From: whir@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Rick Allard)
Subject: who, where, what is the Net? -- 33 answers
Summary: a narrow subpopulation
Organization: nil
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 00:01:45 GMT

Early June 26 in my taste for Cagey aleatory I posted a modest,
randomly distributed survey to the net, as it appears from here.  I
mailed out the same questions -- those should be clear from the
answers -- to 80 random addresses picked like this: We get (well, 3
weeks ago) more than 1450 newsgroups.  I picked 80 at random and then
an article within, also randomly.

I know this isn't as representative as possible, but it provided a
sketch, clearer, I think, than the mail and so forth that I've been
using for well over five years.

For example, I would have previously assumed that more systems were
Unix.  I'm including the whole text of the survey, even though large,
because it gives a picture that I couldn't show in a summary, however,
every respondant was male and the age at 32 +/- 10.

My favorite is the single letter answer (I assume it's that) to the last
question.

So, sadly, the usual person here is not yet the one that needs this
voice.



---------------------

38, male, london.

a sun3/50 runing unix.
mh.
bbc (mh bulletin boards reader) + vi for the actual message
composition.

about five minutes.
ten years or so.

university lecturer.  english.

comfortable, as in used to it and too lazy to learn new things,
but, in fact, bbc is almost useless.


departmental politics and economics have more to do with what equipment
and systems i use than any rational consideration of functionality or
ergonomics or stuff like that.




24, Male. I live in Cambridge, in the UK.


IBM MVS/XA. Inputting this right now with an IBM 3278-2 terminal. I read
this mail with a locally-written mailer using UK academic mail protocols
(i.e. "Grey Book"). Posted the article using 'rn' running on an Ultrix
system, having telnetted out to that system from MVS (still using the
3278), using IBM's TCP/IP for MVS.


Today, 3.5 hours so far. Used mail for 6 years, news (and BITNET mailing
lists) for about 1 year.


Systems programmer. English.


Yes.




	32, male.
	Near Washington, D.C. and Baltimore.


	This is hard to be specific.  Silicon Graphics.  I'm on a PC with
terminal emulation.  I use rn to read news, and emacs e-mail to post
through a gateway.  I could post News on another terminal, but it's a
hassle.


	Today, 15 minutes.  Months, 7.

	Oceanographer.  Natural language is English.

	yes.





	Well, that's very interesting...you certainly have a lot of free time, eh?


	Male, 24 years old. Pittsburgh

	USA


	The Andrew Distributed File System. DEC. ATK Messages. Batmail.

	About 10 minutes. About 10 years.

	Programmer Analyst. Just like it says in my .sig.
	Chinese & English.

	Sure.
	
	You have disgwaced a Shaowin temple!


	You're welcome!!





WASP male, New Haven CT.


SGI Iris Indigo / Sun SParcstation; yes it's the same one(s).


3 hours; 9 years


Computer science grad student, English


Quite.


I wonder what the percentage of professional computer-dweebs like myself is,
in your little survey; how many infidels (non-computer types) there are on the
net.


Yes, I am comfortable with  the "technology that I am currently using".





30, male.  Montreal, Quebec, Canada.


Typing this on a MIPS computer; reading mail with MH and emacs; read and post
news with "nn".
 

Been using mail for 10 years, news for 8.
 

Computer consultant.  French.


Very.





Age : 27
Gender: male
Town: Hillsboro (10 miles from Portland, OR)
Country : USA

System : MicroVax II
Equipment (inputting): keyboard(?)
Program for reading mail: "mail" 
Posting: Pnews

Past 2 years !

Graduate Student

Yes !






Sure I can do this.  I am a 21 year-old mail in Lawrence, Kansas, USA.
I am on a VAX9000 at the University of Kansas.  I've been using the system
since last fall when I had my first CS class here.  I am a full time student
and speak english only.               

Let me know if I can do any more.




	I'm a 32 year old male, and I live in Milpitas (near San Jose in the
    San Francisco Bay area of Northern California, USA).


