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Actually, speed doesn't matter all that much - but his contact info
is online, so I'll just reach out. Thanks guys!<br>
<div class="moz-forward-container"> <br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 3/12/18 3:52 PM, Vint Cerf wrote:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAHxHggeCpLcw-RMqNYM-uqtKcL=OswTe+wyygwOkHRKcTtHmmw@mail.gmail.com">
<div dir="ltr">I am with Brian on this. Maybe you should contact
Larry Smarr? he headed NCSA at the time.
<div>Of course the 20-20 back vision may prove to be a
distorted view of history. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I will see Larry in the next month or so but sounds like
you'd like a more immediate response?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>v</div>
<div><br>
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<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 3:17 PM,
Brian E Carpenter <span dir="ltr"><<a
href="mailto:brian.e.carpenter@gmail.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">brian.e.carpenter@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span
class="">On 13/03/2018 05:05, Miles Fidelman wrote:<br>
> Thanks to all who've provided pointers - but,
unfortunately, the oral<br>
> and written histories are pretty vague about the
NCSA organization &<br>
> players - which is what I'm really trying to
uncover.<br>
><br>
> I'm trying to understand the organizational
histories & climates that<br>
> spawned the web - and that involves the managers,
not just the workers.<br>
<br>
</span>The managers? Most of them had no idea. At CERN,
Mike Sendall (Tim's<br>
group leader) and David Williams (deputy division leader,
later the<br>
actual division leader) both stated later that their main
contribution to<br>
the web was not stopping the project, which was unfunded
and unauthorised.<br>
Somebody paid for a couple of NeXts but I'm pretty sure
that was for<br>
some other project. Please read the Gilles and Cailliau
book for details.<br>
<br>
The first server in the US was set up by Paul Kunz at
SLAC. As far as I<br>
know he did it because he wanted to, not because anybody
approved it.<br>
That was ceratinly Paul's style. I believe the second
server in the US was<br>
set up by David Martin at Fermilab. Ask him (he's at
Argonne now, <a href="mailto:dem@alcf.anl.gov"
moz-do-not-send="true">dem@alcf.anl.gov</a>).<br>
<br>
A management culture of not interfering with smart people
was the key.<br>
Classical skunk works.<br>
<span class=""><br>
> How we got from public ftp archives, to MIT
Techinfo, to gopher, to<br>
> TBL's early web - the organizational
motivations/environmnts that led to<br>
> the initial development of each, their
promulgation, their eventual<br>
> subsumption by today's web.<br>
><br>
> A lot of it's pretty well documented, and I have
some personal knowledge<br>
> of some of the people & events, but the events
at NCSA are less<br>
> visible. IMHO, if it had not been for Mosaic and
the NCSA HTTPd, the<br>
> HTTP/HTML web would have eventually gone the way of
gopher, replaced by<br>
> something even newer and shinier.<br>
<br>
</span>In 1992, Tim knew that a good browser was the key
and he worked on stimulating<br>
that. If it hadn't been Mosaic in late 1992, it would have
been something else<br>
in 1993, I think. Single-ended hyperlinks really provided
a more powerful<br>
paradigm than gopher, WAIS or Archie which were the main
alternatives.<br>
<span class=""><br>
> Andreessen, Bina, and McCool took the<br>
> web from laboratory prototype to "industrial
strength." I'd kind of<br>
> like to understand the environment in which that
happened.<br>
<br>
</span>The Jim Clark book answers that. It's rather
self-serving, but it was because<br>
Jim was an experienced entrepreneur and ran into Andreesen
that Netscape<br>
became "industrial". NSCA management was a hindrance, not
a help. They<br>
didn't get out of the way.<br>
<span class=""><br>
> By analogy. Licklider set the stage for lots of
things - both at BBN,<br>
> and at ARPA - paving the way for lots of things.<br>
<br>
</span>I'm not sure the analogy holds. NCSA doesn't seem
to have operated<br>
as a skunk works, and they viewed networking as a form of
plumbing.<br>
I get the feeling that Mosaic was a bit of an outlier in
their history;<br>
NSFnet and bandwidth was the main story.<br>
<br>
1997 interview with Larry Smarr: <a
href="https://vimeo.com/6982439" rel="noreferrer"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://vimeo.com/6982439</a><br>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
