<div dir="ltr"><br><div>Dear Gordon,</div><div><br></div><div>thank you so much for your detailed response, I'll follow up on a private message so I don't get the rest of the list bored with details.</div><div><br></div><div>Warm regards from San Antonio</div><div>Jorge</div><div><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Jun 13, 2019 at 6:18 PM Gordon Peterson <<a href="mailto:gep2@terabites.com">gep2@terabites.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<p>The packet-switching hardware interfaces were originally
internally called "FRIL" (for "Fast Resource Intercommunication
Link") but the name was changed before release (to "RIM", or
"Resource Interface Module") because some in the company thought
that earlier name sounded frivolous.</p>
<p>The original name (in the proposal I wrote and showed Jonathan
Schmidt in mid-summer 1976) for the system was "DISPDOS"
("Dispersed DOS", since Datapoint's slogan was "Dispersed Data
Processing"). That was the project he approved, with
"Datacentral" machines (file servers) and "Dataslave" machines
(applications processors). A copy of that proposal, by the way
(along with a lot of other cool historical stuff), is recorded in
the Files area of the "DatapointComputers" Yahoogroup: <br>
</p>
<p><a class="gmail-m_2679156319151930232moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DatapointComputers" target="_blank">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DatapointComputers</a></p>
<p>During the development cycle, we went through a total of five
different names for the system.</p>
<p>I don't remember why the name got changed from DISPDOS to the
second name, DATANET, (but it made sense as DATAPOINT NETWORK,
since we had Datapoint, Databus, Datashare, and so forth). <br>
</p>
<p>One of Datapoint's big OEM customers at the time was Honeywell
Bull (in France) and they were selling a big clustered
communications concentrator/interface called "Datanet", and
Datapoint decided we didn't want to offend them regarding their
prior use of that name. So we changed to the third name for our
system, which was "DOSNET".</p>
<p>I don't recall the reasoning for the next name change, but we
changed to the fourth name (again, made sense as an
"Interprocessor Network") , "Internet". That was the name the
system had when David Hovel (the guy who made the Datashare
changes) and I (for the system stuff) went up to do the first
out-of-house install, at Chase Manhattan Bank in New York City, in
their international money transfer department, the last half of
September 1977.</p>
<p>Chase was (very) happy with the system, which (combined with its
successes in Advanced Product Development, Software Development,
Corporate Accounting, Marketing, and other Datapoint inhouse
departments which were using it by then) helped convince Datapoint
to go ahead with the announcement as planned, at our Stockholders
Meeting planned for New York on December 1, 1977.</p>
<p>During November, my boss (Jonathan Schmidt) came to me and gave
me the news that the company had decided... "Gordon, we're going
to have to change the name of the product. If we call it
'Internet', it will _never_ be successful... because people's
perceptions are that 'networks are complicated, and hard to
manage'".</p>
<p>{I've often wondered what today's INTERNET would have been
called, instead, if Datapoint had kept the name "Internet").<br>
</p>
<p>So therefore, the product name was finally changed to "The ARC
System", and the total system as the "Attached Resource
Computer". (Odd that the hardware component was still named
"ARCNET", so the "net" name wasn't all that toxic after all...).<br>
</p>
<p>FWIW, I've got a lot of historical documents... the Morgan
Stanley document you're talking about, my copy of the original
project proposal that Jon approved, the Nov 1 internal document
showing the plan for the Dec 1 announcement, a copy of the press
kit that was handed out on December 1st, various press coverage of
the announcement, Datapoint product catalogs, green sheets for the
RIMs, and a bunch more.</p>
<p>I was up in New York for the announcement (although I didn't give
any presentations or anything, I was just there to observe since
it was "my baby"...). I told my colleagues there that "What we're
doing here today is pushing a very large rock over a very tall
cliff... from this day forward, the days of the monolithic
mainframe as the primary workhorse for business data processing
are numbered."</p>
<p>"Oh, Gordon," my colleagues told me. "It's a good system, but
you're crazy... big businesses will never give up their mainframes
and run their processing on networks of little computers."</p>
<p>I grinned at them and replied, "You just WATCH!" :-)<br>
</p>
<p>Ah, the memories!! :-)</p>
<p>Note that I also managed to find copies of numerous Datapoint
marketing videos from back then... and have uploaded them to
Youtube. The original ARC System video (that Datapoint showed at
big computer trade shows etc, to explain what the purpose of the
system and logic behind it was for) is on Youtube as "Datapoint
ARC System".</p>
<p>Another cool video is uploaded as "Datapoint Integrated
Electronic Office". I especially like that one because it shows
how my ARC System LAN software wrapped its arms around Datapoint's
diverse product lines and brought them all together as a far more
integrated whole, for the first time.</p>
<p>By the time the IBM PC came out in 1981 (and it only had RS-232C
serial communications at 9600 baud, or maybe 19.2kbaud), Datapoint
already had more than 10,000 ARC System LANs installed worldwide.</p>
<p>Datapoint sold more than a billion dollars' worth of my system.</p>
<p>Another interesting point is that when ARC came out in 1977...