	I use a Mips Magnum 3000 Unix-based with X-windows.  I normally use
    either xrn or rn to read news, and XMail or Unix mail to read mail.  The
    article referenced was posted automatically from a cron job that calls
    a program I wrote as input to inews.


	I've been using the Mips for around 2 years, using mail for around 10
    years, and reading/writing news for about 2 years.


	I am a Software Engineer with a major CAD/CAE company, and have spoken
    English (American) all my life.


	Yes, but impatient.  The technology for much better systems is here
    today, but those systems have not been produced for one reason or another.
    I'm confident that this technology will continue to improve, however.







I am 24, male, and I live in Berkeley, California.


Sun UNIX 4.1.1.


Sun SPARCstation ELC.


Mail


Pnews


An hour


Nine years.


I am a research mathematician.  When I was young I spoke only
Polish, but now I speak only English.


Yes.




27, male, albany, new york, united states, mac classic networked to sun 2,
mail, nn, 20 minutes, 5 years, university professor, english, yes very

internet is the single most powerful tool i have access to




Age: 40+, 50-
Gender: heterosexual male, white, Ashkenazic Jew (Byelorussian)
Location: Beaverton, OR USA
Sequent "S" series -- mailer unknown -- I use "rn"
ten minutes -- five years -- two years
Computer scientist, applied mathematician, telemarketer
English -- first and ONLY
Yes
It sure beats a hex keypad!






	51 Years old - Male


	Vienna VA


	USA (or E.E.U.U. if you live in Latin America).
(I'm in the greater Washington D.C. area)




	Sun Workstation (Old - Sun 3/140)

	Both systems are personally owned, as are several others in the
house.


	elm (see headers for version)


	trn


	About two and one-half hours (since I got home)



	This one is slightly more difficult to answer unambiguously, since
for most of the time that I had e-mail, I was able to read digests of the
comp.unix.wizards newsgroup from brl.mil, and to post to that one newsgroup
by bouncing e-mail off the same system.  Then for about six months, I was
getting an e-mail feed, but did not have ennough disk space to contemplate
netnews, so I was getting selected newsgroups forwarded to me via e-mail.  I
was able to post to comp.unix.wizards as above, and there was a similar site
found for unix-pc.general (latter moved to comp.sys.3b1).  I would guess
that I have been reading and posting news (from c-news running on my home
system) for about two or two and a half years.


	Till about three months ago, i had been an electronics technician,
but at that time, I was made system administrator to a cluster of Suns and
Solbornes, much to my pleasure.


	English.


	Absoulutely!  (Since I got into this by playing with computers at
home from the days in 1975 when MITS released the Altair 680b (not the usual
8800 that most at that period started with.)


	I'd be interested in a summary of this, if you find a way to
condense everybody's answers into a reasonable format, which might be
difficult if others answer many questions in a manner similar to that which
I had to use for some.

	I'm working on getting things so that I (and others) can read and
post from work, though I intend to separate the groups that I read/post to
at work from those which I read/post to at home.  The net can be a big
comsumer of time, but it is also a large potential help, when you can
exchange views with others who experience the same problems.  Note that my
.sig does not contain my work e-mail address, in the interests of keeping
the two groups separate.  (The phone number is sometimes needed, however,
though at present, the work one is incorrect, thanks to an ongoing





31 M


Houston, TX


USA


It's a mishmash. I'm on a terminal connected to a Xenix box accessing news
and mail over an OSI network from a UNIX box on a TCP network.


Televideo 950 terminal, Intel 310 with 386/12 CPU card (multibus-1 mini
architecture).


Elm.


TRN


10 hours.


10 years.


Support programmer.

English (Australian).


No, my table is too high and it's aggravating my repetitive strain injury.


Please summarise to the net.




20, M.  Denton, TX, USA

Ponder. Sequent running UNIX (calling in from a 286 clone I built).
Elm.  NN.

15 minutes.  On Internet -- two years.  On BBS's -- five years.

