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

[Joly MacFie]

Also, I seem to recall Dave Farber talked about CSNET at ISOC-NY in 2017.

https://isoc-ny.org/p2/9734

On Mon, Oct 25, 2021 at 2:38 PM Joly MacFie <joly at punkcast.com> wrote:

> IHOF might have some crumbs
>
> https://www.internethalloffame.org/inductees/tags/csnet
>
>
>
> On Sun, Oct 24, 2021 at 5:41 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
>>
>> --
>> Internet-history mailing list
>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
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>>
>
>
> --
> --------------------------------------
> Joly MacFie  +12185659365
> --------------------------------------
> -
>


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Joly MacFie  +12185659365
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