Brian<br>
</font></span>
<div class="HOEnZb">
<div class="h5"><br>
> We all know the story<br>
> of Ray Tomlinson hacking together the first
ARPANET email. The<br>
> environment at BBN that set the stage - Div. 6,
the various<br>
> personalities - are discussed in "Where Hackers
Stay up Late" and some<br>
> of the history that Dave Walden has assembled),
less is known about the<br>
> next few months, when folks like Ken Pogran
implemented mail systems for<br>
> various O/S environments.<br>
><br>
> Has anybody done this kind of historical
treatment of NCSA? (There's a<br>
> timeline on their web site, from their 30th
anniversary - but it's all<br>
> kind of sketchy.)<br>
><br>
> Cheers,<br>
><br>
> Miles<br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
> On 3/10/18 8:38 PM, Brian E Carpenter wrote:<br>
>> I see that Marc did an oral history interview
as early as 1995:<br>
>> <a
href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/comphist/ma1.html"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://americanhistory.si.edu/<wbr>comphist/ma1.html</a><br>
>> He seems to have been careful at that time
not to be too frank about NCSA management.<br>
>><br>
>> Also he was interviewed for this (as well as
Vint):<br>
>> <a
href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/07/internet200807"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.vanityfair.com/<wbr>news/2008/07/internet200807</a><br>
>><br>
>> In fact a Google search for "oral history"
"marc andreessen" finds a whole lot.<br>
>><br>
>> Regards<br>
>> Brian<br>
>><br>
>> On 11/03/2018 13:51, Vint Cerf wrote:<br>
>>> you should talk to Marc! The effort was
not sanctioned as an NCSA project<br>
>>> any more than was the WWW at CERN. It was
a kind of skunkworks project that<br>
>>> really got a lot of attention when it was
released. Jim Clark, then CEO of<br>
>>> Silicon Graphics, came to NCSA and
persuaded Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina<br>
>>> (and others?) to come to Silicon Valley
to start Netscape Communications in<br>
>>> 1994.<br>
>>><br>
>>> vint<br>
>>><br>
>>><br>
>>> On Sat, Mar 10, 2018 at 7:17 PM, Miles
Fidelman <<a
href="mailto:mfidelman@meetinghouse.net"
moz-do-not-send="true">mfidelman@meetinghouse.net</a>><br>
>>> wrote:<br>
>>><br>
>>>> Hi Folks,<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> I'm wondering - does anybody here
know the history of the group at NCSA<br>
>>>> that spawned Mosaic and httpd - like
where it fit on the organization<br>
>>>> chart, who ran it, who Andreessen,
Bina, and McCool actually worked for?<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> I'm trying to understand the
environment that spawned the enabled the<br>
>>>> folks to take Berners-Lee's basic
stuff, and make it ready for prime<br>
>>>> time, so to speak.<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> Any insights?<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> Thanks,<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> Miles Fidelman<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> --<br>
>>>> In theory, there is no difference
between theory and practice.<br>
>>>> In practice, there is. .... Yogi
Berra<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> _______<br>
>>>> internet-history mailing list<br>
>>>> <a
href="mailto:internet-history@postel.org"
moz-do-not-send="true">internet-history@postel.org</a><br>
>>>> <a
href="http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://mailman.postel.org/<wbr>mailman/listinfo/internet-<wbr>history</a><br>
>>>> Contact <a
href="mailto:list-owner@postel.org"
moz-do-not-send="true">list-owner@postel.org</a> for
assistance.<br>
>>>><br>
>>><br>
>>><br>
>>><br>
>>><br>
>>> _______<br>
>>> internet-history mailing list<br>
>>> <a
href="mailto:internet-history@postel.org"
moz-do-not-send="true">internet-history@postel.org</a><br>
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rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://mailman.postel.org/<wbr>mailman/listinfo/internet-<wbr>history</a><br>
>>> Contact <a
href="mailto:list-owner@postel.org"
moz-do-not-send="true">list-owner@postel.org</a> for
assistance.<br>
>>><br>
><br>
<br>
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-- <br>
<div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">
<div dir="ltr">New postal address:
<div>Google<br>
<div>1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor</div>
<div>Reston, VA 20190</div>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra</pre>
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