Student.  English
 

n 


I live in Worcester, Mass,

I have a Gateway 80386-25 16mb and the keyboard needs some explaining.
I have Cerebral Palsy and can't speak or walk. I use a voice 
synthesizer to speak.  This has a small fm transmitter.  I have 
a receiver on top of my computer.  The letters which I send are 
fed into a converter and fed into the keyboard port of the computer.

I posted that article with the xxx computer science department's
Encore computer and that runs BSD Unix.  I don't know the version 
of Pnews we have but that is what I used to post that article.


How long have you been using the system today?  How many months or
years have you been using mail, and reading, and writing news?

I have been on the college computer about one hour.  I have used e-mail 
for five years, and I have had access to news one year.


I am a graduate student at xxx for computer science and my first language
is English.

Are you comfortable with the technology you're presently using?
My communicator can only type about 30 words a minute, and 
we feel this is not fast enough for the work place.
If you are asking if I am on a computer that I don't know very well,
the answer is no.  I have a lot of experience with different computers
and this computer is one of the best I have seen.

I have a strange set up for a computer.	I don't know if you feel 
my answers are out of the norm, but if they need clarifying,
let me know.
 







1. I am 20 years old. Man!
2. I live in HsinChu City,  in Taiwan.
3.  The system I use id UNIX system V
4. I use PC for inputing device.
5. I read mail by "mail", and read news by "tin".
6. I use this system about 1 year.
7. I use mail and read/write news for about 3 months.
8. I am a student now.
9. The system? May be confortable with that...




**** How about letting me see your results?


Male, 58, Buffalo, NY, USA


PC Clone (Procomm) to VAX/VMS Mail


1/2 hour  Gee, I dunno - maybe 3 -4 years


College Prof. English


I guess so.
Could be improved.





40, Mail
Avonsleigh (a rural community in the Dandenong Ranges 60 km from Melbourne)
Australia
Dec VAX 6420 cluster
VT320
VMS Mail
ANU News
60mins
15 years
VAX System and Network Administrator
English
Yes



 




Hi Rick,

male, 37, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

DOS 5.0-> pc/anywhere -> DOS 3.3-> novell -> net3270 -> VM/SP -> MUSIC
(you pick which system!)
Packard Bell 386 (office PS/2 model 50)
Mail Program: MUSIC's MAIL program
Newsreader: MUSIC's RN program (same name, but not the RN on UNIX)

today, 15 minutes
using mail: 10 years
using newsreaders: about 1/2 year - we just finished developing a
newsreader for our system - I wrote the NNTP support, someone else
the user interface.

occupation: software developer (programmer!)
natural language mother tongue: English

yes, although by the nature of what I do, I obviously am in the
business of making that technology obsolete.

This response is perhaps out of the ordinary - I'm not a typical
user of our system - I'm one of the developers. McGill University
markets the MUSIC system (Multi-User System for Interactive Computing)
via IBM across the world - we have sites in the States, of course, and
in Europe, the far East (Japan), Australia, and South America. It
runs on IBM's 370 class machines - yes, that old architecture.
Currently it's a 9370 or 3090 or whatever.

  Good luck to you and your survey.




In response to your questionairre...


I am 23 and male.  I live in Mt. Waverley, a suburb of Melbourne,
Australia.


I am on the Monash University computer system, which is a VAX/VMS
set-up.  Right now I'm using an ICL/KDS terminal.  I don't really
know anything about our mailing program, but my news posting to
which you refer was handled by the ANU NEWS program developed
here in Australia for VAX/VMS systems.


I check the mail as soon as I arrive in the morning, so I've only
been on the system for about half an hour or so.  I started my
Ph.D at the beginning of the year and have only been using mail
and news since then.


I am a Ph.D student, my first, natural and really only language
is English.


I am quite comfortable with the VAX/VMS, in fact the other day I
was trying to help a friend run something on a RISC/6000 running
a Unix operating system and we found it extremely frustrating.
It's probably a case of getting used to a particular way of doing
things.


What is the reason for this survey? Is it simply to get an idea
about who is using the net, etc.?  I had no hesistation in
answering your survey but I guess I would be within my rights
to  refuse to have anything to do with it.  I trust that the
information will not be distributed to other persons who  may
use it for different (sinister??) purposes.  I have no wish
to suddenly start receiving junk mail or worse.

