!chris, Tue Apr 7 13:16:12
1981, Subject: to unix-wizards.
(17) A. Feather, pur-ee.123, net.general, pur-ee!aef, Mon Aug 24
15:13:14 1981, Subject: UUCP gateway.
(18) esquire.127, net.general, Wed Aug 26 09:48:51, UUCP gateway,
Re: A Feather's suggestion.
(19) ucbvax.2946, fa.unix-wizards, Re: PROPER FORUM,
mike@bmd70@BRL, Fri Sep 4 14:55:10 1981.
(20) ucbvax.2858, Sat Aug 29 10:17:34 1981, purdue!cak.
(21) Geoff Peck, ucbvax.2842, fa.unix-wizards, ARPAnet access.
(22) ucbvax.2946, fa.unix-wizards, Re: PROPER FORUM,
mike@bmd70@BRL, Fri Sep 4 14:55:10 1981.
(23) FA.unix-wizards, ucbvax.3198.
(24) ucbvax.2955, Sat Sep 5 07:34:34 1981, from farber@udel.
See description of CSNET in Appendix IV.
(25) Net.news, cbosgd.113, Sat Oct 3 19:51:41 1981, Re news.
(26) ucbvax.5782, fa.digest-p, Thu Jan 14 05:46:13 1982, From
cStacey@MIT.AI.
(27) NET.news, cbosgd.120, Tue Oct 13 20:56:30 1981,
cbosgd!mark, Subject: Whether the sys and uuname files are
public.
(28) NET.news, wolfvax.53, net.news, wolfvax!jcz, Mon Nov 2
21:47:32 1981, Net Names, In Real Life: Carl Zeigler, Location
NCSU, Raleigh.
(29) ucbarpa.1182, net.sources, Subject: ARPAVAX: Usenet, Tue, Apr
20, 1950:48 1982, misc/newsinfo, from eiss!ladm, Fri Mar 19
16:20:27.
(30) Mark Horton, fa.unix-wizards, ucbvax.4080, Sun Sep 27
22:04:41 1981, Usenet membership.
(31) NET.news, cbosgd.794, Wed Dec 23 21:28:32 1981, Subject:
Proposed Usenet policies.
(32) net.columbia, research!sjb, Thu Sep 17 07:28:50 1981,
Adam Buchsbaum kept the official list of newsgroups and published
it regularly to the net for several years in the mid 1980s.
(33) From email correspondence from Mark Horton, Mon Jul 24
15:26:45 1995. Mark explains that A news recorded
subscriptions as a one-line pattern, and a timestamp
recorded which messages were read - you were expected to
read all new Netnews at once.
(34) Aucbonyx.118 NET.news utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!Onyx:glickman
Fri May 16 10:29:40 1980 New Netnews.
(35) Bob Rosin, Bell Labs, Linroft, N.J., houxf.148,
NET.general, houxf!rosin, Fri May 7 09:26:53 1982, Re:
debugging microcode in writable control store.
(36) NET.news, ihnss.995, net.news, ihnss!warren, Subject:
Misconceptions about Bell Labs Netnews Content.
(37) Human-Nets Digest, 28 May 1981.
(38) NET.blfp, alanr, Subject: Remote Command Execution, File
Installation, Tues Jul 21 10:42:15.
(39) ihnss!warren, ihnss.995, Subj: Misconceptions about Bell
Labs, Netnews Content.
(40) pursue.139, net.general, net.news, cak, Sat Dec 17
19:27:08 1981, Subj: Freedom of the dataways.
(41) NET.misc, dadlaA.98, net.misc, dadlaA!steve, Mon Mar 15
21:56:49 1982, Subject: Trivia on the Net.
(42) Asri-unix.429, net.news utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!menlo70!sri-unix!knutsen
Tue Jan 5 17:46:42 1982, USENET policy reposted from
Date: 15 Dec 1981 at 1522-PST
From: Andrew Knutsen
Subject: Re: read-only newsgroups (net.news cbosg.193)
(43) Email correspondence from Teus Hagen, August 1995.
(44) Email correspondence from Dan Lorenzeni, August 1995.
(45) Dec. 15 1981 at 1522, Andrew Knutsen .
(46) Wed, 3-Aug-83 01:12:41 EDT
Jim McKie Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam
...{decvax|philabs}!mcvax!jim
(mcvax.5322) net.news : Re: cost of sending netnews to aliens.
(47) A listing of all the newsgroups available by March, 1982 is
in the appendix.
(48) See for example the thunderclap in the Appendix III.
-------------------------------
Appendices are available. See url in below.
Thank yous to Tom Truscott, Mark Horton, Rob Scott, Dik Winter,
Russell Lowell and others on Usenet for their comments on an
earlier draft and their helpful suggestions. In addition, thank yous
to Teus Hagen and Dan Lorenzeni for their helpful info about setting
up the Cross-Atlantic link. Also, thanks to Henry Spencer and
others at the University of Toronto for archiving early Usenet
posts so folks today can have some of the joy we hear about
from the pioneers of being able to read every Usenet post back then.
And thanks to Bruce Jones for his work setting up the Usenet history
online archives at weber.ucsd.edu and for making
material available online.
---
Ronda Hauben rh120@columbia.edu
Working on an updating of The Netizens Book - Drafts
for Comment are available at
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/project_book.html
The Netizens and the Wonderful World of the Net
An Anthology on the History and Impact of the Net
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/project_book.html