[ih] Fwd: Re: Early Internet history

[John Day]

Most railroad telegraphs were ‘party lines,’ multi-access media, etc.

> On Jul 5, 2018, at 11:34, Jack Haverty <jack at 3kitty.org> wrote:
> 
> On 07/05/2018 05:11 AM, Vint Cerf wrote:
>> what was the time frame for CSS Mail?
>> 
>> v
> 
> In 1968/9 I was a regular user of CTSS and remember using MAIL.  It
> wasn't new then, just another command in the system.
> 
> If "email" is considered broadly as electronic communication, I remember
> using IBM JCL in 1967 to send messages from one human to another, via
> punch cards - e.g., asking the operator to mount a tape.
> 
> Prior to that, of course there was the telegraph and telegrams.  Perhaps
> that would be "electric mail".
> 
> I was in Paris recently and spent several hours at the Musee des Arts et
> Metiers, essentially a museum of technology.  One section is devoted to
> "Communications".  I noticed one display cabinet containing a machine
> that was somehow used to "allow several telegraph operators to share the
> same wire" - so I guess Multiplexing has been around since the 19th century.
> 
> Apparently humans need to communicate, and as each new means of
> transporting messages comes around, someone figures out a way to use it
> to talk with others.
> 
> There's lots of interesting old stuff preserved in those glassed-in
> display cases.
> 
> When you look into one of those cases and see a well-worn and carefully
> preserved piece of history, and your immediate reaction is "Hey, I used
> to use one of those!" -- that's when you know you're getting old.....
> 
> /Jack Haverty
> 
> 
> 
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