From: eugene@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)
Newsgroups: alt.amateur-comp,alt.folklore.computers,alt.culture.usenet
Subject: Re: Input Need for Talk on "Usenet News:The Poor Man's Arpanet"
Date: 27 Jan 93 19:24:04 GMT
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA

>In article <1k2a98INNhgf@srvr1.engin.umich.edu> ronda@ais.org
>(Ronda Hauben) writes:
>>ronda@ais.org responding: 
>>   But weren't those who had been excluded from the ARPANET both
>>aware of that exclusion and also interested in having access to
>>a similar valuable network?

I wrote:
>No, they had no concept, and to this day, many people don't fully see
>what something like the ARPAnet meant back then, even the term internet.
>Your environment tends to color the way you tend look to at computing.
>Our site decided to drop payment in 1975.  It was a stupid decision,
>but then I was an undergrad.  The management could not see the value.

I want to add one thing this this.  Our site was one of the very first
four nodes of the ARPAnet.  The ARPAnet is a grand thing of the time.
You could go across to computers thousands of miles away and run on
accounts on them, play chess, access supercomputers (if you had access),
etc.  It was a playground for hackers.  It was small enough that you could
"test door knobs" at every site.  It was that freedom to do that as a
teenager which makes computer networking and software in the US so strong.

I realize how fortunate I was because of the relatively closed and huge
nature of the Internet.  The only place I know which retains a degree of
that atmosphere are certain areas of the computer industry like Xerox PARC,
DEC's labs and research Center, Apple, etc. (even certain IBM research labs).

I thought for a while it would have been neat to package a mini-ARPAnet as
a distributed systems learning tool.  It would be a test bed for teaching
networks, computer security (I've a paper on this I might publish it), and
other aspects.  I think there is too much fear out there.  I think a student
should have access to a system which they can totally trash in safety
(and not).  We learn by making errors.

>Attempts to duplicate the ARPAnet either commercially or in other countries
>have failed to live up to the same degree as the net.
>
>The ARPAnet was funded, designed, and built by truly visionary men (mostly).
>
>Exclusion is not the right word.  Most people were still using punch cards
>in those days.

Computer science Departments were in their infancy at the time.  The typical
battle was between control by the mathematics departments and the EE depts.
CS is neither.  The mathematicians (I was one) have no idea how to manage a
CS Dept.  Even the mighty Knuth wrote abut the differences (also saw the
talk).  I think CS departments founded by indifferent math depts are a
waste.  The EE people don't understand software.  The world is all perfectly
logical (almost as bad as the physicists).  BTW: this was all done for
$$, and departmental power.  A lot of people did not like and still do not
like computer science and computers.  Turing never described the ARPAnet,
networks were not seen as computing, it was EE, an extension of telephony.

>It's like trying to describe Berkeley job control to a VMS user or an
>MS/DOS user (why would you want the thing?) or the first mice and windowing
>systems to people with vt100s and IBM 3270s.  FTP and telnet are two
>programs which changed my life (as did Alto Star Trek).

What you have to do is understand that you are always in a constant state
of igorance.  That there exists something out there, you aren't going
to understand (love, freedom, technology, etc.)  You have to have a critical
eye, an open by skeptical and at the same time encouraging perspective.
It was the people who didn't understand that we need to leave behind.

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@orville.nas.nasa.gov
  Associate Editor, Software and Publication Reviews
  Scientific Programming
  {uunet,mailrus,other gateways}!ames!eugene
Seeking Books to buy:	Bongard, Pattern Recognition
			3 down 1 to go.

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@orville.nas.nasa.gov
  Resident Cynic, Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers
  {uunet,mailrus,other gateways}!ames!eugene
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A Ref: Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning, vol. 1, G. Polya
Newsgroups: alt.amateur-comp