[ih] Early Internet history

[Clem Cole]

On Fri, Jul 6, 2018 at 2:48 PM, Paul Vixie <paul at redbarn.org> wrote:

> usenet really was just the newsgroups.
>
​A  squishy definition that could be argued - I'm not sure which I side I
pick and I lived the period and helped with some of the code at the time.​

​IIRC​
​ Mark (now Mary Ann) Horton used to ​distinguish between the set of UUCP
nodes (UUCPnet) and the Newsgroups nodes with the term 'newsnet'

>
> the uucp mapping project defined the set of bang-path-addressible nodes.
>
​Right...
​

>
> neither usenet nor the uucp network could have existed without the other.
>
I don't think that is really correct, because they can into being
differently.

I remember Truscott describing the his 3 or 4 site UUCP network at the
Boulder USENIX ​(Circa 1979 I think) -- 'The Black Hole'.   I was
personally fancianted with his description of their home grown dialer using
a relay to short Tip and Ring on their POTS line, because they could not
accord an real one from Western Electric.    When we return from the
conference, Horton at Berkeley, me at Teklabs and ber at Whippany added our
nodes to Truscotts network within a few weeks.   aps added decvax within 6
months  (I don't remember who was behind ihnp4 which was also an early
node).

They key point was that the uucp network took shape from the internal BTL
network that was basically private already and when Truscott announced what
he had duplicated something for a couple of Universities in research
triangle, and was offering let anyone else be part.  We all did.   BTL was
not on the Arpanet and they already had UUCP so it was not bug deal to join
UUCP for mail.

 The newsgroups part was about 3 years later



>
> uunet was a company.
>
​And was to solve a big problem the UUCPnet had.   Before USENIX forked off
the UUNET Experiment, it also forked off another ​using the cable TV system
who's exact name escapes me -- I want to say Stargate - that broadcast the
news traffic over cable TV. The problem was that it was discovered that
decvax had an over $600/yr phone bill.   Somebody at Indian Hill had
researched their phone bill which was similar, but has realized for ever
every long distance call they placed it was generating 10-20 down stream
and most of the those were going to AT&T, so it was worth it.   But we all
knew the system was on borrowed time and better solution was needed.   Rick
Adam made a proposal to the USENIX BOD to try a at cost system that could
use commercial systems to try bring the cost down.  UUNET was born.  It was
successful and was eventually forked off as its own company.  The Stargate
experiemtn was abandoned.

ᐧ
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