[ih] ARPANET history - any memories of CSnet & NEARnet

[Bob Purvy]

I put some stuff about CSNET in my next book. Probably nothing you can't
find on the web.

(Since this is a historical novel, I'm not obligated to be complete; just
accurate.)

On Sun, Oct 24, 2021 at 2:41 PM Miles Fidelman via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> Thanks Jack!
>
> These are GREAT resources.  And particularly relevant to my current
> efforts to launch "civic.net" - essentially an "internet of community
> networks."  Kind of a followup to my earlier work at the Center for
> Civic Networking, trying to apply Internet style governance models to
> reinvigorating local town meetings (with some modest success).
>
> This time around, I'm trying to apply some lessons learned by us, and
> others, in the design & application of FreeNets and other kinds of
> "community networks" - to provide focal points and tools for the growing
> number of projects that are trying to organize community-scale responses
> to climate change.
>
> Right now, I'm in early program development mode, and I've been looking
> at the Internet, email, the web, FOSS, and the post Earth Day
> environmental movement as startup models - and the history of how the
> ARPANET grew from a germ of an idea, in a few people's heads, into
> global infrastructure has stuck with me.  These documents filled in a
> few holes in my knowledge of the formative days.
>
> It's occurred to me that both CSnet & NEARnet are even clearer models of
> a pressing need, and a few people getting together to make things
> happen.  (I still think the 3-page NEARnet memorandum-of-agreement is a
> masterpiece.)
>
> Given that some of the key players are on this list, I wonder if anybody
> might be willing to share - on-list or privately - their recollections
> of the earliest days - how the ideas of CSnet & NEARnet first arose, and
> how they evolved from the germ of an idea to running systems (who
> said/did what, to whom, when, where, how, why, etc.).  And if anybody
> here can suggest who might provide similar input re. USENET and BITNET -
> that would be an embarrassment of riches.
>
> Thanks very much,
>
> Miles Fidelman
>
>
> Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:
> > FYI, I stumbled across a government report written in 1990 but that I
> > hadn't seen before now.   It contains a summary of the creation and
> > evolution of the ARPANET and the beginnings of the Internet. Where it
> > talks about things that I personally experienced, it agrees with my
> > recollections.   So I tend to trust the other things it says that are
> > new to me even today.  I thought that internet-historians might be
> > interested too.
> >
> > The report is non-technical, but highlights some of the reasons for
> > the success of the project, leading to the Internet we have today,
> > such as the way in which people moved around between organizations,
> > political and managerial decisions within parts of the government,
> > activities for moving the technology from research to operations, and
> > other such non-technical drivers of the success of the Internet.
> >
> > See https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA239925.pdf    -- Chapter XX
> > (page 243)
> >
> > /Jack Haverty
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
> In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra
>
> Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
> Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
> In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
> nothing works and no one knows why.  ... unknown
>
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