ARPANET (the forerunner of today's Internet, running on IMPs (the
message processor interfaces made by BBN (Bolt, Baranek and
Newman) and costing, if I remember right, something like $50K
each) were running at 56Kbits per second. Compared to 2.5Mbits
per second for The ARC System.</p>
<p>(...and, at the time, Ethernet.... which wasn't a released
product yet... was running at just 2 megabits, across the
thick-wire linear bus with "vampire taps").<br>
</p>
<p>Anyhow, I hope some of these fun and historical memories help
y'all!! ;-)<br>
</p>
<div class="gmail-m_2679156319151930232moz-cite-prefix">On 6/13/2019 4:37 PM, Richard Bennett
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
This is a question for Gordon Peterson, the chief scientist (or
something like that) at Datapoint. The company’s LAN was called
ARCNet, but that may not be the original name.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>RB<br>
<div><br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>On Jun 13, 2019, at 1:57 PM, Jorge Amodio <<a href="mailto:jmamodio@gmail.com" target="_blank">jmamodio@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div>
<br class="gmail-m_2679156319151930232Apple-interchange-newline">
<div>
<div dir="ltr">Hi There,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I've got involved for some time now with
the San Antonio Museum of Science and Technology, and
I'm sort of becoming a Master Curator on a program I'm
creating to catalog, organize and design several
exhibits of vintage computers particularly from
Datapoint Corporation, earlier known as Computer
Terminal Corporation, founded in San Antonio, TX in
1968.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>There are some interesting stories around
CTC & Datapoint, where actually one of the first
personal computers was designed and manufactured, 10+
years earlier than the IBM PC.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>While working on basic research, I
stumbled onto two documents from 1977 where the
INTERNET term was used.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>First document is an internal Datapoint
Interoffice Memo dated Nov 1, 1977. Subject of the
document was "INTERNET Press Announcement" and part of
the text says "INTERNET will be officially announced
in conjunction with the annual shareholders meeting
December 1, 1977 at the Marriott Essex House..."<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The second document is Morgan Stanley
Progress Report for Datapoint Corporation (DPT-NYSE)
which on part of the text includes "On December 1,
1977, we expect the Company will announce a major new
system-oriented, primarily software-based product,
probably dubbed "Internet." As we understand it,
Internet is a package of system programs which
utilizes a microprocessor-controlled coaxial cable as
a means to tie together the individual independent
operations of a large number of intelligent terminals,
file processors, and/or application-dedicated
satellite processors...."</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Does anybody know about it and has any
further references ?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>If somebody is interested in a copy of the
documents I've both scanned on pdf format.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Thanks & Regards</div>
<div>Jorge</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
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<div style="overflow-wrap: break-word;">—<br>
<div style="overflow-wrap: break-word;">Richard
Bennett<br>
<a href="http://hightechforum.org" target="_blank">High Tech Forum</a> Founder</div>
<div style="overflow-wrap: break-word;">Ethernet
& Wi-Fi standards co-creator</div>
<div style="overflow-wrap: break-word;"><br>
</div>
<div style="overflow-wrap: break-word;">Internet
Policy Consultant</div>
</div>
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</div>
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