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NSFnet — 20 Years of Internet Obscurity and Insight
coondoggie writes "The National Science Foundation (NSF) reissued the words that started the Internet revolution 20 years ago today:
'The NSFnet Backbone has reached a state where we would like to more officially let operational traffic on.'
That was the email sent to users of the NSF's fledgling NSFnet to announce that the network's backbone had been upgraded to a 'blazing T-1 speed.' NSFnet was created by NSF a few years earlier in an attempt to create a computer network similar to the Department of Defense's ARPANET.
When the original six-node, 56 kilobits-per-second NSFnet backbone went into operation in 1986, NSF made the decision to allow any academic, governmental or commercial entity to hook up to this network of networks. Within a few weeks of going online, traffic on the new network began doubling every few weeks. The network's backbone of core 56 kilobits-per-second connections were considered fast, but they were not fast enough to satisfy the demands of all the new users who were coming online, according to the NSF."
When I was a kid I had the idea of networking every BBS together. My plan was basically to run a "management" multi-node BBS in every city via a dedicated modem/phone line that would connect to another management node in the next city (assuming it was a local call) -- theoretically one phone line/modem per outlying city that was a local call...ultimately, chats, messages and files could be sent through the links far and wide through the network of locally dialed/connected BBSs.
I know this was done in more or less an offline manner with message nets, but, I wanted something that was more real-time.
As an example, given cities A, B, and C, where their geographical layout is A - B - C, and people in city A have to pay long distance charges to dial city C, an interconnect or pass through in city B could allow people in city A to communicate with people in city C free of charge.
I had no idea that regular people would be so interested in stuff like that, but, apparently they are...I had no idea of the true potential of stuff like Email and websites (or message and file boards)
I didn't know what to do about crossing state/federal borders, but hey, I was a kid.
My friends who worked for the Physics department got to use the Internet though, because they ran Unix. They had all the source to it too - my friends' jobs was hacking on it.
One of their jobs was making troff output to graphics printers; the original troff only worked with phototypesetters, which were amazing optical devices that got their letterforms from images on filmstrips. The typesetter would load the film for the font you wanted, say to switch from bold to italic, then use the optics to scale the image onto photo paper at the right point size.
There was a huge debate in the astronomy department as to whether we should get on the Internet; it was thought that the expense of porting all of our data analysis software to Unix wouldn't be worth it. It was all written in FORTRAN!
I later transferred to UC Santa Cruz. I think they were on the Internet when I started in 1985, but it may have only been UUCP - Unix to Unix Copy Program, suitable for email and Usenet but not remote login. It worked great for file transfer too, if you knew the bang path from one end to the other. You might have to wait several days for your file to show up, but it generally arrived OK.
Later when I was a sysadmin at Octel Communications, I wrote a shell script called getrfc that would use UUCP to fetch the desired RFC from the IETF file server. My users thought it was the best thing since sliced bread.
Anyway, I knew for sure that at some point UCSC's only connection to the Internet backbone was a 56k leased line to the SF Bay Area, probably to Stanford. This was a campus of thirteen thousand students - which gave out free Unix accounts for the asking! - and thousands of staff and faculty, all connected to the rest of the world via the equivalent of a single 56k dialup connection. But it seemed to work really well!
It happened that I went back to school at UCSC this summer to sharpen my Computer Science skills (my degree is in physics, so my programming is all self-taught). It blew my mind that I could register for classes via a web page from my home in Silicon Valley - the web didn't even exist when I was an undergrad.
I was also quite surprised to find power outlets on each of the desks in the lecture hall. For laptops you know.
I remember being in high school, and my father telling me that someday there would be such a thing as a laptop. I found it hard to imagine.
Kids These Days. You don't know how good you've got it!
Request your free CD of my piano music.
BBSs did this back in the day. Hell, I cant remember what it was called but there would be 3am BBS to BBS phone calls which exchanged forum posts, emails, etc. Worked well, at least in the Chicago area BBSs.
I don't know how it worked exactly, but I fondly remember the days of many BBSes that ran Major BBS software linking up together. It may have been called MajorNet and it allowed not only forums but live chat as well. It was a real kick to be chatting realtime with someone in Iceland!
Now that you've mentioned UUCP, I remembered that at some point (since 1991, 1992..) echomail networks started to offer a e-mail (internet) gateway in certain Fidonet-based networks.
Fidonet itself had this, RBT (AFAIR) had it too, probably others (major ones) aswell.
It was something like you sent a netmail to Gateway@1:234/5 and the subject was the e-mail address.
Your "email" would be something like YourName%2:345/6@gateway.blabla.org.
It might sound awful now but back then, for most people, it was the only way you could contact someone in the internet.
I remember the first time I've heard about I was like "oh, this is so cool" and shortly after "uh, I don't know anyone with an e-mail address"
Those were the days.
Correct me if I am wrong, I believe it originally was illegal, by federal law, to transact commercial business via the internet, being that it was paid for by every American tax payer. I would like to know the legal history of when it became legit for the NSF to allow commercial business to be transacted via the Internet, if anyone has that info.
Damn you. I read the parent post and though "Ah ha! Now is my chance to feel old and wise and mention fidonet". Instead, you and several others already replied, so now I'm just old and late to the game as usual.
I do miss the old dial up bbs days, though. Good times.
Only loosely related, but a few years back I actually ran into someone on the internet, completely by chance, who I used to chat with on a local dialup bbs where I grew up nearly 10 years after all of the bbs' died out and I had moved halfway across the country. That was really cool.
The first Terminator movie came out three years before the NSF backbone and ten eyars before the popular Mosaic browser. They predicted a destructive linking of defense computers called SkyNet.