PS.  This user code is actually under the name of my supervisor
and consequently changes hands every few years.





 Hi you !

  I'm 26 years old male

   I live in Joensuu.
   
  Finland. Joensuu is in the eastern Finland. 

   I have use system 3 hours today and will use 3 or 4 hours more

  I got my login one and half months ago.

  I have studied physics in University of Joensuu since autumn 1987.

  Swedish and a little bit Russian (Mehya zovut xxxx = My name is xxxx)

   The using of vi is rather complicated, but the other system is Okay.

  Hope my replies help you.                 

Bye and good luck to you.





24, male. Joensuu, Finland


Solbourne (UNIX), the terminal I'm using is a IBM compatible.
Mail program is ELM, news program is NN (with VI editor)


Today about 5 minutes, altogether about 3 years.


Student (computer science). First natural language is finnish.



Juice




Age: 32
Town: Warrenville IL
Country: USA

looney

Commodore Amiga 3000UXD

mailx

xrn

2 hrs.

5 years

Programmer

English

yes


Send me a copy of your results...

Have fun...




24.8 Male, Denver Colorado (USA)


xxx.cs.du.edu (also xxxx.cs.du.edu).  I am calling remotely with an Apple
//gs and a USR Dual Standard modem.  I am reading mail with elm and I post
with nnpost, though I use Pnews on rare occasions.


A few minutes (replying to mail is the first thing I do).  I have been
reading USENET for about 5 years now (5 years in October).  Same for
email and other related topics.


Consultant/Desktop Publisher/Editor/Writer.  Difficult to say, either
Spanish or English.  I think Spanish was actually first.  I learned both
as an infant though.


I'd be more comfertable with some more current technology (like an x-windows
interface).  But in the overall sense, yeah.  I'm a bit of a techno-head.


Nothing much.  I run a bulletin board system and spend probably 80% of my
time working with computers.  It's my job, my hobby, and most of my
recreaction.  Pathetic, eh?  I am soon to be married, so it's not all THAT
pathetic.  My fiance is not a techie, but I'm working on her.





Male, 42.
Berkeley CA USA.

Unix
Mac Plus terminal to SparcStation.
mail.
Pnews.

10 min.
8 months.

Engineer; English.





28. Male. Melbourne, Australia.

Sun 3/80, X11R5, Emacs with mh-e for mail and GNUS for news. 

About 2hrs, 7 yrs, 7 yrs.

Systems admin, English.

Yes.





36/MALE
BRATISLAVA, CZECHOSLOVAKIA.
UNIX
MEC PC/AT 286
T602 (SECONDARY READING)
UNIX.
NET 1  HOUR
7 MONTHS
SCIENTIST - ARCHITECT/URBAN PLANNER
SLOVAK
YES
BEST REGARDS.



Age: 37
Sex: Male
Home Town:  Stoneham MA
Country:  U.S.A.
System:  Sparcstation II
Brand:   Sun
Reader:  GNU Emacs RMAIL subsystem
Poster:  GNU Emacs GNUS (usenet reader)
Today's Use:  about 1 hour
Using Mail:   13 years (since 1979)
Reading/Writing News:  8 years (since 1984)
Occupation:  Software Engineer
First Natural Language:  English
First Programming Language:  Fortran

> Are you comfortable with the technology you're presently using?

Yes.  GNU Emacs and UNIX both have significant learning curves, but
once over them you really start to appreciate the power of these
technologies.  The major drawback of GNU Emacs is that it is not well
integrated with today's GUI's; it still doesn't exploit X windows,
graphics, multiple fonts, etc.  (Perhaps the upcoming version 19 of
GNU Emacs will address some of this.)




-- 
      W  e     a  r  e     i  n     o  p  e  n     c  i  r  c  u  i  t  s
The signal, where the message is sent, plays equally important role as
the signal, where message is not sent [sic].  --Nam June Paik quoting
Norbert Wiener as a pre-echo to McLuhan.          temp .sig; new in works
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures