From ocl at gih.com  Thu Sep  1 02:41:26 2022
From: ocl at gih.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Olivier_MJ_Cr=c3=a9pin-Leblond?=)
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2022 12:41:26 +0300
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9A5DB231-30F6-4B77-B6A8-9F7392B4F549@gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHMJoTByspU7SV67B65JssYt8kmA_Hg0i5NzYd0Z19S0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <7bf9e128-1077-6482-3878-e30a0215e349@3kitty.org>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <594982ca-e320-6722-2818-8287c0e04287@gih.com>

Before AoL mass market, most people were on Compuserve with fewer 
numbers on other BBS like Prodigy or GEnie ( 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEnie ) or Netcom ( 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netcom_(United_States) and The World ( 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_(Internet_service_provider) and 
other more "geeky" BBSes like the Well ( 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WELL ) and of course FidoNet, which I 
wouldn't imagine your character using.

If your character's using an Apple II then AoL wouldn't work and he'd 
probably be on GEnie or Compuserve. You could make him more savvy at 
some point, jumping to KA9Q software that would be his move to a real 
TCP-IP stack, although versions of KA9Q for Apple II were developed much 
later than the PC version. (TCP-IP stack on Apple II is challenging) - 
and by then he would have probably jumped to PC or MAC.

As a worldwide chat system I'd recommend IRC, which was really "huge" 
(in its own world) back then. Again, historically interesting how, just 
like USENET, at some point it suffered greatly from endless flame wars 
and with nobody in charge, was very difficult to police. Spaf would know 
a lot about Usenet too. Back in '92 his description of Usenet was: 
"Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- massive, 
difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of 
mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it."

Some might say that of today's Internet too, when it comes to 
"influencer" content.

Kindest regards,

Olivier

On 01/09/2022 07:49, Bob Purvy via Internet-history wrote:
> thanks, all. My character, Len, will have just retired from Chrysler
> recently, as a financial analyst. He was fascinated by VisiCalc & the Apple
> II; in fact, he's the one who told his daughter Janet about it, and she was
> working on the Xerox Star! But I don't think he'd be very Internet-savvy,
> at first.
>
> I kinda think it'd be fun to have him be a clueless AOL user at first, and
> then slowly grow in sophistication. I recall that the "walled garden" idea
> was pretty attractive to AOL & others at first -- "the Internet is a scary
> place! We bring you the best of it in a safe way!" as silly as that sounds
> now.
>
> On Wed, Aug 31, 2022 at 6:14 PM Jack Haverty via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
>> IIRC, I had a Compuserve account, although I can't remember exactly
>> when.  But I think I remember that Compuserve's charges were based on
>> hours of connect time.   So there was financial pressure on Users to
>> dial up, do what you wanted to do, and hang up as quickly as possible.
>> That's very different from today's always-connected world.   I thought
>> that might matter for your novel.  Good writing!
>> Jack
>>
>>
>> On 8/31/22 16:42, Bob Purvy via Internet-history wrote:
>>> I should have mentioned that Usenet and mailing lists were kinda techie
>>> back then. I'm thinking my guy would have started with CompuServe,
>> Prodigy,
>>> AOL... something less intimidating for a noobie guy.
>>>
>>> On Wed, Aug 31, 2022 at 4:30 PM Jorge Amodio<jmamodio at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>
>>>> Usenet news was extremely active during those days, you may find some
>>>> archives.
>>>>
>>>> IRC was very popular and cucme, I met my wife on IRC during 1995 ;-), we
>>>> had some interesting opers wars to take control of channels.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers
>>>> -Jorge
>>>>
>>>>> On Aug 31, 2022, at 5:53 PM, Bob Purvy via Internet-history <
>>>> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>>>>> ?Something you wouldn't think would be a problem:
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm planning out my next novel, and I want to have a character haunting
>>>> the
>>>>> chat rooms and forums on investing, around 1995 and on. I don't want to
>>>>> quote anything or dox anyone -- I just want to get the tone and format
>>>> back
>>>>> then, as well as the topics they were talking about.
>>>>>
>>>>> The Wayback Machine seems to have started at the end of 1996. Does
>> anyone
>>>>> have links to earlier archives?
>>>>> --
>>>>> Internet-history mailing list
>>>>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>>>>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>> --
>> Internet-history mailing list
>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>>

-- 
Olivier MJ Cr?pin-Leblond, PhD
http://www.gih.com/ocl.html


From kaze0010 at umn.edu  Thu Sep  1 05:35:11 2022
From: kaze0010 at umn.edu (Haudy Kazemi)
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2022 07:35:11 -0500
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9A5DB231-30F6-4B77-B6A8-9F7392B4F549@gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHMJoTByspU7SV67B65JssYt8kmA_Hg0i5NzYd0Z19S0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <7bf9e128-1077-6482-3878-e30a0215e349@3kitty.org>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CACs6+uXfVXGcMUB=y3nQnb3Pn56QhdFQ4LfA=wzoYx0UMQ6OHA@mail.gmail.com>

If all this is supposed to be set in 1995, there may be a timing issue with
referencing Visicalc and Apple II. They would be around 10 years old at
that time, with both dating to the mid-1980s. All depends on the context.

1995 era spreadsheet software would include Microsoft Excel, Lotus 1-2-3,
and Quattro Pro. Windows 95, Windows 3.1, and DOS versions were available
for at least some of those products.

In 1995, new Apple hardware would be the first gen Power Macintosh.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Macintosh

Intel Pentium and 486 CPUs were common in newer PCs of the time, generally
running at clockrates somewhere in 60 to 133 MHz range.

Intel and AMD based PCs were strongly dominant at the time, at least
outside of schools. Apple started making a comeback with Steve Jobs' return
and the release of the iMac G3 in 1998.




On Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 23:50 Bob Purvy via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> thanks, all. My character, Len, will have just retired from Chrysler
> recently, as a financial analyst. He was fascinated by VisiCalc & the Apple
> II; in fact, he's the one who told his daughter Janet about it, and she was
> working on the Xerox Star! But I don't think he'd be very Internet-savvy,
> at first.
>
> I kinda think it'd be fun to have him be a clueless AOL user at first, and
> then slowly grow in sophistication. I recall that the "walled garden" idea
> was pretty attractive to AOL & others at first -- "the Internet is a scary
> place! We bring you the best of it in a safe way!" as silly as that sounds
> now.
>
> On Wed, Aug 31, 2022 at 6:14 PM Jack Haverty via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
> > IIRC, I had a Compuserve account, although I can't remember exactly
> > when.  But I think I remember that Compuserve's charges were based on
> > hours of connect time.   So there was financial pressure on Users to
> > dial up, do what you wanted to do, and hang up as quickly as possible.
> > That's very different from today's always-connected world.   I thought
> > that might matter for your novel.  Good writing!
> > Jack
> >
> >
> > On 8/31/22 16:42, Bob Purvy via Internet-history wrote:
> > > I should have mentioned that Usenet and mailing lists were kinda techie
> > > back then. I'm thinking my guy would have started with CompuServe,
> > Prodigy,
> > > AOL... something less intimidating for a noobie guy.
> > >
> > > On Wed, Aug 31, 2022 at 4:30 PM Jorge Amodio <jmamodio at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > >> Usenet news was extremely active during those days, you may find some
> > >> archives.
> > >>
> > >> IRC was very popular and cucme, I met my wife on IRC during 1995 ;-),
> we
> > >> had some interesting opers wars to take control of channels.
> > >>
> > >> Cheers
> > >> -Jorge
> > >>
> > >>> On Aug 31, 2022, at 5:53 PM, Bob Purvy via Internet-history <
> > >> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> > >>> ?Something you wouldn't think would be a problem:
> > >>>
> > >>> I'm planning out my next novel, and I want to have a character
> haunting
> > >> the
> > >>> chat rooms and forums on investing, around 1995 and on. I don't want
> to
> > >>> quote anything or dox anyone -- I just want to get the tone and
> format
> > >> back
> > >>> then, as well as the topics they were talking about.
> > >>>
> > >>> The Wayback Machine seems to have started at the end of 1996. Does
> > anyone
> > >>> have links to earlier archives?
> > >>> --
> > >>> Internet-history mailing list
> > >>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > >>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> >
> > --
> > Internet-history mailing list
> > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> >
> --
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>


From cos at aaaaa.org  Thu Sep  1 07:15:23 2022
From: cos at aaaaa.org (Ofer Inbar)
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2022 10:15:23 -0400
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <594982ca-e320-6722-2818-8287c0e04287@gih.com>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9A5DB231-30F6-4B77-B6A8-9F7392B4F549@gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHMJoTByspU7SV67B65JssYt8kmA_Hg0i5NzYd0Z19S0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <7bf9e128-1077-6482-3878-e30a0215e349@3kitty.org>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <594982ca-e320-6722-2818-8287c0e04287@gih.com>
Message-ID: <20220901141523.GF11251@miplet.aaaaa.org>

On Thu, Sep 01, 2022 at 12:41:26PM +0300,
Olivier MJ Cr?pin-Leblond via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> As a worldwide chat system I'd recommend IRC, which was really
> "huge" (in its own world) back then. Again, historically interesting

IRC use was really disjoint from the world of GEnie/CompuServe/AOL,
BBSes, etc.  In 1992 IRC had hundreds of people.  By 1995 it was much
bigger, but nearly all of those new people were ones who went to
college or worked for computer companies in the early 90s, and were
introduced to the TCP/IP Internet through their school or work
accounts.  It does not sound like this character fits that mold.

Until ~1995, most of the "online" public (who were still a minority)
were either unaware of or only dimly aware of the TCP/IP Internet,
which is where IRC was.  And those who discovered the Internet through
the web boom of the mid to late 90s, rather than by already having had
their own Internet account at work or school before that, mostly did
not use IRC.  An overwhelming majority of them weren't even aware of
IRC, and weren't even really aware of a distinction between email,
the web, and "the Internet" - they mostly thought of it as the same
vague thing, and signed up for ISPs with live Internet access so they
could get to the web.

If he did go to college in the early 90s, then yes, he might very well
have been at a university with an Internet connection.  Not all of
them gave accounts with Internet access to all undegrads in those
years, but at those who did, many undegrads found IRC.
  -- Cos


From joly at punkcast.com  Thu Sep  1 07:16:22 2022
From: joly at punkcast.com (Joly MacFie)
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2022 10:16:22 -0400
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <CACs6+uXfVXGcMUB=y3nQnb3Pn56QhdFQ4LfA=wzoYx0UMQ6OHA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9A5DB231-30F6-4B77-B6A8-9F7392B4F549@gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHMJoTByspU7SV67B65JssYt8kmA_Hg0i5NzYd0Z19S0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <7bf9e128-1077-6482-3878-e30a0215e349@3kitty.org>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CACs6+uXfVXGcMUB=y3nQnb3Pn56QhdFQ4LfA=wzoYx0UMQ6OHA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAM9VJk0sMvpLw_-eHxpXJoDUkTN4jVA0-eKpdyy1ZOdBUjJ-fg@mail.gmail.com>

My 2c on this, as someone who got on the net in 94, was that my gateway was
2 things, a 486 based windows laptop, and Netcom Netcruiser, a simple
install that gave access to gopher, ftp, http etc etc.

I had done BBSs and even The Well years earlier, but had found them
parochial.

joly




-- 
--------------------------------------
Joly MacFie  +12185659365
--------------------------------------
-


From dave.taht at gmail.com  Thu Sep  1 07:27:24 2022
From: dave.taht at gmail.com (Dave Taht)
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2022 07:27:24 -0700
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <20220901141523.GF11251@miplet.aaaaa.org>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9A5DB231-30F6-4B77-B6A8-9F7392B4F549@gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHMJoTByspU7SV67B65JssYt8kmA_Hg0i5NzYd0Z19S0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <7bf9e128-1077-6482-3878-e30a0215e349@3kitty.org>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <594982ca-e320-6722-2818-8287c0e04287@gih.com>
 <20220901141523.GF11251@miplet.aaaaa.org>
Message-ID: <CAA93jw5wUqaEuBzAdAJaeSCPFxtaEzOjh5-e3_vj7OU-rREYUQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Sep 1, 2022 at 7:15 AM Ofer Inbar via Internet-history
<internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Sep 01, 2022 at 12:41:26PM +0300,
> Olivier MJ Cr?pin-Leblond via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> > As a worldwide chat system I'd recommend IRC, which was really
> > "huge" (in its own world) back then. Again, historically interesting
>
> IRC use was really disjoint from the world of GEnie/CompuServe/AOL,
> BBSes, etc.  In 1992 IRC had hundreds of people.  By 1995 it was much
> bigger, but nearly all of those new people were ones who went to
> college or worked for computer companies in the early 90s, and were
> introduced to the TCP/IP Internet through their school or work
> accounts.  It does not sound like this character fits that mold.

I'm sorry, I think irc was much much bigger than that. I founded an
isp in 1993 and helped run a cybercafe, and the biggest things by 1994
were netnews, chat, mail, and web. irc was also used by a lot of bad
guys. irc had become a thing as early as 1988, I think. As there were
a multiplicity of irc servers, it wasn't anywhere near as federated as
it is now, but I seem to recall seeing /list of chat rooms one day in
late 1994 and seeing well over a thousand. How do I remember? (it's in
a song I wrote, called "cybernation")

I still know a few irc ops from that era, I think. My memory is pretty
weak here.

I do agree that your character is more of an aol or bbs type...

> Until ~1995, most of the "online" public (who were still a minority)
> were either unaware of or only dimly aware of the TCP/IP Internet,
> which is where IRC was.  And those who discovered the Internet through
> the web boom of the mid to late 90s, rather than by already having had
> their own Internet account at work or school before that, mostly did
> not use IRC.  An overwhelming majority of them weren't even aware of
> IRC, and weren't even really aware of a distinction between email,
> the web, and "the Internet" - they mostly thought of it as the same
> vague thing, and signed up for ISPs with live Internet access so they
> could get to the web.
>
> If he did go to college in the early 90s, then yes, he might very well
> have been at a university with an Internet connection.  Not all of
> them gave accounts with Internet access to all undegrads in those
> years, but at those who did, many undegrads found IRC.
>   -- Cos
> --
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history



-- 
FQ World Domination pending: https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/state_of_fq_codel/
Dave T?ht CEO, TekLibre, LLC


From cos at aaaaa.org  Thu Sep  1 07:41:32 2022
From: cos at aaaaa.org (Ofer Inbar)
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2022 10:41:32 -0400
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <CAA93jw5wUqaEuBzAdAJaeSCPFxtaEzOjh5-e3_vj7OU-rREYUQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9A5DB231-30F6-4B77-B6A8-9F7392B4F549@gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHMJoTByspU7SV67B65JssYt8kmA_Hg0i5NzYd0Z19S0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <7bf9e128-1077-6482-3878-e30a0215e349@3kitty.org>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <594982ca-e320-6722-2818-8287c0e04287@gih.com>
 <20220901141523.GF11251@miplet.aaaaa.org>
 <CAA93jw5wUqaEuBzAdAJaeSCPFxtaEzOjh5-e3_vj7OU-rREYUQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20220901144132.GH11251@miplet.aaaaa.org>

On Thu, Sep 01, 2022 at 07:27:24AM -0700,
Dave Taht <dave.taht at gmail.com> wrote:
> > IRC use was really disjoint from the world of GEnie/CompuServe/AOL,
> > BBSes, etc.  In 1992 IRC had hundreds of people.  By 1995 it was much
> > bigger, but nearly all of those new people were ones who went to
> > college or worked for computer companies in the early 90s, and were
> > introduced to the TCP/IP Internet through their school or work
> > accounts.  It does not sound like this character fits that mold.
> 
> I'm sorry, I think irc was much much bigger than that. I founded an
> isp in 1993 and helped run a cybercafe, and the biggest things by 1994
> were netnews, chat, mail, and web. irc was also used by a lot of bad
> guys. irc had become a thing as early as 1988, I think. As there were

Growth of IRC from 1992 to 1995 was extremely rapid, was my point.
It was still very very small at the beginning of 1992, it as many many
times bigger by 1995.

IRC was created in 1998 by Jarkko Oikarinen when he was an undergrad
(freshman, I think) at University of Oulu.  It was used mostly by
Finns in the first few years.  When I got on IRC in January 1990 (when
Brandeis got its first 56K link to NEARnet) it was still majority
Finns, but was starting to catch on in the US.  Somewhere in my old
email or irc log archives I might be able to find when the irc.wedding
was that was the first time more than 100 people were on IRC at the
same time, but it was either late 1990 or early 1991 I think.  By late
1991 having 3-digit user totals was the norm during US daytime.

September 1993 was the notorious long September that either lasted 5-7
years, or never ended, depending on who you talk to and how they define
it.  From that point, a lot more universities with larger numbers of
students would give everyone Internet access, and that fuelled growth.
IRC in fall 1993 may very well have had an order of magnitude more
people on it than it had at the start of 1993.

But as I said before, the vast majority of the new people were
students or people who worked at computer companies (which were also
starting to hook up to the net in larger numbers around that time.
In 1994 I co-founded a sysadmin consulting company in Boston, and
our first few years the majority of our business was connecting
existing companies' existing computer networks to the Internet.
  -- Cos


From cos at aaaaa.org  Thu Sep  1 08:06:54 2022
From: cos at aaaaa.org (Ofer Inbar)
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2022 11:06:54 -0400
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <20220901144132.GH11251@miplet.aaaaa.org>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9A5DB231-30F6-4B77-B6A8-9F7392B4F549@gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHMJoTByspU7SV67B65JssYt8kmA_Hg0i5NzYd0Z19S0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <7bf9e128-1077-6482-3878-e30a0215e349@3kitty.org>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <594982ca-e320-6722-2818-8287c0e04287@gih.com>
 <20220901141523.GF11251@miplet.aaaaa.org>
 <CAA93jw5wUqaEuBzAdAJaeSCPFxtaEzOjh5-e3_vj7OU-rREYUQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20220901144132.GH11251@miplet.aaaaa.org>
Message-ID: <20220901150654.GI11251@miplet.aaaaa.org>

On Thu, Sep 01, 2022 at 10:41:32AM -0400,
Ofer Inbar via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> IRC was created in 1998 by Jarkko Oikarinen when he was an undergrad

Oops, I meant to type 1988 of course.
  -- Cos


From bpurvy at gmail.com  Thu Sep  1 08:41:40 2022
From: bpurvy at gmail.com (Bob Purvy)
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2022 08:41:40 -0700
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <594982ca-e320-6722-2818-8287c0e04287@gih.com>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9A5DB231-30F6-4B77-B6A8-9F7392B4F549@gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHMJoTByspU7SV67B65JssYt8kmA_Hg0i5NzYd0Z19S0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <7bf9e128-1077-6482-3878-e30a0215e349@3kitty.org>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <594982ca-e320-6722-2818-8287c0e04287@gih.com>
Message-ID: <CAFq6nVEdHZT8JUmyEf7p5pBg-dsf8NOE=yqEyJb2A8YRXhy8AA@mail.gmail.com>

Thanks for all the answers. Len is my favorite character, and he's
introduced in my two books, which you can find here
<https://www.albertcory.io>.

The Apple II was just something he was curious about back in 1981. Some of
his coworkers were bringing one to work to use VisiCalc, so he asks his
daughter if Xerox's new computer is going to have a spreadsheet, too (the
answer was No ?)

I think by the 90s he's on a PC, but I haven't really said anywhere.
Definitely he's gotta try those AOL coasters.

On Thu, Sep 1, 2022 at 2:41 AM Olivier MJ Cr?pin-Leblond <ocl at gih.com>
wrote:

> Before AoL mass market, most people were on Compuserve with fewer numbers
> on other BBS like Prodigy or GEnie ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEnie
> ) or Netcom ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netcom_(United_States) and
> The World (
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_(Internet_service_provider) and
> other more "geeky" BBSes like the Well (
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WELL ) and of course FidoNet, which I
> wouldn't imagine your character using.
>
> If your character's using an Apple II then AoL wouldn't work and he'd
> probably be on GEnie or Compuserve. You could make him more savvy at some
> point, jumping to KA9Q software that would be his move to a real TCP-IP
> stack, although versions of KA9Q for Apple II were developed much later
> than the PC version. (TCP-IP stack on Apple II is challenging) - and by
> then he would have probably jumped to PC or MAC.
>
> As a worldwide chat system I'd recommend IRC, which was really "huge" (in
> its own world) back then. Again, historically interesting how, just like
> USENET, at some point it suffered greatly from endless flame wars and with
> nobody in charge, was very difficult to police. Spaf would know a lot about
> Usenet too. Back in '92 his description of Usenet was: "Usenet is like a
> herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- massive, difficult to
> redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind-boggling
> amounts of excrement when you least expect it."
>
> Some might say that of today's Internet too, when it comes to "influencer"
> content.
>
> Kindest regards,
>
> Olivier
>
> On 01/09/2022 07:49, Bob Purvy via Internet-history wrote:
>
> thanks, all. My character, Len, will have just retired from Chrysler
> recently, as a financial analyst. He was fascinated by VisiCalc & the Apple
> II; in fact, he's the one who told his daughter Janet about it, and she was
> working on the Xerox Star! But I don't think he'd be very Internet-savvy,
> at first.
>
> I kinda think it'd be fun to have him be a clueless AOL user at first, and
> then slowly grow in sophistication. I recall that the "walled garden" idea
> was pretty attractive to AOL & others at first -- "the Internet is a scary
> place! We bring you the best of it in a safe way!" as silly as that sounds
> now.
>
> On Wed, Aug 31, 2022 at 6:14 PM Jack Haverty via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
>
> IIRC, I had a Compuserve account, although I can't remember exactly
> when.  But I think I remember that Compuserve's charges were based on
> hours of connect time.   So there was financial pressure on Users to
> dial up, do what you wanted to do, and hang up as quickly as possible.
> That's very different from today's always-connected world.   I thought
> that might matter for your novel.  Good writing!
> Jack
>
>
> On 8/31/22 16:42, Bob Purvy via Internet-history wrote:
>
> I should have mentioned that Usenet and mailing lists were kinda techie
> back then. I'm thinking my guy would have started with CompuServe,
>
> Prodigy,
>
> AOL... something less intimidating for a noobie guy.
>
> On Wed, Aug 31, 2022 at 4:30 PM Jorge Amodio <jmamodio at gmail.com> <jmamodio at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Usenet news was extremely active during those days, you may find some
> archives.
>
> IRC was very popular and cucme, I met my wife on IRC during 1995 ;-), we
> had some interesting opers wars to take control of channels.
>
> Cheers
> -Jorge
>
>
> On Aug 31, 2022, at 5:53 PM, Bob Purvy via Internet-history <
>
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
> ?Something you wouldn't think would be a problem:
>
> I'm planning out my next novel, and I want to have a character haunting
>
> the
>
> chat rooms and forums on investing, around 1995 and on. I don't want to
> quote anything or dox anyone -- I just want to get the tone and format
>
> back
>
> then, as well as the topics they were talking about.
>
> The Wayback Machine seems to have started at the end of 1996. Does
>
> anyone
>
> have links to earlier archives?
> --
> Internet-history mailing listInternet-history at elists.isoc.orghttps://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>
> --
> Internet-history mailing listInternet-history at elists.isoc.orghttps://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>
>
> --
> Olivier MJ Cr?pin-Leblond, PhDhttp://www.gih.com/ocl.html
>
>


From huopio at iki.fi  Thu Sep  1 08:42:44 2022
From: huopio at iki.fi (Kauto Huopio)
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2022 18:42:44 +0300
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <CAMzo+1b_Kzh4Ef9wXoKe2uehFNOuxGw-tipRqm83kvT++u9i4g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <39ca04a9-ef27-5c36-2406-e8fe3414199c@dcrocker.net>
 <CAMzo+1b_Kzh4Ef9wXoKe2uehFNOuxGw-tipRqm83kvT++u9i4g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAD7tVSQ3fF1-DOaCAEpbnKkM+Vn+KE5=4aUeL5f2_zK3+AS11w@mail.gmail.com>

I have been in IRC on some way or another since the beginning. Used to have
a DAT tape somewhere where I archived the logs of the #news and other
relevant channels during the Iraq war, the Moscow coup etc..don't know If
could locate that tape and find a machine that would read it..

IRC is still used in many mission-critical purposes..many ISP:s used to
have their internal NOC/engineering IRC servers. Military uses a form of
IRC..

--Kauto

On Thu, Sep 1, 2022 at 3:08 AM Jorge Amodio via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> Internet Relay Chat (aka IRC) was released in 1988... there were a couple
> networks of servers like EFnet, Undernet, IRCnet, etc, and a handful of
> servers on each network with a multi-channel (sort of chat room) multi
> participant distributed chat protocol.
>
> You had the option to have 1:1 conversation but most of the activity was on
> #channels you joined and chatted with others on that channel.
>
> Some networks are still active and you can download desktop clients or use
> some web based clients.
>
> -J
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 31, 2022 at 6:41 PM Dave Crocker via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
> > On 8/31/2022 3:53 PM, Bob Purvy via Internet-history wrote:
> > > a character haunting the
> > > chat rooms and forums on investing, around 1995 and on
> >
> > So, this was just as the Internet went mass-market.  Web coming into its
> > own.  No social networking yet.
> >
> > There was 1:1 chat going back forever on many systems, but 1:many group
> > venues were, I think, still only in specialized teleconferencing
> > systems, dating from the gas crisis in 1972. Enterprise tool, not
> > mass-market.
> >
> > The closest would be public discussion lists via email or, of course,
> > Usenet.  I'm not sure, but I think by the 1995 timeframe, the latter had
> > become established as, shall we say, mostly noise...
> >
> > d/
> >
> > --
> > Dave Crocker
> > Brandenburg InternetWorking
> > bbiw.net
> >
> > --
> > Internet-history mailing list
> > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> >
> --
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>


-- 
Kauto Huopio - kauto at huopio.fi
Hansakallionkuja 12 A 1, 02780 Espoo, Finland
Tel. +358 40 5008774


From cos at aaaaa.org  Thu Sep  1 08:46:59 2022
From: cos at aaaaa.org (Ofer Inbar)
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2022 11:46:59 -0400
Subject: [ih] Early IRC (was Re:  Chat room and forum archives)
In-Reply-To: <CAD7tVSQ3fF1-DOaCAEpbnKkM+Vn+KE5=4aUeL5f2_zK3+AS11w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <39ca04a9-ef27-5c36-2406-e8fe3414199c@dcrocker.net>
 <CAMzo+1b_Kzh4Ef9wXoKe2uehFNOuxGw-tipRqm83kvT++u9i4g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAD7tVSQ3fF1-DOaCAEpbnKkM+Vn+KE5=4aUeL5f2_zK3+AS11w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20220901154659.GK11251@miplet.aaaaa.org>

On Thu, Sep 01, 2022 at 06:42:44PM +0300,
Kauto Huopio via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> IRC is still used in many mission-critical purposes..many ISP:s used to
> have their internal NOC/engineering IRC servers. Military uses a form of
> IRC..

As of when I left Google in late 2019, IRC was still extensively used
internally, and preferred by SRE, due to being the one internal comms
system that does not depend on various other bits of Google prod and
thus does not have correlated outages with those.

But maybe we should fork this thread into an IRC history thread :)
Since it does sound like IRC is not likely what that fictionaly
character would've used.  Subject line modified.
  -- Cos


From dave.taht at gmail.com  Thu Sep  1 09:26:07 2022
From: dave.taht at gmail.com (Dave Taht)
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2022 09:26:07 -0700
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <CAD7tVSQ3fF1-DOaCAEpbnKkM+Vn+KE5=4aUeL5f2_zK3+AS11w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <39ca04a9-ef27-5c36-2406-e8fe3414199c@dcrocker.net>
 <CAMzo+1b_Kzh4Ef9wXoKe2uehFNOuxGw-tipRqm83kvT++u9i4g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAD7tVSQ3fF1-DOaCAEpbnKkM+Vn+KE5=4aUeL5f2_zK3+AS11w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAA93jw74BrZDM0AFgkgdiGGsoSCVO8KGzZ+wd0NhygJnrEhesw@mail.gmail.com>

irc is still used heavily, despite all the cool kids moving to slack,
nothing beats it for
plugability. Perhaps hanging out on https://www.oftc.net/ would be of
use to more folk.

On Thu, Sep 1, 2022 at 8:43 AM Kauto Huopio via Internet-history
<internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
> I have been in IRC on some way or another since the beginning. Used to have
> a DAT tape somewhere where I archived the logs of the #news and other
> relevant channels during the Iraq war, the Moscow coup etc..don't know If
> could locate that tape and find a machine that would read it..
>
> IRC is still used in many mission-critical purposes..many ISP:s used to
> have their internal NOC/engineering IRC servers. Military uses a form of
> IRC..
>
> --Kauto
>
> On Thu, Sep 1, 2022 at 3:08 AM Jorge Amodio via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
> > Internet Relay Chat (aka IRC) was released in 1988... there were a couple
> > networks of servers like EFnet, Undernet, IRCnet, etc, and a handful of
> > servers on each network with a multi-channel (sort of chat room) multi
> > participant distributed chat protocol.
> >
> > You had the option to have 1:1 conversation but most of the activity was on
> > #channels you joined and chatted with others on that channel.
> >
> > Some networks are still active and you can download desktop clients or use
> > some web based clients.
> >
> > -J
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Aug 31, 2022 at 6:41 PM Dave Crocker via Internet-history <
> > internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> >
> > > On 8/31/2022 3:53 PM, Bob Purvy via Internet-history wrote:
> > > > a character haunting the
> > > > chat rooms and forums on investing, around 1995 and on
> > >
> > > So, this was just as the Internet went mass-market.  Web coming into its
> > > own.  No social networking yet.
> > >
> > > There was 1:1 chat going back forever on many systems, but 1:many group
> > > venues were, I think, still only in specialized teleconferencing
> > > systems, dating from the gas crisis in 1972. Enterprise tool, not
> > > mass-market.
> > >
> > > The closest would be public discussion lists via email or, of course,
> > > Usenet.  I'm not sure, but I think by the 1995 timeframe, the latter had
> > > become established as, shall we say, mostly noise...
> > >
> > > d/
> > >
> > > --
> > > Dave Crocker
> > > Brandenburg InternetWorking
> > > bbiw.net
> > >
> > > --
> > > Internet-history mailing list
> > > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> > >
> > --
> > Internet-history mailing list
> > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> >
>
>
> --
> Kauto Huopio - kauto at huopio.fi
> Hansakallionkuja 12 A 1, 02780 Espoo, Finland
> Tel. +358 40 5008774
> --
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history



-- 
FQ World Domination pending: https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/state_of_fq_codel/
Dave T?ht CEO, TekLibre, LLC


From michael at kjorling.se  Thu Sep  1 11:10:51 2022
From: michael at kjorling.se (Michael =?utf-8?B?S2rDtnJsaW5n?=)
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2022 18:10:51 +0000
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <CACs6+uXfVXGcMUB=y3nQnb3Pn56QhdFQ4LfA=wzoYx0UMQ6OHA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9A5DB231-30F6-4B77-B6A8-9F7392B4F549@gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHMJoTByspU7SV67B65JssYt8kmA_Hg0i5NzYd0Z19S0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <7bf9e128-1077-6482-3878-e30a0215e349@3kitty.org>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CACs6+uXfVXGcMUB=y3nQnb3Pn56QhdFQ4LfA=wzoYx0UMQ6OHA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <2b362eae-3ef9-40c1-8600-9785b9e2a605@home.arpa>

On 1 Sep 2022 07:35 -0500, from internet-history at elists.isoc.org (Haudy Kazemi via Internet-history):
> If all this is supposed to be set in 1995, there may be a timing issue with
> referencing Visicalc and Apple II. They would be around 10 years old at
> that time, with both dating to the mid-1980s. All depends on the context.

Wikipedia puts the original Apple II at a 1977 release, and the
original VisiCalc for Apple II in 1979, which sounds about right; so
by 1995, the combination would be more like 15 years old, and woefully
out of date. Mid-80s vintage would be more like the IBM PC/AT (maybe
PC/XT if you didn't see the need for the AT's computing power with its
blazing-fast 12 MHz 80286) and Lotus 1-2-3. On the IBM compatible
side, 386-based systems would perhaps start to be available but not
commonplace; the Compaq Deskpro 386 hit the market in 1986. The
Macintosh had just debuted at the time, and was generally short on
software.


> 1995 era spreadsheet software would include Microsoft Excel, Lotus 1-2-3,
> and Quattro Pro. Windows 95, Windows 3.1, and DOS versions were available
> for at least some of those products.

Seconded. And let's not forget OS/2, which was still a somewhat
serious contender on the desktop at the time, though I'm pretty sure
that it wasn't until OS/2 Warp 3 (1994?) that it came with a built-in
TCP/IP stack.

Mainstream at the time would probably have been Windows 3.1 or Windows
for Workgroups 3.11 running on MS-DOS, running any of the spreadsheets
you mention. Excel was nowhere near as dominant then as it is today.

Anything before OS/2 Warp 3 or Windows 95 (or maybe before WfW 3.11)
required third-party software to connect to the Internet. On Windows,
Trumpet Winsock was a common TCP/IP implementation and, if I recall
correctly, dialer and PPP client.


> Intel Pentium and 486 CPUs were common in newer PCs of the time, generally
> running at clockrates somewhere in 60 to 133 MHz range.

Slower 486-based systems were also common. I remember around that time
having a 486/33 with 4 MiB RAM (later upgraded to a whopping 8 MiB)
and a ~500 MB hard disk, and that was quite decent for the time.

Also look up the Multimedia PC (MPC) levels for example contemporary
PC specs; Level 1 and Level 2 would probably be reasonable starting
points. While upgrades brought serious improvements at the time (going
from a 486/33 to a 486/66, or even a Pentium/60, never mind from say a
386/25, was a MAJOR upgrade in terms of relative performance), lots of
people also stayed with older, slower systems because they did the job
and were far more affordable.

For some inspiration both about early personal computers as well as
glimpses of what early general public Internet access was like,
consider watching _Triumph of the Nerds_ and _Nerds 2.0.1_. Both are
available on the Internet Archive and will take a few hours of your
time.

-- 
Michael Kj?rling ? https://michael.kjorling.se ? michael at kjorling.se
 ?Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog??



From bpurvy at gmail.com  Thu Sep  1 11:24:27 2022
From: bpurvy at gmail.com (Bob Purvy)
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2022 11:24:27 -0700
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <20220901141523.GF11251@miplet.aaaaa.org>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9A5DB231-30F6-4B77-B6A8-9F7392B4F549@gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHMJoTByspU7SV67B65JssYt8kmA_Hg0i5NzYd0Z19S0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <7bf9e128-1077-6482-3878-e30a0215e349@3kitty.org>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <594982ca-e320-6722-2818-8287c0e04287@gih.com>
 <20220901141523.GF11251@miplet.aaaaa.org>
Message-ID: <CAFq6nVGa9tcbqvNwkK-=GRMrFkec1cbJ6vmYZsd+8+u2Tk7txQ@mail.gmail.com>

Yes, thanks, Ofer.

Len starts out on the right end of the spectrum, which runs from:

eater teenager --> college student --> post-college professional -->
clueless AOL / Prodigy / CompuServe user

So I don't think he'd start on IRC. Remember Len is retired.

On Thu, Sep 1, 2022 at 7:15 AM Ofer Inbar <cos at aaaaa.org> wrote:

> On Thu, Sep 01, 2022 at 12:41:26PM +0300,
> Olivier MJ Cr?pin-Leblond via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> > As a worldwide chat system I'd recommend IRC, which was really
> > "huge" (in its own world) back then. Again, historically interesting
>
> IRC use was really disjoint from the world of GEnie/CompuServe/AOL,
> BBSes, etc.  In 1992 IRC had hundreds of people.  By 1995 it was much
> bigger, but nearly all of those new people were ones who went to
> college or worked for computer companies in the early 90s, and were
> introduced to the TCP/IP Internet through their school or work
> accounts.  It does not sound like this character fits that mold.
>
> Until ~1995, most of the "online" public (who were still a minority)
> were either unaware of or only dimly aware of the TCP/IP Internet,
> which is where IRC was.  And those who discovered the Internet through
> the web boom of the mid to late 90s, rather than by already having had
> their own Internet account at work or school before that, mostly did
> not use IRC.  An overwhelming majority of them weren't even aware of
> IRC, and weren't even really aware of a distinction between email,
> the web, and "the Internet" - they mostly thought of it as the same
> vague thing, and signed up for ISPs with live Internet access so they
> could get to the web.
>
> If he did go to college in the early 90s, then yes, he might very well
> have been at a university with an Internet connection.  Not all of
> them gave accounts with Internet access to all undegrads in those
> years, but at those who did, many undegrads found IRC.
>   -- Cos
>


From cos at aaaaa.org  Thu Sep  1 11:50:35 2022
From: cos at aaaaa.org (Ofer Inbar)
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2022 14:50:35 -0400
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <CAFq6nVGa9tcbqvNwkK-=GRMrFkec1cbJ6vmYZsd+8+u2Tk7txQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9A5DB231-30F6-4B77-B6A8-9F7392B4F549@gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHMJoTByspU7SV67B65JssYt8kmA_Hg0i5NzYd0Z19S0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <7bf9e128-1077-6482-3878-e30a0215e349@3kitty.org>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <594982ca-e320-6722-2818-8287c0e04287@gih.com>
 <20220901141523.GF11251@miplet.aaaaa.org>
 <CAFq6nVGa9tcbqvNwkK-=GRMrFkec1cbJ6vmYZsd+8+u2Tk7txQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20220901185035.GA31962@miplet.aaaaa.org>

On Thu, Sep 01, 2022 at 11:24:27AM -0700,
Bob Purvy <bpurvy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Len starts out on the right end of the spectrum, which runs from:
> 
> eater teenager --> college student --> post-college professional -->
> clueless AOL / Prodigy / CompuServe user

In the mid-90s, all three of those are around the same size.
Prodigy aimed at being more newb-friendly than CompuServe and marketed
itself that way, and AOL was already sending out those disks to everyone.  
Probably either of those are more likely for this guy than CompuServe,
which had been big for longer than the other two but was also less
user friendly and less game- and family- oriented.  He might have been
less intimidated to sign up for Prodigy or AOL than for CompuServe.
GEnie I think was already starting to wane by then.

Speaking of Prodigy, I did some fun contract work for them in the 80s,
beginning I think a bit before they actually launched the name Prodigy.
They had me scour the BBS world (which I was very familiar with) for
free and shareware games, download them, play them, and upload to
their new service along with reviews.  They wanted to offer their
users a large but curated library of games, with reviews.
  -- Cos


From ocl at gih.com  Thu Sep  1 11:50:57 2022
From: ocl at gih.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Olivier_MJ_Cr=c3=a9pin-Leblond?=)
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2022 21:50:57 +0300
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <CAFq6nVEdHZT8JUmyEf7p5pBg-dsf8NOE=yqEyJb2A8YRXhy8AA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9A5DB231-30F6-4B77-B6A8-9F7392B4F549@gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHMJoTByspU7SV67B65JssYt8kmA_Hg0i5NzYd0Z19S0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <7bf9e128-1077-6482-3878-e30a0215e349@3kitty.org>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <594982ca-e320-6722-2818-8287c0e04287@gih.com>
 <CAFq6nVEdHZT8JUmyEf7p5pBg-dsf8NOE=yqEyJb2A8YRXhy8AA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <69590b0f-e2c1-f099-70a8-f37c8021a0b2@gih.com>



On 01/09/2022 18:41, Bob Purvy wrote:
> I think by the 90s he's on a PC, but I haven't really said anywhere. 
> Definitely he's gotta try those AOL coasters.

Remember it was floppy 3 1/2 in disks first which were terrible as 
coasters, only to become more useful when they switched to CDs. That 
being said I really hope these ended up somehow elsewhere than in a 
landfill as so many were produced - see 
https://nowiknow.com/remember-all-those-aol-cds-there-were-more-than-you-think/

I wonder how that kind of production would fare in today's 
environmentally conscious world....
Best,

Olivier

From dave.taht at gmail.com  Thu Sep  1 12:12:42 2022
From: dave.taht at gmail.com (Dave Taht)
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2022 12:12:42 -0700
Subject: [ih] Greener computing
In-Reply-To: <69590b0f-e2c1-f099-70a8-f37c8021a0b2@gih.com>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9A5DB231-30F6-4B77-B6A8-9F7392B4F549@gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHMJoTByspU7SV67B65JssYt8kmA_Hg0i5NzYd0Z19S0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <7bf9e128-1077-6482-3878-e30a0215e349@3kitty.org>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <594982ca-e320-6722-2818-8287c0e04287@gih.com>
 <CAFq6nVEdHZT8JUmyEf7p5pBg-dsf8NOE=yqEyJb2A8YRXhy8AA@mail.gmail.com>
 <69590b0f-e2c1-f099-70a8-f37c8021a0b2@gih.com>
Message-ID: <CAA93jw6s4T63EBmSuxDsyXoXKTdrxX7Jb0LTJkGngdNdHbae_w@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Sep 1, 2022 at 11:51 AM Olivier MJ Cr?pin-Leblond via
Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 01/09/2022 18:41, Bob Purvy wrote:
> > I think by the 90s he's on a PC, but I haven't really said anywhere.
> > Definitely he's gotta try those AOL coasters.
>
> Remember it was floppy 3 1/2 in disks first which were terrible as
> coasters, only to become more useful when they switched to CDs. That
> being said I really hope these ended up somehow elsewhere than in a
> landfill as so many were produced - see
> https://nowiknow.com/remember-all-those-aol-cds-there-were-more-than-you-think/
>
> I wonder how that kind of production would fare in today's
> environmentally conscious world....

I kind of feel that way about home routers. There are easily 10x more
of those than are turned on, that could be upgraded to open firmware,
enabled with ipv6, bufferbloat fixed, made more reliable and secure.
Instead they languish in junk bins or landfills. I keep hoping to find
a charitably suited VC (hah!) willing to back this concept:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T21on7g1MqQZoK91epUdxLYFGdtyLRgBat0VXoC9e3I/edit

With the current supply chain problems everywhere, perhaps people will
relearn how to be frugal.

Recently an ISP I work with reflashed 700 "obsolete" mikrotik
wireless-n routers to current openwrt and is giving them away as meshy
APs. These are well built, and with current software, remain useful
for another decade, at least.

I haven't bought a "new" computer in years. Desktops (with enough ram)
got good enough for me a decade ago.

> Best,
>
> Olivier
> --
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history



-- 
FQ World Domination pending: https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/state_of_fq_codel/
Dave T?ht CEO, TekLibre, LLC


From johnl at iecc.com  Thu Sep  1 12:15:02 2022
From: johnl at iecc.com (John Levine)
Date: 1 Sep 2022 19:15:02 -0000
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <CACs6+uXfVXGcMUB=y3nQnb3Pn56QhdFQ4LfA=wzoYx0UMQ6OHA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9A5DB231-30F6-4B77-B6A8-9F7392B4F549@gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <2b362eae-3ef9-40c1-8600-9785b9e2a605@home.arpa>
References: <CACs6+uXfVXGcMUB=y3nQnb3Pn56QhdFQ4LfA=wzoYx0UMQ6OHA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9A5DB231-30F6-4B77-B6A8-9F7392B4F549@gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <2b362eae-3ef9-40c1-8600-9785b9e2a605@home.arpa>
Message-ID: <ter0bm$12qu$1@gal.iecc.com>

According to Michael Kj??rling via Internet-history <michael at kjorling.se>:
>On 1 Sep 2022 07:35 -0500, from internet-history at elists.isoc.org (Haudy Kazemi via Internet-history):
>> If all this is supposed to be set in 1995, there may be a timing issue with
>> referencing Visicalc and Apple II. They would be around 10 years old at
>> that time, with both dating to the mid-1980s. All depends on the context.
>
>Wikipedia puts the original Apple II at a 1977 release, and the
>original VisiCalc for Apple II in 1979, which sounds about right; so
>by 1995, the combination would be more like 15 years old, and woefully
>out of date. 

When the IBM PC and 1-2-3 came out in the early 1980s, they wiped out
VisiCalc. Lotus wrote 1-2-3 specifically for the PC so it used all of
the keys on the keyboard and the features of the PC's display, while
VisiCalc was written to be ported to all the random little computers
people used in the 1970s so it assumed a fairly minimal configuration.
It was a lucky accident that VisiCalc worked so well on the Apple II.

There were a lot of local and regional BBS which I think would have been
more appealing to less technical users, since all you needed was a terminal
program like the ubiquitous PC-Talk.

Fidonet linked BBS via phone calls, usuallyy late at night and
arranged to make maximum use of local free calling areas and
discounted night toll rates. If your character's BBS was on Fidonet,
that would allow exchanging messages with people in other parts of the
country, albeit not very quickly.

-- 
Regards,
John Levine, johnl at taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly



From tte at cs.fau.de  Thu Sep  1 12:26:55 2022
From: tte at cs.fau.de (Toerless Eckert)
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2022 21:26:55 +0200
Subject: [ih] Greener computing
In-Reply-To: <CAA93jw6s4T63EBmSuxDsyXoXKTdrxX7Jb0LTJkGngdNdHbae_w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9A5DB231-30F6-4B77-B6A8-9F7392B4F549@gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHMJoTByspU7SV67B65JssYt8kmA_Hg0i5NzYd0Z19S0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <7bf9e128-1077-6482-3878-e30a0215e349@3kitty.org>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <594982ca-e320-6722-2818-8287c0e04287@gih.com>
 <CAFq6nVEdHZT8JUmyEf7p5pBg-dsf8NOE=yqEyJb2A8YRXhy8AA@mail.gmail.com>
 <69590b0f-e2c1-f099-70a8-f37c8021a0b2@gih.com>
 <CAA93jw6s4T63EBmSuxDsyXoXKTdrxX7Jb0LTJkGngdNdHbae_w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <YxEHf9i+lCL5fjGC@faui48e.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>

Dave:

The sad reality is that older hardware, whether router or PCs uses
more jule of energy per Megabit. So, in most cases it does pay off energy
wise to buy recent hardware.

In the leading german home routers, there is even an option to switch
ports to 100Mbps instead of 1Gbps for energy savings. Alas, the energy
saving for that is only 20%, so customers have a hard decision point.

I would assume that energy saving in PC/router hardware will be something
users will look a lot more into in the coming years. So there may be
some good logic to stick to old hardware and hope an upgrade in 3 years
will be a lot more energy saving than one now.

Btw: If you're interested to discuss more of energy saving in networking,
then maybe chime in on the "recipe at ietf.org" mailing list, this is an old
list thart became stale, but a bunch of us at ietf114 felt it was the easiest
available list to discuss energy in networkin related interests (maybe up to
a point where someone in IETF leadership thinks a better/newer list would be
appropriate).

Cheers
    Toerless




On Thu, Sep 01, 2022 at 12:12:42PM -0700, Dave Taht via Internet-history wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 1, 2022 at 11:51 AM Olivier MJ Cr?pin-Leblond via
> Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > On 01/09/2022 18:41, Bob Purvy wrote:
> > > I think by the 90s he's on a PC, but I haven't really said anywhere.
> > > Definitely he's gotta try those AOL coasters.
> >
> > Remember it was floppy 3 1/2 in disks first which were terrible as
> > coasters, only to become more useful when they switched to CDs. That
> > being said I really hope these ended up somehow elsewhere than in a
> > landfill as so many were produced - see
> > https://nowiknow.com/remember-all-those-aol-cds-there-were-more-than-you-think/
> >
> > I wonder how that kind of production would fare in today's
> > environmentally conscious world....
> 
> I kind of feel that way about home routers. There are easily 10x more
> of those than are turned on, that could be upgraded to open firmware,
> enabled with ipv6, bufferbloat fixed, made more reliable and secure.
> Instead they languish in junk bins or landfills. I keep hoping to find
> a charitably suited VC (hah!) willing to back this concept:
> 
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T21on7g1MqQZoK91epUdxLYFGdtyLRgBat0VXoC9e3I/edit
> 
> With the current supply chain problems everywhere, perhaps people will
> relearn how to be frugal.
> 
> Recently an ISP I work with reflashed 700 "obsolete" mikrotik
> wireless-n routers to current openwrt and is giving them away as meshy
> APs. These are well built, and with current software, remain useful
> for another decade, at least.
> 
> I haven't bought a "new" computer in years. Desktops (with enough ram)
> got good enough for me a decade ago.
> 
> > Best,
> >
> > Olivier
> > --
> > Internet-history mailing list
> > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> FQ World Domination pending: https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/state_of_fq_codel/
> Dave T?ht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
> -- 
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history


From dave.taht at gmail.com  Thu Sep  1 13:10:21 2022
From: dave.taht at gmail.com (Dave Taht)
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2022 13:10:21 -0700
Subject: [ih] Greener computing
In-Reply-To: <YxEHf9i+lCL5fjGC@faui48e.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9A5DB231-30F6-4B77-B6A8-9F7392B4F549@gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHMJoTByspU7SV67B65JssYt8kmA_Hg0i5NzYd0Z19S0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <7bf9e128-1077-6482-3878-e30a0215e349@3kitty.org>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <594982ca-e320-6722-2818-8287c0e04287@gih.com>
 <CAFq6nVEdHZT8JUmyEf7p5pBg-dsf8NOE=yqEyJb2A8YRXhy8AA@mail.gmail.com>
 <69590b0f-e2c1-f099-70a8-f37c8021a0b2@gih.com>
 <CAA93jw6s4T63EBmSuxDsyXoXKTdrxX7Jb0LTJkGngdNdHbae_w@mail.gmail.com>
 <YxEHf9i+lCL5fjGC@faui48e.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>
Message-ID: <CAA93jw7DAqGvKMT2KJ1GJfWJABbzQuz931ttw1cM=rB-DJgJsA@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Sep 1, 2022 at 12:26 PM Toerless Eckert <tte at cs.fau.de> wrote:
>
> Dave:
>
> The sad reality is that older hardware, whether router or PCs uses
> more jule of energy per Megabit. So, in most cases it does pay off energy
> wise to buy recent hardware.

While the total energy/megabit might have improved, in general,
devices are eating more
energy than they were a decade back, I used to be able to run
wireless-n at well below 2w,
and more recent devices are well past 8-12w, admittedly able to push
10x more traffic. Idle numbers, I haven't looked at in a while.

Secondly, it seems to take at least 3, maybe closer to 7, for each new
2 year advance in technology
for the software to catch up. I have (formerly) cerowrt (now openwrt)
boxes in the field that have
been mounted on poles and even trees, for over 10 years, just with
steady software upgrades, and
no real demand for more bandwidth - 150Mbits, with good queuing, remains enough.

so factoring in labor, unreliability, security, makes that proposal
pretty green, IMHO. Plus I don't have figures on the costs of spilling
all those electronics into the ground. The power supplies alone...

>
> In the leading german home routers, there is even an option to switch
> ports to 100Mbps instead of 1Gbps for energy savings. Alas, the energy
> saving for that is only 20%, so customers have a hard decision point.
>
> I would assume that energy saving in PC/router hardware will be something
> users will look a lot more into in the coming years. So there may be
> some good logic to stick to old hardware and hope an upgrade in 3 years
> will be a lot more energy saving than one now.

To me - "energy saving" is mostly industry code for "more unfixible
offloads from the main cpu", and an EE employment act. Vastly prefer
simple, open source, code and a bare minimum of those crippling
offloads, with enough (power saving) cores, much more is feasible.

/me hides

IF we engineered stuff for a 8-15 year field life, and got off this 2
upgrade cycle it would be a better world.
>
> Btw: If you're interested to discuss more of energy saving in networking,
> then maybe chime in on the "recipe at ietf.org" mailing list, this is an old
> list thart became stale, but a bunch of us at ietf114 felt it was the easiest
> available list to discuss energy in networkin related interests (maybe up to
> a point where someone in IETF leadership thinks a better/newer list would be
> appropriate).
>
> Cheers
>     Toerless
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Sep 01, 2022 at 12:12:42PM -0700, Dave Taht via Internet-history wrote:
> > On Thu, Sep 1, 2022 at 11:51 AM Olivier MJ Cr?pin-Leblond via
> > Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On 01/09/2022 18:41, Bob Purvy wrote:
> > > > I think by the 90s he's on a PC, but I haven't really said anywhere.
> > > > Definitely he's gotta try those AOL coasters.
> > >
> > > Remember it was floppy 3 1/2 in disks first which were terrible as
> > > coasters, only to become more useful when they switched to CDs. That
> > > being said I really hope these ended up somehow elsewhere than in a
> > > landfill as so many were produced - see
> > > https://nowiknow.com/remember-all-those-aol-cds-there-were-more-than-you-think/
> > >
> > > I wonder how that kind of production would fare in today's
> > > environmentally conscious world....
> >
> > I kind of feel that way about home routers. There are easily 10x more
> > of those than are turned on, that could be upgraded to open firmware,
> > enabled with ipv6, bufferbloat fixed, made more reliable and secure.
> > Instead they languish in junk bins or landfills. I keep hoping to find
> > a charitably suited VC (hah!) willing to back this concept:
> >
> > https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T21on7g1MqQZoK91epUdxLYFGdtyLRgBat0VXoC9e3I/edit
> >
> > With the current supply chain problems everywhere, perhaps people will
> > relearn how to be frugal.
> >
> > Recently an ISP I work with reflashed 700 "obsolete" mikrotik
> > wireless-n routers to current openwrt and is giving them away as meshy
> > APs. These are well built, and with current software, remain useful
> > for another decade, at least.
> >
> > I haven't bought a "new" computer in years. Desktops (with enough ram)
> > got good enough for me a decade ago.
> >
> > > Best,
> > >
> > > Olivier
> > > --
> > > Internet-history mailing list
> > > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > FQ World Domination pending: https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/state_of_fq_codel/
> > Dave T?ht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
> > --
> > Internet-history mailing list
> > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history



-- 
FQ World Domination pending: https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/state_of_fq_codel/
Dave T?ht CEO, TekLibre, LLC


From awalding at gmail.com  Thu Sep  1 14:18:37 2022
From: awalding at gmail.com (Andrew Walding)
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2022 16:18:37 -0500
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <ter0bm$12qu$1@gal.iecc.com>
References: <CACs6+uXfVXGcMUB=y3nQnb3Pn56QhdFQ4LfA=wzoYx0UMQ6OHA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9A5DB231-30F6-4B77-B6A8-9F7392B4F549@gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <2b362eae-3ef9-40c1-8600-9785b9e2a605@home.arpa> <ter0bm$12qu$1@gal.iecc.com>
Message-ID: <CAKvFoo=FU4sxfLH2F4H4VngY97qU6wMMq8+3jWobLr1kTLjG5g@mail.gmail.com>

John, you have this BBS stuff fairly correct. I dispute, however, the "less
technical" statement.

I ran the Techknowledge BBS from roughly 1985 using RyBBS to 1999 using
Wildcat!  - I can't remember the dates I changed.  My BBS was known as
"Protocol Heaven" as I supported almost every known transfer protocol -
just some I remember: X-Modem, Y-Modem, Z-Modem, Q-Modem and probably 20
more transfer protocol variants.  We were constantly testing and retesting
transfer rates on large files and exploring the maximization of bandwidth.
As I recall Q-Modem was one of the fastest.  I did not support pornography
sharing.  I started with one very expensive at the time 2400 baud modem ( i
knew people that owned 300 baud acoustic couplers) and finished y BBS years
with three lines using USRobotics 56/64K modems with the BBS itself running
on an 8088 PC with 2, and then 4 40MByte drives that were filled to
capacity with shareware and freeware and message board content.  The true
techies were always hunting the fast BBS connection points.  We were highly
motivated by costs.  Some people had to pay for calls by the minute, so if
you could cut transfer time down, you could end the call earlier and that
was savings in your pocket.

I was a Fidonet Relay point from the beginning.  Fidonet ran worldwide
essentially on hundreds if not thousands of BBS systems.  You could post a
message to a colleague in London on my BBS in California, and at most wait
24 hours for a reply.  As a relay we ran the Fidonet exchange every 8 hours
as did most of the other bigger relays.

We were all hobbyists with normal full time jobs in the tech industry, at
least the people I knew were, and we would spend the second 12 hours of
each day working on the BBS'es and the protocols.  When the TCP/IP stuff
started to emerge and be accessible to us, no one cared about what we had
been doing at the binary or Layer 1 level.  Which was fine.  As we all know
now, what those ARPA, DARPA, and University folks had been working on was
broader and bigger and along with most of my BBS colleagues we jumped on
board and abandoned the BBS years quite quickly.  I could go on, but will
stop there.  I hope this helps.

On Thu, Sep 1, 2022 at 2:15 PM John Levine via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> According to Michael Kj?rling via Internet-history <michael at kjorling.se>:
> >On 1 Sep 2022 07:35 -0500, from internet-history at elists.isoc.org (Haudy
> Kazemi via Internet-history):
> >> If all this is supposed to be set in 1995, there may be a timing issue
> with
> >> referencing Visicalc and Apple II. They would be around 10 years old at
> >> that time, with both dating to the mid-1980s. All depends on the
> context.
> >
> >Wikipedia puts the original Apple II at a 1977 release, and the
> >original VisiCalc for Apple II in 1979, which sounds about right; so
> >by 1995, the combination would be more like 15 years old, and woefully
> >out of date.
>
> When the IBM PC and 1-2-3 came out in the early 1980s, they wiped out
> VisiCalc. Lotus wrote 1-2-3 specifically for the PC so it used all of
> the keys on the keyboard and the features of the PC's display, while
> VisiCalc was written to be ported to all the random little computers
> people used in the 1970s so it assumed a fairly minimal configuration.
> It was a lucky accident that VisiCalc worked so well on the Apple II.
>
> There were a lot of local and regional BBS which I think would have been
> more appealing to less technical users, since all you needed was a terminal
> program like the ubiquitous PC-Talk.
>
> Fidonet linked BBS via phone calls, usuallyy late at night and
> arranged to make maximum use of local free calling areas and
> discounted night toll rates. If your character's BBS was on Fidonet,
> that would allow exchanging messages with people in other parts of the
> country, albeit not very quickly.
>
> --
> Regards,
> John Levine, johnl at taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for
> Dummies",
> Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly
>
> --
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>


From kaze0010 at umn.edu  Thu Sep  1 14:55:43 2022
From: kaze0010 at umn.edu (Haudy Kazemi)
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2022 16:55:43 -0500
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <2b362eae-3ef9-40c1-8600-9785b9e2a605@home.arpa>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9A5DB231-30F6-4B77-B6A8-9F7392B4F549@gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHMJoTByspU7SV67B65JssYt8kmA_Hg0i5NzYd0Z19S0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <7bf9e128-1077-6482-3878-e30a0215e349@3kitty.org>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CACs6+uXfVXGcMUB=y3nQnb3Pn56QhdFQ4LfA=wzoYx0UMQ6OHA@mail.gmail.com>
 <2b362eae-3ef9-40c1-8600-9785b9e2a605@home.arpa>
Message-ID: <CACs6+uX2KTjGn-2FA_MgwvJqmuw2M8Uv96wKyOt9reRcw1WM_Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Sep 1, 2022, 13:11 Michael Kj?rling via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> On 1 Sep 2022 07:35 -0500, from internet-history at elists.isoc.org (Haudy
> Kazemi via Internet-history):
> > If all this is supposed to be set in 1995, there may be a timing issue
> with
> > referencing Visicalc and Apple II. They would be around 10 years old at
> > that time, with both dating to the mid-1980s. All depends on the context.
>
> Wikipedia puts the original Apple II at a 1977 release,


Fair. Personally, when I see Apple II, I immediately think of the Apple IIe
(1983-1993) or the luggable/compact Apple IIc (1984-1988)


and the
> original VisiCalc for Apple II in 1979, which sounds about right; so
> by 1995, the combination would be more like 15 years old, and woefully
> out of date.


Yes, hardware and software capabilities were rapidly evolving. Much like
the rapid changes seen in mobile phones from 2006 to say 2016. Upgrades
every 2-3 years brought massive capability improvements.

Today a 10 year old laptop can run Windows 10 and still be suitable for
casual everyday needs (in my definition, high resolution gaming doesn't
fall under casual everyday needs).



Mid-80s

vintage would be more like the IBM PC/AT (maybe
> PC/XT if you didn't see the need for the AT's computing power with its
> blazing-fast 12 MHz 80286) and Lotus 1-2-3. On the IBM compatible
> side, 386-based systems would perhaps start to be available but not
> commonplace; the Compaq Deskpro 386 hit the market in 1986. The
> Macintosh had just debuted at the time, and was generally short on
> software.
>
>
> > 1995 era spreadsheet software would include Microsoft Excel, Lotus 1-2-3,
> > and Quattro Pro. Windows 95, Windows 3.1, and DOS versions were available
> > for at least some of those products.
>
> Seconded. And let's not forget OS/2, which was still a somewhat
> serious contender on the desktop at the time, though I'm pretty sure
> that it wasn't until OS/2 Warp 3 (1994?) that it came with a built-in
> TCP/IP stack.
>
> Mainstream at the time would probably have been Windows 3.1 or Windows
> for Workgroups 3.11 running on MS-DOS, running any of the spreadsheets
> you mention. Excel was nowhere near as dominant then as it is today.
>

True. Lotus 1-2-3 was the main player. Quattro Pro too. They, like
WordPerfect, didn't make the transition to GUI Windows very well.



> Anything before OS/2 Warp 3 or Windows 95 (or maybe before WfW 3.11)
> required third-party software to connect to the Internet. On Windows,
> Trumpet Winsock was a common TCP/IP implementation and, if I recall
> correctly, dialer and PPP client.
>

That sounds about right. I knew a BBS sysop who ran a small Wildcat BBS in
the early 1990s. It was hosted on his home desktop, running OS/2, so he
could use the PC for other purposes than just as a BBS. There were a few
'door' games available, most notably TradeWars 2002 which offered a
multiplayer experience. Available modem speeds were up to 14.4 kbps, then
shortly after jumped to 28.8 kbps. I used a 1200 kbps ISA modem at first,
and later a 2400 kbps modem. That was sufficient for text based interfaces
as text lines would load approximately at reading speed.



Procomm Plus was a commonly used terminal program on DOS and Windows.



>
> > Intel Pentium and 486 CPUs were common in newer PCs of the time,
> generally
> > running at clockrates somewhere in 60 to 133 MHz range.
>
> Slower 486-based systems were also common. I remember around that time
> having a 486/33 with 4 MiB RAM (later upgraded to a whopping 8 MiB)
> and a ~500 MB hard disk, and that was quite decent for the time.
>

Common as used, not sure they were still being sold as new in 1995. Pentium
set a whole new standard. IIRC, a Pentium 66 MHz was similar in performance
to a 486DX4 100 MHz at a variety of tasks.


> Also look up the Multimedia PC (MPC) levels for example contemporary
> PC specs; Level 1 and Level 2 would probably be reasonable starting
> points. While upgrades brought serious improvements at the time (going
> from a 486/33 to a 486/66, or even a Pentium/60, never mind from say a
> 386/25, was a MAJOR upgrade in terms of relative performance), lots of
> people also stayed with older, slower systems because they did the job
> and were far more affordable.
>


Game performance then like now was a major driver for upgrades. Desire to
run Win95 was also a big driver.


> For some inspiration both about early personal computers as well as
> glimpses of what early general public Internet access was like,
> consider watching _Triumph of the Nerds_ and _Nerds 2.0.1_. Both are
> available on the Internet Archive and will take a few hours of your
> time.
>
> --
> Michael Kj?rling ? https://michael.kjorling.se ? michael at kjorling.se
>  ?Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog??
>
> --
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>


From kaze0010 at umn.edu  Thu Sep  1 15:01:14 2022
From: kaze0010 at umn.edu (Haudy Kazemi)
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2022 17:01:14 -0500
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <69590b0f-e2c1-f099-70a8-f37c8021a0b2@gih.com>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9A5DB231-30F6-4B77-B6A8-9F7392B4F549@gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHMJoTByspU7SV67B65JssYt8kmA_Hg0i5NzYd0Z19S0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <7bf9e128-1077-6482-3878-e30a0215e349@3kitty.org>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <594982ca-e320-6722-2818-8287c0e04287@gih.com>
 <CAFq6nVEdHZT8JUmyEf7p5pBg-dsf8NOE=yqEyJb2A8YRXhy8AA@mail.gmail.com>
 <69590b0f-e2c1-f099-70a8-f37c8021a0b2@gih.com>
Message-ID: <CACs6+uW8UJMe93g3EzaF=LWZQD5GY4_vu5Xe+c2XBSwRETHmiA@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Sep 1, 2022, 13:51 Olivier MJ Cr?pin-Leblond via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

>
>
> On 01/09/2022 18:41, Bob Purvy wrote:
> > I think by the 90s he's on a PC, but I haven't really said anywhere.
> > Definitely he's gotta try those AOL coasters.
>
> Remember it was floppy 3 1/2 in disks first which were terrible as
> coasters, only to become more useful when they switched to CDs. That
> being said I really hope these ended up somehow elsewhere than in a
> landfill as so many were produced - see
>
> https://nowiknow.com/remember-all-those-aol-cds-there-were-more-than-you-think/


Free AOL 3.5" floppies were a great.

One could request floppies, and then reformat them, and either carefully
remove the label or apply a new label directly over the old. Kind of like
free USB flash drives in more recent years.

The CDs were comparatively mostly useless (though people did come up with
some ideas for ways to reuse small numbers of them).



>
>


From gregskinner0 at icloud.com  Thu Sep  1 22:01:59 2022
From: gregskinner0 at icloud.com (Greg Skinner)
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2022 22:01:59 -0700
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <CAPfiqjYP+hb-9pem4w2TtfEV56MfST0E=k9LLoKnV2E8bC8ZaA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <1C1BB674-F423-43C5-B981-FDAD3FA9F738@me.com>
 <CAPfiqjYP+hb-9pem4w2TtfEV56MfST0E=k9LLoKnV2E8bC8ZaA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <BDBCED69-B100-4960-B6DD-3E7945451850@icloud.com>

On Aug 31, 2022, at 4:28 PM, Leo Vegoda <leo at vegoda.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 31, 2022 at 4:08 PM Ole Jacobsen via Internet-history
> <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>> 
>> I don't know about "chat rooms" exactly, but mailing lists have been around since the ARPANET days, wine-lovers, sf-lovers, etc, not to mention Usenet news groups. On ANY topic?.
> 
> Also look for usenet archives of discussion in alt.invest
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Leo

There was a misc.invest newsgroup with several subgroups also.  The earliest message I found from it on Google Groups is from 1986.

Incidentally, a misc.invest thread I found from 1987 <https://groups.google.com/g/misc.invest/c/rZiC3GIPQPs/m/hynzWGihvg0J> contains a post from John B. Nagle.  I don?t know offhand if it is the same John B. Nagle of RFC896 and RFC970.

?gregbo

From el at lisse.NA  Thu Sep  1 23:39:14 2022
From: el at lisse.NA (Dr Eberhard W Lisse)
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2022 08:39:14 +0200
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <BDBCED69-B100-4960-B6DD-3E7945451850@icloud.com>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <1C1BB674-F423-43C5-B981-FDAD3FA9F738@me.com>
 <CAPfiqjYP+hb-9pem4w2TtfEV56MfST0E=k9LLoKnV2E8bC8ZaA@mail.gmail.com>
 <BDBCED69-B100-4960-B6DD-3E7945451850@icloud.com>
Message-ID: <90b39551-cf87-d354-84e0-02151e92393f@lisse.NA>

A bit of a time line to put things into perspective.

I logged in to Randy Bush's machine via X25 in early 1990, and did email
there, using of course Kermit-MS. Don't remember what system it was
(perhaps Xenix, but he reads here :-)-O)

	First with an acoustic coupler at 300 bps and later with a
	1200/2400 dial up modem.  Technically illegal, most likely because
	the Apartheid authorities could not listen in (I kid you not :-)-O),
	but nobody really bothered any more in the run-up to and after
	Independence.

	X25 was horribly expensive (in Namibia) and Randy fortunately
	pointed us towards Rhodes University in South Africa via the phone,
	which was less expensive but still quite a bit.

I then switched to UUPC during 1990 on MS-DOS and I found a page
still giving a little insight:

	https://www.uupc.net/history.shtml

	A friend of mine in Germany wrote something he called MicroElm,
	which like its big brother allowed to read and write emails in a
	screen oriented manner.

	I wrote a 2000 (!)  line BAT (!)  script to tie the two together and
	that worked like nobody's business, even my mother could use it (and
	did actually).

	I do not recall whether this allowed Usenet News, but if asked I
	would tend to say it didn't.  However there were many interesting
	mailing lists.

I added my system to the UUCP "maps" which allowed all the big UUCP
hosts to know how to "route".

	I do not remember whether there was an MTA (SMAIL?) on MS-DOS, but
	since I had only one single connection the default "route" would
	always push the outgoing mail to Rhodes which initially used a FIDO
	connection to Randy Bush, then I think UUCP and eventually a leased
	line with some form of TCP/IP and software based "routers"

I then switched in 1991 to either Xenix or another Unix available for
the 386 at that time, don't remember which.

	I experimented a little with Minix but it was not ready for prime
	time, and most certainly read Usenet news (using nn) as I recall
	reading Linus Thorvald's famous post in the minix group.

I started using Linux at least 1993 but perhaps as early as 1992, first
with the stock uucp but then Taylor/uucp which was VERY effective.  I
subscribed to a small number of Usenet newsgroups, which Rhodes
University then pushed onto their outgoung uucp queue.

I think I also used nn for Usenet News but most certainly elm for mail.

	I found a small MTA (smail) which allowed me to use proper domain
	names (pushing everything over the one link out), .NA having been
	registered in May 1991, eventually I figured out how to gzip and
	batch the emails, squeezing a lot of efficiency out of this, cutting
	phone costs.  I played with sendmail later (you could configure this
	in 9 lines M4) and eventually of course moved to Postfix, so when
	the transition happened to TCP/IP email addressing did not need to
	change.

	I occasionally traveled to day-job conferences internationally and
	remember spending a whole day in a computer lab at Brown University
	pulling stuff with FTP (onto "stiffy" disks).

So for the protagonist in the US in 95 retiring from a technology
company (maybe involved with defense contracts) even as Financial
Analyst the better angle in my opinion could be having been on the ARPA
net, having read mail, lists and news in particular the below mentioned
investment groups at least initially.

Linux with X11 would have been available in several "distributions" by
then (at least SLS (1992, a bit buggy), Yggdrasil (1992/3 horribly
buggy), and Slackware (1993, used it for years))

Kermit would have been an option (on CP/M, MS-DOS, Apple and Unix/Linux)
to log into your friendly neighboring UUCP host and/or (eventually) onto
AOL/CompuServe and the like once they started to have content.

But on the other hand, if an OBGYN in (not so) deep Africa can do it...

el

On 2022-09-02 07:01 , Greg Skinner via Internet-history wrote:
> On Aug 31, 2022, at 4:28 PM, Leo Vegoda <leo at vegoda.org> wrote:
> 
>> On Wed, Aug 31, 2022 at 4:08 PM Ole Jacobsen via Internet-history
>> <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> I don't know about "chat rooms" exactly, but mailing lists have been
>>> around since the ARPANET days, wine-lovers, sf-lovers, etc, not to
>>> mention Usenet news groups.  On ANY topic?.
>>
>> Also look for usenet archives of discussion in alt.invest
>>
>> Kind regards,
>>
>> Leo
> 
> There was a misc.invest newsgroup with several subgroups also.  The
> earliest message I found from it on Google Groups is from 1986.
> 
> Incidentally, a misc.invest thread I found from 1987
> <https://groups.google.com/g/misc.invest/c/rZiC3GIPQPs/m/hynzWGihvg0J>
> contains a post from John B. Nagle.  I don?t know offhand if it is the
> same John B. Nagle of RFC896 and RFC970.
> 
> ?gregbo

-- 
Dr. Eberhard W. Lisse   \         /       Obstetrician & Gynaecologist
el at lisse.NA             / *      |  Telephone: +264 81 124 6733 (cell)
PO Box 8421 Bachbrecht  \      /  If this email is signed with GPG/PGP
10007, Namibia           ;____/  Sect 20 of Act No 4 of 2019 may apply


From tte at cs.fau.de  Fri Sep  2 04:25:54 2022
From: tte at cs.fau.de (Toerless Eckert)
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2022 13:25:54 +0200
Subject: [ih] Greener computing
In-Reply-To: <CAA93jw7DAqGvKMT2KJ1GJfWJABbzQuz931ttw1cM=rB-DJgJsA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9A5DB231-30F6-4B77-B6A8-9F7392B4F549@gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHMJoTByspU7SV67B65JssYt8kmA_Hg0i5NzYd0Z19S0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <7bf9e128-1077-6482-3878-e30a0215e349@3kitty.org>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <594982ca-e320-6722-2818-8287c0e04287@gih.com>
 <CAFq6nVEdHZT8JUmyEf7p5pBg-dsf8NOE=yqEyJb2A8YRXhy8AA@mail.gmail.com>
 <69590b0f-e2c1-f099-70a8-f37c8021a0b2@gih.com>
 <CAA93jw6s4T63EBmSuxDsyXoXKTdrxX7Jb0LTJkGngdNdHbae_w@mail.gmail.com>
 <YxEHf9i+lCL5fjGC@faui48e.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>
 <CAA93jw7DAqGvKMT2KJ1GJfWJABbzQuz931ttw1cM=rB-DJgJsA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <YxHoQhcqxVbq9ZQO@faui48e.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>

On Thu, Sep 01, 2022 at 01:10:21PM -0700, Dave Taht wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 1, 2022 at 12:26 PM Toerless Eckert <tte at cs.fau.de> wrote:
> >
> > Dave:
> >
> > The sad reality is that older hardware, whether router or PCs uses
> > more jule of energy per Megabit. So, in most cases it does pay off energy
> > wise to buy recent hardware.
> 
> While the total energy/megabit might have improved, in general,
> devices are eating more
> energy than they were a decade back, I used to be able to run
> wireless-n at well below 2w,
> and more recent devices are well past 8-12w, admittedly able to push
> 10x more traffic. Idle numbers, I haven't looked at in a while.

There is certainly a lot of unnecessary energy wate in newer product
lines, because the more power you need/have at peak, the more you
need to invest into design to use less energy in idle.

If it would have just been routers, i think hardware would have
never been optimized to minimize energy consumption in idle. This as all
driven by battery driven devices, phones, tables notebook. And even
if the same hardware and OS are used in routers, simple misdesigns on
the application side can easily invalidate power savings.

> > I would assume that energy saving in PC/router hardware will be something
> > users will look a lot more into in the coming years. So there may be
> > some good logic to stick to old hardware and hope an upgrade in 3 years
> > will be a lot more energy saving than one now.
> 
> To me - "energy saving" is mostly industry code for "more unfixible
> offloads from the main cpu", and an EE employment act. Vastly prefer
> simple, open source, code and a bare minimum of those crippling
> offloads, with enough (power saving) cores, much more is feasible.

Yes, unflexibility an non-software-upgrade-option is what i hate
the most too. But i have also come along a lot of features that could
only be added because of programmable offloads. espeecially for anything,
one could classify as "QoS-related". Admittedly of course most of this
not in home-routers, but at Gbps speed, including offload (e.g.: FPGA) 
code for NTP/PTP, resilient ethernet ring L2 techniques or other FRR mechanisms,
performance monitoring, TSN/DetNet PREOF, but also all the interesting AQM.

> IF we engineered stuff for a 8-15 year field life, and got off this 2
> upgrade cycle it would be a better world.

Lets see, when smart phones are being sold like old mainframe/supercomputers,
like the CDC cyber in University back in the 80th/90th, where the upgrade
to a 3x faster machine was merely a 1 million dollar tape with new
microcode firmware without NOPs ;-) 

Cheers
    Toerless

> > Btw: If you're interested to discuss more of energy saving in networking,
> > then maybe chime in on the "recipe at ietf.org" mailing list, this is an old
> > list thart became stale, but a bunch of us at ietf114 felt it was the easiest
> > available list to discuss energy in networkin related interests (maybe up to
> > a point where someone in IETF leadership thinks a better/newer list would be
> > appropriate).
> >
> > Cheers
> >     Toerless
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Sep 01, 2022 at 12:12:42PM -0700, Dave Taht via Internet-history wrote:
> > > On Thu, Sep 1, 2022 at 11:51 AM Olivier MJ Cr?pin-Leblond via
> > > Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On 01/09/2022 18:41, Bob Purvy wrote:
> > > > > I think by the 90s he's on a PC, but I haven't really said anywhere.
> > > > > Definitely he's gotta try those AOL coasters.
> > > >
> > > > Remember it was floppy 3 1/2 in disks first which were terrible as
> > > > coasters, only to become more useful when they switched to CDs. That
> > > > being said I really hope these ended up somehow elsewhere than in a
> > > > landfill as so many were produced - see
> > > > https://nowiknow.com/remember-all-those-aol-cds-there-were-more-than-you-think/
> > > >
> > > > I wonder how that kind of production would fare in today's
> > > > environmentally conscious world....
> > >
> > > I kind of feel that way about home routers. There are easily 10x more
> > > of those than are turned on, that could be upgraded to open firmware,
> > > enabled with ipv6, bufferbloat fixed, made more reliable and secure.
> > > Instead they languish in junk bins or landfills. I keep hoping to find
> > > a charitably suited VC (hah!) willing to back this concept:
> > >
> > > https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T21on7g1MqQZoK91epUdxLYFGdtyLRgBat0VXoC9e3I/edit
> > >
> > > With the current supply chain problems everywhere, perhaps people will
> > > relearn how to be frugal.
> > >
> > > Recently an ISP I work with reflashed 700 "obsolete" mikrotik
> > > wireless-n routers to current openwrt and is giving them away as meshy
> > > APs. These are well built, and with current software, remain useful
> > > for another decade, at least.
> > >
> > > I haven't bought a "new" computer in years. Desktops (with enough ram)
> > > got good enough for me a decade ago.
> > >
> > > > Best,
> > > >
> > > > Olivier
> > > > --
> > > > Internet-history mailing list
> > > > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > > > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > FQ World Domination pending: https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/state_of_fq_codel/
> > > Dave T?ht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
> > > --
> > > Internet-history mailing list
> > > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> FQ World Domination pending: https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/state_of_fq_codel/
> Dave T?ht CEO, TekLibre, LLC

-- 
---
tte at cs.fau.de


From kevin.bowling at kev009.com  Fri Sep  2 11:24:57 2022
From: kevin.bowling at kev009.com (Kevin Bowling)
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2022 11:24:57 -0700
Subject: [ih] Greener computing
In-Reply-To: <YxEHf9i+lCL5fjGC@faui48e.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9A5DB231-30F6-4B77-B6A8-9F7392B4F549@gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHMJoTByspU7SV67B65JssYt8kmA_Hg0i5NzYd0Z19S0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <7bf9e128-1077-6482-3878-e30a0215e349@3kitty.org>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <594982ca-e320-6722-2818-8287c0e04287@gih.com>
 <CAFq6nVEdHZT8JUmyEf7p5pBg-dsf8NOE=yqEyJb2A8YRXhy8AA@mail.gmail.com>
 <69590b0f-e2c1-f099-70a8-f37c8021a0b2@gih.com>
 <CAA93jw6s4T63EBmSuxDsyXoXKTdrxX7Jb0LTJkGngdNdHbae_w@mail.gmail.com>
 <YxEHf9i+lCL5fjGC@faui48e.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>
Message-ID: <CAK7dMtDt1_OxTHte0nW5rfbWbEPKKhpfaM5bG2VE+M1z2CVzYQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Sep 1, 2022 at 12:27 PM Toerless Eckert via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> Dave:
>
> The sad reality is that older hardware, whether router or PCs uses
> more jule of energy per Megabit. So, in most cases it does pay off energy
> wise to buy recent hardware.
>
> In the leading german home routers, there is even an option to switch
> ports to 100Mbps instead of 1Gbps for energy savings. Alas, the energy
> saving for that is only 20%, so customers have a hard decision point.
>

There is an EEE standard that should be used instead so the user doesn?t
have to worry about such things.


> I would assume that energy saving in PC/router hardware will be something
> users will look a lot more into in the coming years. So there may be
> some good logic to stick to old hardware and hope an upgrade in 3 years
> will be a lot more energy saving than one now.
>
> Btw: If you're interested to discuss more of energy saving in networking,
> then maybe chime in on the "recipe at ietf.org" mailing list, this is an old
> list thart became stale, but a bunch of us at ietf114 felt it was the
> easiest
> available list to discuss energy in networkin related interests (maybe up
> to
> a point where someone in IETF leadership thinks a better/newer list would
> be
> appropriate).
>
> Cheers
>     Toerless
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Sep 01, 2022 at 12:12:42PM -0700, Dave Taht via Internet-history
> wrote:
> > On Thu, Sep 1, 2022 at 11:51 AM Olivier MJ Cr?pin-Leblond via
> > Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On 01/09/2022 18:41, Bob Purvy wrote:
> > > > I think by the 90s he's on a PC, but I haven't really said anywhere.
> > > > Definitely he's gotta try those AOL coasters.
> > >
> > > Remember it was floppy 3 1/2 in disks first which were terrible as
> > > coasters, only to become more useful when they switched to CDs. That
> > > being said I really hope these ended up somehow elsewhere than in a
> > > landfill as so many were produced - see
> > >
> https://nowiknow.com/remember-all-those-aol-cds-there-were-more-than-you-think/
> > >
> > > I wonder how that kind of production would fare in today's
> > > environmentally conscious world....
> >
> > I kind of feel that way about home routers. There are easily 10x more
> > of those than are turned on, that could be upgraded to open firmware,
> > enabled with ipv6, bufferbloat fixed, made more reliable and secure.
> > Instead they languish in junk bins or landfills. I keep hoping to find
> > a charitably suited VC (hah!) willing to back this concept:
> >
> >
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T21on7g1MqQZoK91epUdxLYFGdtyLRgBat0VXoC9e3I/edit
> >
> > With the current supply chain problems everywhere, perhaps people will
> > relearn how to be frugal.
> >
> > Recently an ISP I work with reflashed 700 "obsolete" mikrotik
> > wireless-n routers to current openwrt and is giving them away as meshy
> > APs. These are well built, and with current software, remain useful
> > for another decade, at least.
> >
> > I haven't bought a "new" computer in years. Desktops (with enough ram)
> > got good enough for me a decade ago.
> >
> > > Best,
> > >
> > > Olivier
> > > --
> > > Internet-history mailing list
> > > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > FQ World Domination pending:
> https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/state_of_fq_codel/
> > Dave T?ht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
> > --
> > Internet-history mailing list
> > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> --
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>


From dave.taht at gmail.com  Fri Sep  2 11:44:12 2022
From: dave.taht at gmail.com (Dave Taht)
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2022 11:44:12 -0700
Subject: [ih] greener underwater?
In-Reply-To: <CAK7dMtDt1_OxTHte0nW5rfbWbEPKKhpfaM5bG2VE+M1z2CVzYQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9A5DB231-30F6-4B77-B6A8-9F7392B4F549@gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHMJoTByspU7SV67B65JssYt8kmA_Hg0i5NzYd0Z19S0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <7bf9e128-1077-6482-3878-e30a0215e349@3kitty.org>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <594982ca-e320-6722-2818-8287c0e04287@gih.com>
 <CAFq6nVEdHZT8JUmyEf7p5pBg-dsf8NOE=yqEyJb2A8YRXhy8AA@mail.gmail.com>
 <69590b0f-e2c1-f099-70a8-f37c8021a0b2@gih.com>
 <CAA93jw6s4T63EBmSuxDsyXoXKTdrxX7Jb0LTJkGngdNdHbae_w@mail.gmail.com>
 <YxEHf9i+lCL5fjGC@faui48e.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>
 <CAK7dMtDt1_OxTHte0nW5rfbWbEPKKhpfaM5bG2VE+M1z2CVzYQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAA93jw7pKkOimdBpzymSEghee+xPTwdSACwjE=Azd3mc67rRDQ@mail.gmail.com>

This piece on a company attempting to build data centers underwater
went by today on multiple channels. I can't help but think this idea
was long ago developed and deployed by certain governments long ago?

"The viability of underwater datacenters has already been demonstrated
by Microsoft, which has deployed several over the past decade as part
of its Project Natick experiment. The most recent was recovered from
the seabed off the Scottish Orkney islands in 2020, and contained 12
racks with 864 servers. Unlike the Subsea pods, the Project Natick
enclosure was filled with nitrogen."

https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/01/subsea_cloud_underwater_datacenter/

But:

"The subsea servers are  immersed in a dielectric coolant, which
conducts heat but not electricity. "

It does spark a ton of questions, fluid is far less compressible and I
would think better than nitrogen, but dragging fiber
and 1MW of power offshore seems the stuff of science fiction... or
fantasy... and even cooled to 0C I still imagine moving parts, rather
than convection is required....

On Fri, Sep 2, 2022 at 11:25 AM Kevin Bowling via Internet-history
<internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Sep 1, 2022 at 12:27 PM Toerless Eckert via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
> > Dave:
> >
> > The sad reality is that older hardware, whether router or PCs uses
> > more jule of energy per Megabit. So, in most cases it does pay off energy
> > wise to buy recent hardware.
> >
> > In the leading german home routers, there is even an option to switch
> > ports to 100Mbps instead of 1Gbps for energy savings. Alas, the energy
> > saving for that is only 20%, so customers have a hard decision point.
> >
>
> There is an EEE standard that should be used instead so the user doesn?t
> have to worry about such things.
>
>
> > I would assume that energy saving in PC/router hardware will be something
> > users will look a lot more into in the coming years. So there may be
> > some good logic to stick to old hardware and hope an upgrade in 3 years
> > will be a lot more energy saving than one now.
> >
> > Btw: If you're interested to discuss more of energy saving in networking,
> > then maybe chime in on the "recipe at ietf.org" mailing list, this is an old
> > list thart became stale, but a bunch of us at ietf114 felt it was the
> > easiest
> > available list to discuss energy in networkin related interests (maybe up
> > to
> > a point where someone in IETF leadership thinks a better/newer list would
> > be
> > appropriate).
> >
> > Cheers
> >     Toerless
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Sep 01, 2022 at 12:12:42PM -0700, Dave Taht via Internet-history
> > wrote:
> > > On Thu, Sep 1, 2022 at 11:51 AM Olivier MJ Cr?pin-Leblond via
> > > Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On 01/09/2022 18:41, Bob Purvy wrote:
> > > > > I think by the 90s he's on a PC, but I haven't really said anywhere.
> > > > > Definitely he's gotta try those AOL coasters.
> > > >
> > > > Remember it was floppy 3 1/2 in disks first which were terrible as
> > > > coasters, only to become more useful when they switched to CDs. That
> > > > being said I really hope these ended up somehow elsewhere than in a
> > > > landfill as so many were produced - see
> > > >
> > https://nowiknow.com/remember-all-those-aol-cds-there-were-more-than-you-think/
> > > >
> > > > I wonder how that kind of production would fare in today's
> > > > environmentally conscious world....
> > >
> > > I kind of feel that way about home routers. There are easily 10x more
> > > of those than are turned on, that could be upgraded to open firmware,
> > > enabled with ipv6, bufferbloat fixed, made more reliable and secure.
> > > Instead they languish in junk bins or landfills. I keep hoping to find
> > > a charitably suited VC (hah!) willing to back this concept:
> > >
> > >
> > https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T21on7g1MqQZoK91epUdxLYFGdtyLRgBat0VXoC9e3I/edit
> > >
> > > With the current supply chain problems everywhere, perhaps people will
> > > relearn how to be frugal.
> > >
> > > Recently an ISP I work with reflashed 700 "obsolete" mikrotik
> > > wireless-n routers to current openwrt and is giving them away as meshy
> > > APs. These are well built, and with current software, remain useful
> > > for another decade, at least.
> > >
> > > I haven't bought a "new" computer in years. Desktops (with enough ram)
> > > got good enough for me a decade ago.
> > >
> > > > Best,
> > > >
> > > > Olivier
> > > > --
> > > > Internet-history mailing list
> > > > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > > > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > FQ World Domination pending:
> > https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/state_of_fq_codel/
> > > Dave T?ht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
> > > --
> > > Internet-history mailing list
> > > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> > --
> > Internet-history mailing list
> > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> >
> --
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history



-- 
FQ World Domination pending: https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/state_of_fq_codel/
Dave T?ht CEO, TekLibre, LLC


From johnl at iecc.com  Fri Sep  2 12:23:57 2022
From: johnl at iecc.com (John Levine)
Date: 2 Sep 2022 15:23:57 -0400
Subject: [ih] greener underwater?
In-Reply-To: <CAA93jw7pKkOimdBpzymSEghee+xPTwdSACwjE=Azd3mc67rRDQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20220902192357.87B5E48DE9F5@ary.qy>

It appears that Dave Taht via Internet-history <dave.taht at gmail.com> said:
>This piece on a company attempting to build data centers underwater
>went by today on multiple channels. I can't help but think this idea
>was long ago developed and deployed by certain governments long ago?

Probably not. The only advantagea I can see of putting data centers
underwater are that you get cooling for free and I suppose it might be
easier to get offshore seabed rights than warehouse space in some
cities.

It's not a good way to hide stuff since the heat plumes would be
totally obvious to infrared satellites.

R's,
John


From touch at strayalpha.com  Fri Sep  2 12:27:00 2022
From: touch at strayalpha.com (touch at strayalpha.com)
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2022 12:27:00 -0700
Subject: [ih] greener underwater?
In-Reply-To: <CAA93jw7pKkOimdBpzymSEghee+xPTwdSACwjE=Azd3mc67rRDQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9A5DB231-30F6-4B77-B6A8-9F7392B4F549@gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHMJoTByspU7SV67B65JssYt8kmA_Hg0i5NzYd0Z19S0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <7bf9e128-1077-6482-3878-e30a0215e349@3kitty.org>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <594982ca-e320-6722-2818-8287c0e04287@gih.com>
 <CAFq6nVEdHZT8JUmyEf7p5pBg-dsf8NOE=yqEyJb2A8YRXhy8AA@mail.gmail.com>
 <69590b0f-e2c1-f099-70a8-f37c8021a0b2@gih.com>
 <CAA93jw6s4T63EBmSuxDsyXoXKTdrxX7Jb0LTJkGngdNdHbae_w@mail.gmail.com>
 <YxEHf9i+lCL5fjGC@faui48e.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>
 <CAK7dMtDt1_OxTHte0nW5rfbWbEPKKhpfaM5bG2VE+M1z2CVzYQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAA93jw7pKkOimdBpzymSEghee+xPTwdSACwjE=Azd3mc67rRDQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8B5EE7BF-9B4B-422C-97F0-BB071E5B9897@strayalpha.com>

Hi, Dave,

(With the caveat that I don?t know how ?IH? this is, but there?s no need to be that constrictive)?

> On Sep 2, 2022, at 11:44 AM, Dave Taht via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> This piece on a company attempting to build data centers underwater
> went by today on multiple channels. I can't help but think this idea
> was long ago developed and deployed by certain governments long ago?

?Green? IMO depends on:
	- where the power comes from
	- recyclability of the components (after EOL)

I don?t think it matters all that much where the heat goes TO as much as how MUCH heat goes there?
(Yeah, there are kinder ways of dissipating heat than others, but that?s less ?green? than ?low environmental impact?, which aren?t always aligned).

> 
> "The viability of underwater datacenters has already been demonstrated
> by Microsoft, which has deployed several over the past decade as part
> of its Project Natick experiment. The most recent was recovered from
> the seabed off the Scottish Orkney islands in 2020, and contained 12
> racks with 864 servers. Unlike the Subsea pods, the Project Natick
> enclosure was filled with nitrogen."
> 
> https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/01/subsea_cloud_underwater_datacenter/
> 
> But:
> 
> "The subsea servers are  immersed in a dielectric coolant, which
> conducts heat but not electricity. "

I recall the Cray 2 ?fishtank? pioneering this (AFAIR).

> It does spark a ton of questions, fluid is far less compressible and I
> would think better than nitrogen,

Filling with nitrogen reduces oxidation, but I don?t think helps otherwise.

If the outside pressure is carried into the pods, I would worry about crushing chip enclosures.

> but dragging fiber
> and 1MW of power offshore seems the stuff of science fiction?

Fiber goes transoceanic, so that shouldn?t be a big deal.

And power cables support offshore islands, so depends on how far offshore, but again, this need not be new.

> or
> fantasy... and even cooled to 0C I still imagine moving parts, rather
> than convection is required?.

Heat pipes have no moving parts, FWIW? 

Joe




From tte at cs.fau.de  Fri Sep  2 12:58:08 2022
From: tte at cs.fau.de (Toerless Eckert)
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2022 21:58:08 +0200
Subject: [ih] greener underwater?
In-Reply-To: <8B5EE7BF-9B4B-422C-97F0-BB071E5B9897@strayalpha.com>
References: <7bf9e128-1077-6482-3878-e30a0215e349@3kitty.org>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <594982ca-e320-6722-2818-8287c0e04287@gih.com>
 <CAFq6nVEdHZT8JUmyEf7p5pBg-dsf8NOE=yqEyJb2A8YRXhy8AA@mail.gmail.com>
 <69590b0f-e2c1-f099-70a8-f37c8021a0b2@gih.com>
 <CAA93jw6s4T63EBmSuxDsyXoXKTdrxX7Jb0LTJkGngdNdHbae_w@mail.gmail.com>
 <YxEHf9i+lCL5fjGC@faui48e.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>
 <CAK7dMtDt1_OxTHte0nW5rfbWbEPKKhpfaM5bG2VE+M1z2CVzYQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAA93jw7pKkOimdBpzymSEghee+xPTwdSACwjE=Azd3mc67rRDQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <8B5EE7BF-9B4B-422C-97F0-BB071E5B9897@strayalpha.com>
Message-ID: <YxJgUFpKMJ0T9g/Q@faui48e.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>

Fun topic.

There is am established market of data-centers in "normal" shipping
containers including simply airlifting thoe from/to trucks for
transporting from/to target destination and/or maintenance.

I guess if one would build such containers for dropping them just a few meters
underwater in shore regions, then pulling the cable might not be an issue,
and you could have a metro-edge DC in a lot of areas with the highest
prices of real-estate (coastal cities), so going offshore could be more
than just saving cooling.

Hey, if they would put these DC-containers off the shore of our san francisco
bay area beaches, maybe we could get an influx of tourists that prefer water
that you do NOT need to use wet suits to go into!

(Yes i know, marketing hype. lots of gotchas to consider).

Cheers
    Toerless

On Fri, Sep 02, 2022 at 12:27:00PM -0700, touch--- via Internet-history wrote:
> Hi, Dave,
> 
> (With the caveat that I don?t know how ?IH? this is, but there?s no need to be that constrictive)?
> 
> > On Sep 2, 2022, at 11:44 AM, Dave Taht via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> > 
> > This piece on a company attempting to build data centers underwater
> > went by today on multiple channels. I can't help but think this idea
> > was long ago developed and deployed by certain governments long ago?
> 
> ?Green? IMO depends on:
> 	- where the power comes from
> 	- recyclability of the components (after EOL)
> 
> I don?t think it matters all that much where the heat goes TO as much as how MUCH heat goes there?
> (Yeah, there are kinder ways of dissipating heat than others, but that?s less ?green? than ?low environmental impact?, which aren?t always aligned).
> 
> > 
> > "The viability of underwater datacenters has already been demonstrated
> > by Microsoft, which has deployed several over the past decade as part
> > of its Project Natick experiment. The most recent was recovered from
> > the seabed off the Scottish Orkney islands in 2020, and contained 12
> > racks with 864 servers. Unlike the Subsea pods, the Project Natick
> > enclosure was filled with nitrogen."
> > 
> > https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/01/subsea_cloud_underwater_datacenter/
> > 
> > But:
> > 
> > "The subsea servers are  immersed in a dielectric coolant, which
> > conducts heat but not electricity. "
> 
> I recall the Cray 2 ?fishtank? pioneering this (AFAIR).
> 
> > It does spark a ton of questions, fluid is far less compressible and I
> > would think better than nitrogen,
> 
> Filling with nitrogen reduces oxidation, but I don?t think helps otherwise.
> 
> If the outside pressure is carried into the pods, I would worry about crushing chip enclosures.
> 
> > but dragging fiber
> > and 1MW of power offshore seems the stuff of science fiction?
> 
> Fiber goes transoceanic, so that shouldn?t be a big deal.
> 
> And power cables support offshore islands, so depends on how far offshore, but again, this need not be new.
> 
> > or
> > fantasy... and even cooled to 0C I still imagine moving parts, rather
> > than convection is required?.
> 
> Heat pipes have no moving parts, FWIW? 
> 
> Joe
> 
> 
> -- 
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history

-- 
---
tte at cs.fau.de


From steffen at sdaoden.eu  Fri Sep  2 13:39:38 2022
From: steffen at sdaoden.eu (Steffen Nurpmeso)
Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2022 22:39:38 +0200
Subject: [ih] greener underwater?
In-Reply-To: <8B5EE7BF-9B4B-422C-97F0-BB071E5B9897@strayalpha.com>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9A5DB231-30F6-4B77-B6A8-9F7392B4F549@gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHMJoTByspU7SV67B65JssYt8kmA_Hg0i5NzYd0Z19S0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <7bf9e128-1077-6482-3878-e30a0215e349@3kitty.org>
 <CAFq6nVFWVOyQiuncObP66Up3Ag7ZPGgkzOtL=cd6n+WLVTRU+g@mail.gmail.com>
 <594982ca-e320-6722-2818-8287c0e04287@gih.com>
 <CAFq6nVEdHZT8JUmyEf7p5pBg-dsf8NOE=yqEyJb2A8YRXhy8AA@mail.gmail.com>
 <69590b0f-e2c1-f099-70a8-f37c8021a0b2@gih.com>
 <CAA93jw6s4T63EBmSuxDsyXoXKTdrxX7Jb0LTJkGngdNdHbae_w@mail.gmail.com>
 <YxEHf9i+lCL5fjGC@faui48e.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>
 <CAK7dMtDt1_OxTHte0nW5rfbWbEPKKhpfaM5bG2VE+M1z2CVzYQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAA93jw7pKkOimdBpzymSEghee+xPTwdSACwjE=Azd3mc67rRDQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <8B5EE7BF-9B4B-422C-97F0-BB071E5B9897@strayalpha.com>
Message-ID: <20220902203938.CeEjw%steffen@sdaoden.eu>

touch at strayalpha.com wrote in
 <8B5EE7BF-9B4B-422C-97F0-BB071E5B9897 at strayalpha.com>:
 ...
 |> On Sep 2, 2022, at 11:44 AM, Dave Taht via Internet-history <internet-hi\
 |> story at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
 |> 
 |> This piece on a company attempting to build data centers underwater
 |> went by today on multiple channels. I can't help but think this idea
 |> was long ago developed and deployed by certain governments long ago?
 |
 |?Green? IMO depends on:
 | - where the power comes from
 | - recyclability of the components (after EOL)

That is a good point!  'And wanting to note that at least for
Germanies poison, much is simply brought to Africa or India where
young people ("children", so to say) will break it up for us.  Or
simply throwing it into nature.  'Just today i read an excerpt of
a study that mentions many hundreds of illegal, unsecured deponies
in Germany (known to authorities), with an estimate of at least
~550 Mrd (Billions) costs for the public .. shall they be removed
(they are not).

(And i could have wrote the same, actually i am sure i _did_, by
the beginning of the 90s, but times are not right to complain on
the "slowness of democracies", i am afraid.  As sometimes they can
be fast, if it's easy, right.)

We are hoping for green hydrogen for long, it slowly starts to
happen.  America is in a fantastic position for this with
thousands of kilometres of ocean coast.  And southern state
sunshine.

 |I don?t think it matters all that much where the heat goes TO as much \
 |as how MUCH heat goes there?
 |(Yeah, there are kinder ways of dissipating heat than others, but that?s \
 |less ?green? than ?low environmental impact?, which aren?t always aligned).

And also it is not only climate change, but mass extinction.
Also because the resources are still taken from wherever and in
the cheapmost possible way.  Another race has started to
accommodate for battery components of electrical cars just
recently.  Massive (expensive, dirty) infrastructural changes
accompany.

And, sorry, by the beginning of the thread i was shortly
pessimized because of a complain on a few watts (which add up
quite a bit when they occur in hundreds of thousands of boxes,
granted), when in the same context a person flew from Germany
(likely Frankfurt or Munich) to Philadelphia, and back, for a four
day meeting.  I live thirty kilometres away from Frankfurt/Main
Airport, the sky is so bright most of the time (except in dry air
weather conditions), you mostly cannot see it!

Linux in the meantime, and finally, is doing something for power
savings.  Even though empowered by billions of dollars of major
companies since about twenty years ago (i think), this was not
a real concern since maybe four or five years ago (?).
Different to Apple and likely also Microsoft, where operating
systems had the low level thus likely in-kernel strategies for
fine granularity of power savings.  (At least in their mobile
devices variant.)

It always made and makes me wonder, because the involved people
are almost all academics, and even fifty years ago the wise ones
did interpolate what will happen if we continue like this (the
"limits to growth" i think in english that i always mention), but
still it is getting worse year by year, so much is plain.
And it does not make sense to point fingers, it mostly never did.
We change or the children will suffer.  Three generations like
a biblical plague, is it.

  ...

P.S.: satellites there are too many, and of course you _could_
countermeasure them if you want, by spreading the heated water
over kilometres.  And/or going deeper.

P.P.S.: i hope they do the spread anyway, since you massively
change life conditions near that thing otherwise.

P.P.P.S.: i hope we get strict political guidelines regarding all
that, with a shortest possible intermediate time, you know most of
the things done now run for multiple decades, it's a shame.
There must be a prioritization, it should have happened for long.

P.P.P.P.S.: i do not use crypto money nor netflix, too.
But like in the famous ~1939 German Song "Nur nicht aus Liebe
weinen" ("Just don't cry for Love", hmm, "Anything, but not crying
because of Love") by Zarah Leander, "Wir werden vom Schicksal
getrieben, und das Ende ist immer Verzicht", "We are driven by
fate and the end is always renunciation [sacrifice]".

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)


From leo at vegoda.org  Fri Sep  2 14:52:54 2022
From: leo at vegoda.org (Leo Vegoda)
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2022 14:52:54 -0700
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPfiqjY7ioc9=mmA2QR3YPSH_+vVm-Xwq9RNzkSpZz7Fsm6EcQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Aug 31, 2022 at 3:53 PM Bob Purvy via Internet-history
<internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
> Something you wouldn't think would be a problem:
>
> I'm planning out my next novel, and I want to have a character haunting the
> chat rooms and forums on investing, around 1995 and on. I don't want to

If your character is a professional, they might have had access to a
Bloomberg terminal by 1995. Of course, they have always been very
expensive and niche.


From bpurvy at gmail.com  Fri Sep  2 15:06:58 2022
From: bpurvy at gmail.com (Bob Purvy)
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2022 15:06:58 -0700
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <CAPfiqjY7ioc9=mmA2QR3YPSH_+vVm-Xwq9RNzkSpZz7Fsm6EcQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAPfiqjY7ioc9=mmA2QR3YPSH_+vVm-Xwq9RNzkSpZz7Fsm6EcQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAFq6nVGgQiMGTBnHa5WRer=Ugas656Cpz7tVO3PDdr80oPYFDg@mail.gmail.com>

Good idea, but Len's retired, plus he was in Chrysler finance when he was
working. I don't know if those
 people had Bloombergs or not.



On Fri, Sep 2, 2022 at 2:53 PM Leo Vegoda <leo at vegoda.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 31, 2022 at 3:53 PM Bob Purvy via Internet-history
> <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> >
> > Something you wouldn't think would be a problem:
> >
> > I'm planning out my next novel, and I want to have a character haunting
> the
> > chat rooms and forums on investing, around 1995 and on. I don't want to
>
> If your character is a professional, they might have had access to a
> Bloomberg terminal by 1995. Of course, they have always been very
> expensive and niche.
>


From joly at punkcast.com  Fri Sep  2 17:38:25 2022
From: joly at punkcast.com (Joly MacFie)
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2022 20:38:25 -0400
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <CAFq6nVGgQiMGTBnHa5WRer=Ugas656Cpz7tVO3PDdr80oPYFDg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAPfiqjY7ioc9=mmA2QR3YPSH_+vVm-Xwq9RNzkSpZz7Fsm6EcQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVGgQiMGTBnHa5WRer=Ugas656Cpz7tVO3PDdr80oPYFDg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAM9VJk2SO6gVF8T9fdR+dqBsjJWXF_iVtQzmwYh-W=P-1oeWVQ@mail.gmail.com>

My bet would be Compuserve.



On Fri, Sep 2, 2022 at 6:06 PM Bob Purvy via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> Good idea, but Len's retired, plus he was in Chrysler finance when he was
> working. I don't know if those
>  people had Bloombergs or not.
>
>
>
> On Fri, Sep 2, 2022 at 2:53 PM Leo Vegoda <leo at vegoda.org> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, Aug 31, 2022 at 3:53 PM Bob Purvy via Internet-history
> > <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > Something you wouldn't think would be a problem:
> > >
> > > I'm planning out my next novel, and I want to have a character haunting
> > the
> > > chat rooms and forums on investing, around 1995 and on. I don't want to
> >
> > If your character is a professional, they might have had access to a
> > Bloomberg terminal by 1995. Of course, they have always been very
> > expensive and niche.
> >
> --
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>


-- 
--------------------------------------
Joly MacFie  +12185659365
--------------------------------------
-


From johnl at johnlabovitz.com  Sat Sep  3 02:07:44 2022
From: johnl at johnlabovitz.com (John Labovitz)
Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2022 11:07:44 +0200
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <CAFq6nVGgQiMGTBnHa5WRer=Ugas656Cpz7tVO3PDdr80oPYFDg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAPfiqjY7ioc9=mmA2QR3YPSH_+vVm-Xwq9RNzkSpZz7Fsm6EcQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVGgQiMGTBnHa5WRer=Ugas656Cpz7tVO3PDdr80oPYFDg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <F31181B5-7675-4B04-A0F1-38229EBF3F5A@johnlabovitz.com>

I worked for O?Reilly?s Global Network Navigator (GNN) as technical director from 1993?1995, when it was sold to AOL. GNN was the first commercial website. By 1995, GNN had a section (a ?metacenter?)  on personal finance & investment that was edited by folks who?d had experience in the pre-web finance community; it published original information and also linked to many other investment communities. GNN was quite well known, and was often mentioned in articles from the mainstream press like the NYT and WSJ, which your character likely would have followed.

By that time, O?Reilly had also released the 'Internet in a Box? product, which was literally a boxed Windows software product (can?t remember if CD-ROM or floppy) that included a TCP/IP stack (including PPP for modem use), FTP client, browser, etc., plus default bookmarks to places like the GNN finance center.

So given that your character wasn?t a total newb, I?d reckon that by 1995 they?d likely be fully on the web, via something like Internet in a Box on a PC. CompuServe and the like was pretty much dead by that time for many people.

?John


> On Sep 3, 2022, at 00:06, Bob Purvy via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> Good idea, but Len's retired, plus he was in Chrysler finance when he was
> working. I don't know if those
> people had Bloombergs or not.
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, Sep 2, 2022 at 2:53 PM Leo Vegoda <leo at vegoda.org> wrote:
> 
>> On Wed, Aug 31, 2022 at 3:53 PM Bob Purvy via Internet-history
>> <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Something you wouldn't think would be a problem:
>>> 
>>> I'm planning out my next novel, and I want to have a character haunting
>> the
>>> chat rooms and forums on investing, around 1995 and on. I don't want to
>> 
>> If your character is a professional, they might have had access to a
>> Bloomberg terminal by 1995. Of course, they have always been very
>> expensive and niche.
>> 
> -- 
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history



From joly at punkcast.com  Fri Sep  9 02:59:11 2022
From: joly at punkcast.com (Joly MacFie)
Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2022 05:59:11 -0400
Subject: [ih] =?utf-8?b?UklQIOKAi0FSUEFORVQgdXNlciDigItFbGl6YWJldGggUi4=?=
Message-ID: <CAM9VJk3-goStaUJ6_RkNPVhJ9ikKsftx=r5ai+dHxUO8a4joxg@mail.gmail.com>

https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/08/queen_elizabeth_dies/

On March 26, 1976, the Queen became one of the first heads of state to use
email. The late Peter Kirstein pioneered Britain's adoption of TCP/IP and
Her Majesty was invited to the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment to
view the first introduction of the ARPANET network to the UK.

Given the username HME2 (Her Majesty, Elizabeth II) by Kirstein, she logged
in and sent an email with the signature Elizabeth R. Kirstein recalled that
the text was prewritten and ? given the topic ? that's understandable,
though it was a historic step.

"This message to all ARPANET users announces the availability on ARPANET of
the Coral 66 compiler provided by the GEC 4080 computer at the Royal
Signals and Radar Establishment, Malvern, England," it read. "Coral 66 is
the standard real-time high level language adopted by the Ministry of
Defence. https://www.wired.com/2012/12/queen-and-the-internet/

-- 
--------------------------------------
Joly MacFie  +12185659365
--------------------------------------
-


From vgcerf at gmail.com  Fri Sep  9 07:21:04 2022
From: vgcerf at gmail.com (vinton cerf)
Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2022 10:21:04 -0400
Subject: [ih] 
 =?utf-8?b?UklQIOKAi0FSUEFORVQgdXNlciDigItFbGl6YWJldGggUi4=?=
In-Reply-To: <CAM9VJk3-goStaUJ6_RkNPVhJ9ikKsftx=r5ai+dHxUO8a4joxg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAM9VJk3-goStaUJ6_RkNPVhJ9ikKsftx=r5ai+dHxUO8a4joxg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAFtm_UXqLtEbghx2Nu7xKZpQ9X-t7iYzE5MHHQTevzpmTkA1A@mail.gmail.com>

Bob Kahn presented a photo of this event to Queen Elizabeth in 2013 upon
the occasion of his receipt of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering
(along with Louis Pouzin, Marc Andreessen, Tim Berners-Lee, and me).

v


On Fri, Sep 9, 2022 at 5:59 AM Joly MacFie via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/08/queen_elizabeth_dies/
>
> On March 26, 1976, the Queen became one of the first heads of state to use
> email. The late Peter Kirstein pioneered Britain's adoption of TCP/IP and
> Her Majesty was invited to the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment to
> view the first introduction of the ARPANET network to the UK.
>
> Given the username HME2 (Her Majesty, Elizabeth II) by Kirstein, she logged
> in and sent an email with the signature Elizabeth R. Kirstein recalled that
> the text was prewritten and ? given the topic ? that's understandable,
> though it was a historic step.
>
> "This message to all ARPANET users announces the availability on ARPANET of
> the Coral 66 compiler provided by the GEC 4080 computer at the Royal
> Signals and Radar Establishment, Malvern, England," it read. "Coral 66 is
> the standard real-time high level language adopted by the Ministry of
> Defence. https://www.wired.com/2012/12/queen-and-the-internet/
>
> --
> --------------------------------------
> Joly MacFie  +12185659365
> --------------------------------------
> -
> --
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>


From cdel at firsthand.net  Sat Sep 10 02:32:05 2022
From: cdel at firsthand.net (christian de larrinaga)
Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2022 10:32:05 +0100
Subject: [ih] 
 =?utf-8?b?UklQIOKAi0FSUEFORVQgdXNlciDigItFbGl6YWJldGggUi4=?=
In-Reply-To: <CAAFtm_UXqLtEbghx2Nu7xKZpQ9X-t7iYzE5MHHQTevzpmTkA1A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAM9VJk3-goStaUJ6_RkNPVhJ9ikKsftx=r5ai+dHxUO8a4joxg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAFtm_UXqLtEbghx2Nu7xKZpQ9X-t7iYzE5MHHQTevzpmTkA1A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <871qsjvaib.fsf@firsthand.net>

What a great idea of Bob Kahn's to remind HMQ of the linkage. Do you
recall if she mentioned anything about that email and Peter?

C

vinton cerf via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> writes:

> Bob Kahn presented a photo of this event to Queen Elizabeth in 2013 upon
> the occasion of his receipt of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering
> (along with Louis Pouzin, Marc Andreessen, Tim Berners-Lee, and me).
>
> v
>
>
> On Fri, Sep 9, 2022 at 5:59 AM Joly MacFie via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
>> https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/08/queen_elizabeth_dies/
>>
>> On March 26, 1976, the Queen became one of the first heads of state to use
>> email. The late Peter Kirstein pioneered Britain's adoption of TCP/IP and
>> Her Majesty was invited to the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment to
>> view the first introduction of the ARPANET network to the UK.
>>
>> Given the username HME2 (Her Majesty, Elizabeth II) by Kirstein, she logged
>> in and sent an email with the signature Elizabeth R. Kirstein recalled that
>> the text was prewritten and ? given the topic ? that's understandable,
>> though it was a historic step.
>>
>> "This message to all ARPANET users announces the availability on ARPANET of
>> the Coral 66 compiler provided by the GEC 4080 computer at the Royal
>> Signals and Radar Establishment, Malvern, England," it read. "Coral 66 is
>> the standard real-time high level language adopted by the Ministry of
>> Defence. https://www.wired.com/2012/12/queen-and-the-internet/
>>
>> --
>> --------------------------------------
>> Joly MacFie  +12185659365
>> --------------------------------------
>> -
>> --
>> Internet-history mailing list
>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>>


-- 
christian de larrinaga 
https://firsthand.net


From joly at punkcast.com  Wed Sep 14 16:53:25 2022
From: joly at punkcast.com (Joly MacFie)
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2022 19:53:25 -0400
Subject: [ih] =?utf-8?q?TRANSMISI=C3=93N_EN_VIVO_14_de_Septiembre_?=
	=?utf-8?b?4oCTSVNPQyBNZXhpY28g4oCcQ2Fmw6kgSW50ZXJuZXTigJwgLSDigJxI?=
	=?utf-8?q?istoria_de_Internet_en_M=C3=A9xico=E2=80=9C?=
Message-ID: <CAM9VJk3YL8X6FB5fW6ZoJ6ZsCbPYVZUX=qUcWMMrAHSH+Qu+uw@mail.gmail.com>

a punto de empezar



[image: isoc live] <https://isoc.live/15743>El *Mi?rcoles 14 de Septiembre
de 2022* a las *19:00 CDMX* (00:00 UTC) *Internet Society Cap?tulo M?xico
<https://www.isoc.mx/>* presenta su tercero ?*Caf? Internet*?, un espacio
para tomarse un break y platicar sobre temas de Internet, con el tema
?*Historia
de Internet en M?xico*?.

*PANELISTAS*
*Hugo Garc?a*, Director General, Nubosperta
*Armando Mac Beath*, Director, Design & Intelligent Materials

*MODERADOR Jeffry S. Fern?ndez*, presidente de ISOC MX

*LIVESTREAM http://livestream.com/internetsociety/isocmx3
<http://livestream.com/internetsociety/isocmx3>*

*TWITTER #cafeinternet <https://bit.ly/3BjrBVG> @ISOCMX Hugo Garc?a
@nubosperta @macbeath @InternetSociety Jeffry S. Fern?ndez #internethistory*

*SIMULCASTS*
*https://www.twitter.com/ISOC_Live/ <https://www.twitter.com/ISOC_Live/>*
*https://www.twitch.tv/isoclive <https://www.twitch.tv/isoclive>*
*https://www.facebook.com/liveisoc/*
<https://www.facebook.com/liveisoc/> (Subt?tulos
de IA)
*https://www.facebook.com/InternetSocietyAmericaLatinayCaribe
<https://www.facebook.com/InternetSocietyAmericaLatinayCaribe>* (Subt?tulos
de IA)

*ARCHIVE*
*https://archive.org/details/isocmx3 <https://archive.org/details/isocmx3>*
Permalink https://isoc.live/15743


--------------------------------------
-
-- 
--------------------------------------
Joly MacFie  +12185659365
--------------------------------------
-


From joly at punkcast.com  Sat Sep 17 14:35:20 2022
From: joly at punkcast.com (Joly MacFie)
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2022 17:35:20 -0400
Subject: [ih] =?utf-8?q?TRANSMISI=C3=93N_EN_VIVO_14_de_Septiembre_?=
	=?utf-8?b?4oCTSVNPQyBNZXhpY28g4oCcQ2Fmw6kgSW50ZXJuZXTigJwgLSDigJxI?=
	=?utf-8?q?istoria_de_Internet_en_M=C3=A9xico=E2=80=9C?=
In-Reply-To: <CAM9VJk3YL8X6FB5fW6ZoJ6ZsCbPYVZUX=qUcWMMrAHSH+Qu+uw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAM9VJk3YL8X6FB5fW6ZoJ6ZsCbPYVZUX=qUcWMMrAHSH+Qu+uw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAM9VJk0XDg7u_7W4gfr9Haz5ivhKB6ego-ZpVhFtKu8S7KHKXg@mail.gmail.com>

Now available with English subtitles on https://archive.org/details/isocmx3


From bpurvy at gmail.com  Mon Sep 19 12:12:59 2022
From: bpurvy at gmail.com (Bob Purvy)
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2022 12:12:59 -0700
Subject: [ih] Porn on the net
Message-ID: <CAFq6nVGR9tnK7kQruz5fX+X7S1T9Fe0yFkvkQgtkm1cBDaQ4Tg@mail.gmail.com>

I'm starting my 3rd book, which will mainly cover the 90s and the dot-com
boom, and a friend Chris told me a story that I want to use. I wonder if
any of you have similar stories?

Chris was in an elevator in the *very* early days of the Internet (before
widespread adoption), and this sleazy-looking guy (bad looking, open collar
shirt, chains around his neck) got in, and told him he was going to put
PORNOGRAPHY on the Internet!

Chris was shocked & amused. Nudes on the net! He wondered if that would
work?

So I know Usenet had its alt.sex.* groups forever, and I remember that in
the *very* early days, "pornography" was the one monetization case that
everyone could agree might work. Maybe the only one. When did you first
hear of someone doing this for money?


From jtk at dataplane.org  Mon Sep 19 12:24:51 2022
From: jtk at dataplane.org (John Kristoff)
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2022 14:24:51 -0500
Subject: [ih] Porn on the net
In-Reply-To: <CAFq6nVGR9tnK7kQruz5fX+X7S1T9Fe0yFkvkQgtkm1cBDaQ4Tg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVGR9tnK7kQruz5fX+X7S1T9Fe0yFkvkQgtkm1cBDaQ4Tg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20220919142451.359eb00d@dataplane.org>

On Mon, 19 Sep 2022 12:12:59 -0700
Bob Purvy via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> So I know Usenet had its alt.sex.* groups forever, and I remember
> that in the *very* early days, "pornography" was the one monetization
> case that everyone could agree might work. Maybe the only one. When
> did you first hear of someone doing this for money?

There were BBSes before the commercialization of the Internet that did
this.  I'm not sure how they handled payments, but PC Board, a popular
BBS software package at the time, was commonly used for systems that
had large collections of files to download.

John


From dhc at dcrocker.net  Mon Sep 19 12:30:06 2022
From: dhc at dcrocker.net (Dave Crocker)
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2022 12:30:06 -0700
Subject: [ih] Porn on the net
In-Reply-To: <CAFq6nVGR9tnK7kQruz5fX+X7S1T9Fe0yFkvkQgtkm1cBDaQ4Tg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVGR9tnK7kQruz5fX+X7S1T9Fe0yFkvkQgtkm1cBDaQ4Tg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <42e325b0-211a-e263-670e-2abe51c18977@dcrocker.net>

On 9/19/2022 12:12 PM, Bob Purvy via Internet-history wrote:
> So I know Usenet had its alt.sex.* groups forever, and I remember that in
> the*very*  early days, "pornography" was the one monetization case that
> everyone could agree might work. Maybe the only one. When did you first
> hear of someone doing this for money?

There was a dirty limmerick service on the Arpanet from /very/ early.? 
The Datacomputer folk.? Send them 3 submissions that they used and 
they'd send you a copy of the entire database.

d/

-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net



From crossd at gmail.com  Mon Sep 19 12:32:11 2022
From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross)
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2022 15:32:11 -0400
Subject: [ih] Porn on the net
In-Reply-To: <CAFq6nVGR9tnK7kQruz5fX+X7S1T9Fe0yFkvkQgtkm1cBDaQ4Tg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVGR9tnK7kQruz5fX+X7S1T9Fe0yFkvkQgtkm1cBDaQ4Tg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAEoi9W6VN2UN5uZ86r6B0+HK9HoxxMRoE3feVzeSBRtVLQuZXQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Sep 19, 2022 at 3:13 PM Bob Purvy via Internet-history
<internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> I'm starting my 3rd book, which will mainly cover the 90s and the dot-com
> boom, and a friend Chris told me a story that I want to use. I wonder if
> any of you have similar stories?
>
> Chris was in an elevator in the *very* early days of the Internet (before
> widespread adoption), and this sleazy-looking guy (bad looking, open collar
> shirt, chains around his neck) got in, and told him he was going to put
> PORNOGRAPHY on the Internet!
>
> Chris was shocked & amused. Nudes on the net! He wondered if that would
> work?
>
> So I know Usenet had its alt.sex.* groups forever, and I remember that in
> the *very* early days, "pornography" was the one monetization case that
> everyone could agree might work. Maybe the only one. When did you first
> hear of someone doing this for money?

In the 90s sometime; probably towards the end of the decade.  It all
seemed (more than) a bit sleazy, as your friend mentioned.

I've heard that the long-term impact of pornography online is likely
remarkable; apparently it drove a lot of demand for both bandwidth
and robustness.  Specific rumors I remember hearing rumors that
porn sites would start up running on Windows and IIS, and then
switch to FreeBSD+Apache a month or so later (told to me by
someone at the Naval Research Lab!).  Apparently lots of bugs have
been found by SRE-type folks at those sites.

When I started working at Google, I vaguely recall having to sign a
document stating that I understood that I may come into contact with
pornographic material as part of my job responsibilities (though I
personally never did).  At the time, some engineers were still doing
manual quality control for search results, and a team had a "porn
rotation" where the designated engineer had to manually enter a
bunch of queries and see if the results were relevant; apparently
they had to put a little moveable tent-like apparatus around their
workstation.  This was just to try and shield their coworkers from the
content; the people who did this said it was anything but titillating.

        - Dan C.


From dhc at dcrocker.net  Mon Sep 19 12:40:48 2022
From: dhc at dcrocker.net (Dave Crocker)
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2022 12:40:48 -0700
Subject: [ih] Porn on the net
In-Reply-To: <CAFq6nVGR9tnK7kQruz5fX+X7S1T9Fe0yFkvkQgtkm1cBDaQ4Tg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVGR9tnK7kQruz5fX+X7S1T9Fe0yFkvkQgtkm1cBDaQ4Tg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <17735a50-c96a-0f20-2479-fa9763229cf9@dcrocker.net>

On 9/19/2022 12:12 PM, Bob Purvy via Internet-history wrote:
> and told him he was going to put
> PORNOGRAPHY on the Internet!

Around 1980, when I added a mailing list agent to MMDF, I wanted to add 
a jokes list.? From Los Angeles, I'd mostly been exposed to pretty 
benign stuff, but Delaware was a lot more intense.? One friend had 
particularly vicious jokes and I said they were racist.? He disagreed, 
noting that his jokes covered the gamut of ethnicities and races.? Nasty 
to all.? He insisted that to be racist required focusing on just one. 
The concept of statistical racism had not occurred to me...

Anyhow, MMDF funding was from NSF, for CSNet.? The Chair of the 
department made me take the list down, noting the a newspaper headline 
announcing that the NSF was funding dirty jokes would not be such a good 
thing.

A bit later, for MCI Mail, we included group distribution and I 
re-started the jokes service.? Commercial service, so fewer restrictions.

The VP of Operations had a pretty wicked sense of humor, but he wouldn't 
join the list, so as to avoid possible blowback.

He had his secretary join, instead.? (She, too, like the humor.)

d/

-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net



From leo at vegoda.org  Mon Sep 19 12:46:42 2022
From: leo at vegoda.org (Leo Vegoda)
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2022 12:46:42 -0700
Subject: [ih] Porn on the net
In-Reply-To: <CAFq6nVGR9tnK7kQruz5fX+X7S1T9Fe0yFkvkQgtkm1cBDaQ4Tg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVGR9tnK7kQruz5fX+X7S1T9Fe0yFkvkQgtkm1cBDaQ4Tg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPfiqjZnAdH0NO7zCvx0ooyBx4act6Ykj4t=3p4wvfZeCzGRxA@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, 19 Sept 2022 at 12:13, Bob Purvy via Internet-history
<internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

[...]

> So I know Usenet had its alt.sex.* groups forever, and I remember that in
> the *very* early days, "pornography" was the one monetization case that
> everyone could agree might work. Maybe the only one. When did you first
> hear of someone doing this for money?

The FT recently published a fairly deep investigation of money and
porn in podcast form: Hot Money.

Episode 4 deals with Rusty and Edie's BBS but I think they covered the
whole scene from very early networking to almost today quite clearly.

https://www.ft.com/content/762e4648-06d7-4abd-8d1e-ccefb74b3244 and
presumably all the places podcasts are published.


From brian at platohistory.org  Mon Sep 19 12:58:11 2022
From: brian at platohistory.org (Brian Dear)
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2022 13:58:11 -0600
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <04CF874A-7DA5-4694-AA56-B034A890C8E2@platohistory.org>

The PLATO system offered live character-by-typewritten-character-including-backspaces chat rooms through the Talkomatic program, released in 1973. It was something to behold to see, say, six different people all typing at the same time on separate lines, each character-by-character?everything was live. Typos? No problem, just press backspace and edit what you typed. Users got to see everything live. None of this Internet/Unix-style line-based online chat, this was all character-by-character. :-)

Talkomatic offered multiple channels (akin to CB radio at the time) and multiple people could participate in a channel. Eventually you could create private channels for chats with a specific group of people. Also in 1973 PLATO launched TERM-talk, which was also live, 1:1, character-by-typewritten-character-including-backspaces, instant messaging. (I met my wife in a TERM-talk in 1984, a relatively late phenom in the PLATO world but wildly early by Internet standards.)

Alas, I doubt there?s much if anything in the way of ?archives? still in existence for TERM-talk or Talkomatic (though both programs still run fine on the Cyber1.org <http://cyber1.org/> PLATO system), as it was all live and ephemeral the way any phonecall would be.

- Brian


Brian Dear
Author, ?The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture,? Pantheon Books 2017.



> On Aug 31, 2022, at 4:53 PM, Bob Purvy via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> Something you wouldn't think would be a problem:
> 
> I'm planning out my next novel, and I want to have a character haunting the
> chat rooms and forums on investing, around 1995 and on. I don't want to
> quote anything or dox anyone -- I just want to get the tone and format back
> then, as well as the topics they were talking about.
> 
> The Wayback Machine seems to have started at the end of 1996. Does anyone
> have links to earlier archives?
> -- 
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history



From jeanjour at comcast.net  Mon Sep 19 13:03:22 2022
From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day)
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2022 16:03:22 -0400
Subject: [ih] Porn on the net
In-Reply-To: <42e325b0-211a-e263-670e-2abe51c18977@dcrocker.net>
References: <CAFq6nVGR9tnK7kQruz5fX+X7S1T9Fe0yFkvkQgtkm1cBDaQ4Tg@mail.gmail.com>
 <42e325b0-211a-e263-670e-2abe51c18977@dcrocker.net>
Message-ID: <B0A88491-D902-4D1B-B713-BF20F2BA3761@comcast.net>

Dave,

Not porn but since you brought it up.

Perhaps you remember better than I do.  In the very early ARPANET, probably before 1974 or 5. There were a number of ?extra? well-known sockets. (That went away when the map would no longer fit on one sheet of paper. So very early.)  One at NMC would print a map of the ARPANET and the up or down status of the hosts. There was a one-liner socket at BBN. (I never did understand the one-liner, ?There goes a big red fire engine?) I think one that returned Boston weather.

Do your remember any of the others?

John

> On Sep 19, 2022, at 15:30, Dave Crocker via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> On 9/19/2022 12:12 PM, Bob Purvy via Internet-history wrote:
>> So I know Usenet had its alt.sex.* groups forever, and I remember that in
>> the*very*  early days, "pornography" was the one monetization case that
>> everyone could agree might work. Maybe the only one. When did you first
>> hear of someone doing this for money?
> 
> There was a dirty limmerick service on the Arpanet from /very/ early.  The Datacomputer folk.  Send them 3 submissions that they used and they'd send you a copy of the entire database.
> 
> d/
> 
> -- 
> Dave Crocker
> Brandenburg InternetWorking
> bbiw.net
> 
> -- 
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history



From bpurvy at gmail.com  Mon Sep 19 13:04:27 2022
From: bpurvy at gmail.com (Bob Purvy)
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2022 13:04:27 -0700
Subject: [ih] Porn on the net
In-Reply-To: <CAPfiqjZnAdH0NO7zCvx0ooyBx4act6Ykj4t=3p4wvfZeCzGRxA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVGR9tnK7kQruz5fX+X7S1T9Fe0yFkvkQgtkm1cBDaQ4Tg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAPfiqjZnAdH0NO7zCvx0ooyBx4act6Ykj4t=3p4wvfZeCzGRxA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAFq6nVHVfFdVW0a=rBZprW9WMjz+UJSEkaYk6PHX_2bvbD3woA@mail.gmail.com>

thanks, everyone. Keep 'em coming.

To be more specific: I was at the Santa Fe IETF
<https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/22> in 1991. I'm planning to "repurpose"
Chris's experience for one of my characters who was there. The thought is,
"the Internet" wasn't yet on *everyone's* mind, but obviously some
forward-thinking individuals were onto it.

On Mon, Sep 19, 2022 at 12:47 PM Leo Vegoda <leo at vegoda.org> wrote:

> On Mon, 19 Sept 2022 at 12:13, Bob Purvy via Internet-history
> <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > So I know Usenet had its alt.sex.* groups forever, and I remember that in
> > the *very* early days, "pornography" was the one monetization case that
> > everyone could agree might work. Maybe the only one. When did you first
> > hear of someone doing this for money?
>
> The FT recently published a fairly deep investigation of money and
> porn in podcast form: Hot Money.
>
> Episode 4 deals with Rusty and Edie's BBS but I think they covered the
> whole scene from very early networking to almost today quite clearly.
>
> https://www.ft.com/content/762e4648-06d7-4abd-8d1e-ccefb74b3244 and
> presumably all the places podcasts are published.
>


From jeanjour at comcast.net  Mon Sep 19 13:08:46 2022
From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day)
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2022 16:08:46 -0400
Subject: [ih] Chat room and forum archives
In-Reply-To: <04CF874A-7DA5-4694-AA56-B034A890C8E2@platohistory.org>
References: <CAFq6nVHWwNfqC1sVPSevOLWyQ_HQp6CXYj18UMFTjwbZTZLTqA@mail.gmail.com>
 <04CF874A-7DA5-4694-AA56-B034A890C8E2@platohistory.org>
Message-ID: <F120DE1F-4549-432E-AB3A-7FD43E978BF1@comcast.net>

Yes a similar thing existed on the ARPANET. It was called teleconferencing.  We were using it to just chat in the evenings and to design software. In fact to design the next version of the program we were using.  It was a Jim Calvin TENEX hack. ;-) Of course TENEX was character-at-a-time by design, so that added to the fun.

I believe there was a paper on it at ICCC ?72. I know it was demo?ed there. I think transcripts of some of those do still exist. The question is where? ;-)  Might be my basement, might be CBI.

Take care,
John

> On Sep 19, 2022, at 15:58, Brian Dear via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> The PLATO system offered live character-by-typewritten-character-including-backspaces chat rooms through the Talkomatic program, released in 1973. It was something to behold to see, say, six different people all typing at the same time on separate lines, each character-by-character?everything was live. Typos? No problem, just press backspace and edit what you typed. Users got to see everything live. None of this Internet/Unix-style line-based online chat, this was all character-by-character. :-)
> 
> Talkomatic offered multiple channels (akin to CB radio at the time) and multiple people could participate in a channel. Eventually you could create private channels for chats with a specific group of people. Also in 1973 PLATO launched TERM-talk, which was also live, 1:1, character-by-typewritten-character-including-backspaces, instant messaging. (I met my wife in a TERM-talk in 1984, a relatively late phenom in the PLATO world but wildly early by Internet standards.)
> 
> Alas, I doubt there?s much if anything in the way of ?archives? still in existence for TERM-talk or Talkomatic (though both programs still run fine on the Cyber1.org <http://cyber1.org/> PLATO system), as it was all live and ephemeral the way any phonecall would be.
> 
> - Brian
> 
> 
> Brian Dear
> Author, ?The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture,? Pantheon Books 2017.
> 
> 
> 
>> On Aug 31, 2022, at 4:53 PM, Bob Purvy via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Something you wouldn't think would be a problem:
>> 
>> I'm planning out my next novel, and I want to have a character haunting the
>> chat rooms and forums on investing, around 1995 and on. I don't want to
>> quote anything or dox anyone -- I just want to get the tone and format back
>> then, as well as the topics they were talking about.
>> 
>> The Wayback Machine seems to have started at the end of 1996. Does anyone
>> have links to earlier archives?
>> -- 
>> Internet-history mailing list
>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> 
> -- 
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history



From dave.taht at gmail.com  Mon Sep 19 13:17:10 2022
From: dave.taht at gmail.com (Dave Taht)
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2022 13:17:10 -0700
Subject: [ih] Porn on the net
In-Reply-To: <CAFq6nVHVfFdVW0a=rBZprW9WMjz+UJSEkaYk6PHX_2bvbD3woA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVGR9tnK7kQruz5fX+X7S1T9Fe0yFkvkQgtkm1cBDaQ4Tg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAPfiqjZnAdH0NO7zCvx0ooyBx4act6Ykj4t=3p4wvfZeCzGRxA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHVfFdVW0a=rBZprW9WMjz+UJSEkaYk6PHX_2bvbD3woA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAA93jw4nEx1t3VK76FtayFy5=OJug2tPmu-y8=y1omYsTmfb-w@mail.gmail.com>

Prior to the advent of the vcr, where would porn on the arpanet have come
from? Scanners? 8mm films? ASCII art?

On Mon, Sep 19, 2022, 1:04 PM Bob Purvy via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> thanks, everyone. Keep 'em coming.
>
> To be more specific: I was at the Santa Fe IETF
> <https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/22> in 1991. I'm planning to "repurpose"
> Chris's experience for one of my characters who was there. The thought is,
> "the Internet" wasn't yet on *everyone's* mind, but obviously some
> forward-thinking individuals were onto it.
>
> On Mon, Sep 19, 2022 at 12:47 PM Leo Vegoda <leo at vegoda.org> wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 19 Sept 2022 at 12:13, Bob Purvy via Internet-history
> > <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > > So I know Usenet had its alt.sex.* groups forever, and I remember that
> in
> > > the *very* early days, "pornography" was the one monetization case that
> > > everyone could agree might work. Maybe the only one. When did you first
> > > hear of someone doing this for money?
> >
> > The FT recently published a fairly deep investigation of money and
> > porn in podcast form: Hot Money.
> >
> > Episode 4 deals with Rusty and Edie's BBS but I think they covered the
> > whole scene from very early networking to almost today quite clearly.
> >
> > https://www.ft.com/content/762e4648-06d7-4abd-8d1e-ccefb74b3244 and
> > presumably all the places podcasts are published.
> >
> --
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>


From jericho at attrition.org  Mon Sep 19 13:24:57 2022
From: jericho at attrition.org (Jared E. Richo)
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2022 14:24:57 -0600
Subject: [ih] Porn on the net
In-Reply-To: <CAEoi9W6VN2UN5uZ86r6B0+HK9HoxxMRoE3feVzeSBRtVLQuZXQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVGR9tnK7kQruz5fX+X7S1T9Fe0yFkvkQgtkm1cBDaQ4Tg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W6VN2UN5uZ86r6B0+HK9HoxxMRoE3feVzeSBRtVLQuZXQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4e7de51c-2727-4a65-2544-517168c9ac55@attrition.org>


On 9/19/2022 1:32 PM, Dan Cross via Internet-history wrote:

> I've heard that the long-term impact of pornography online is likely
> remarkable; apparently it drove a lot of demand for both bandwidth
> and robustness.  Specific rumors I remember hearing rumors that

 From what I have heard and read (a bit), that industry has been a big 
driver on improving image and video quality, as well as compression, to 
help deliver it reliably at higher quality.

Later than the rest, but ~ 1998, a small start-up pentest company I was 
involved in, we had a couple clients that were porn sites. We learned 
that many of them had started retaining security to test their sites. 
Why? Because they would do multiple photo shoots in a day but publish 
them on the site every X days or every week. Rival companies were 
figuring out vulnerabilities that gave them access to the pictures not 
yet disclosed, stealing them, and publishing on their own sites. One 
company told us that the one day of shooting might represent 8 - 10k so 
it was considerably valuable to them.




From jeanjour at comcast.net  Mon Sep 19 13:31:32 2022
From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day)
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2022 16:31:32 -0400
Subject: [ih] Porn on the net
In-Reply-To: <CAA93jw4nEx1t3VK76FtayFy5=OJug2tPmu-y8=y1omYsTmfb-w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVGR9tnK7kQruz5fX+X7S1T9Fe0yFkvkQgtkm1cBDaQ4Tg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAPfiqjZnAdH0NO7zCvx0ooyBx4act6Ykj4t=3p4wvfZeCzGRxA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHVfFdVW0a=rBZprW9WMjz+UJSEkaYk6PHX_2bvbD3woA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAA93jw4nEx1t3VK76FtayFy5=OJug2tPmu-y8=y1omYsTmfb-w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <741CB29E-E159-413A-8B1A-66B2E55A138D@comcast.net>

Speaking of ASCII art. Several years ago, I went looking for some ASCII art to show my OS class. I wanted them to get an idea of how sophisticated it got with the choice of characters and overprinting, etc.

I had forgotten how many of them were Playboy centerfolds, etc. I really had trouble finding ones that were very good that I could use in class. ;-) lol

During the same discussion, I also show them the original 1973 grayscale Lincoln that was a cover of Scientific American.When I do, I also show them the Salvador Dali version, but I first start with shrunk so it looks like Lincoln and I ask them what it is. Of course, they say Lincoln. I say, it is a nude standing at window looking at the sea.  Then I blow it up.  They are always amazed and intrigued. ;-)  I also explain that with the picture on the wall in low light, the effect is even greater because the cones in the retina shut down and you see it in black and white. ;-)

Take care,
John

> On Sep 19, 2022, at 16:17, Dave Taht via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> Prior to the advent of the vcr, where would porn on the arpanet have come
> from? Scanners? 8mm films? ASCII art?
> 
> On Mon, Sep 19, 2022, 1:04 PM Bob Purvy via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
>> thanks, everyone. Keep 'em coming.
>> 
>> To be more specific: I was at the Santa Fe IETF
>> <https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/22> in 1991. I'm planning to "repurpose"
>> Chris's experience for one of my characters who was there. The thought is,
>> "the Internet" wasn't yet on *everyone's* mind, but obviously some
>> forward-thinking individuals were onto it.
>> 
>> On Mon, Sep 19, 2022 at 12:47 PM Leo Vegoda <leo at vegoda.org> wrote:
>> 
>>> On Mon, 19 Sept 2022 at 12:13, Bob Purvy via Internet-history
>>> <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> [...]
>>> 
>>>> So I know Usenet had its alt.sex.* groups forever, and I remember that
>> in
>>>> the *very* early days, "pornography" was the one monetization case that
>>>> everyone could agree might work. Maybe the only one. When did you first
>>>> hear of someone doing this for money?
>>> 
>>> The FT recently published a fairly deep investigation of money and
>>> porn in podcast form: Hot Money.
>>> 
>>> Episode 4 deals with Rusty and Edie's BBS but I think they covered the
>>> whole scene from very early networking to almost today quite clearly.
>>> 
>>> https://www.ft.com/content/762e4648-06d7-4abd-8d1e-ccefb74b3244 and
>>> presumably all the places podcasts are published.
>>> 
>> --
>> Internet-history mailing list
>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>> 
> -- 
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history



From internet-history at gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net  Mon Sep 19 13:36:17 2022
From: internet-history at gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net (Grant Taylor)
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2022 14:36:17 -0600
Subject: [ih] Porn on the net
In-Reply-To: <CAA93jw4nEx1t3VK76FtayFy5=OJug2tPmu-y8=y1omYsTmfb-w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVGR9tnK7kQruz5fX+X7S1T9Fe0yFkvkQgtkm1cBDaQ4Tg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAPfiqjZnAdH0NO7zCvx0ooyBx4act6Ykj4t=3p4wvfZeCzGRxA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHVfFdVW0a=rBZprW9WMjz+UJSEkaYk6PHX_2bvbD3woA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAA93jw4nEx1t3VK76FtayFy5=OJug2tPmu-y8=y1omYsTmfb-w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <3be6f0e3-04fb-f56f-c87f-0ba5df6e2fec@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net>

On 9/19/22 2:17 PM, Dave Taht via Internet-history wrote:
> Prior to the advent of the vcr, where would porn on the arpanet have 
> come from? Scanners? 8mm films? ASCII art?

There were VCR like capabilities /before/ the VCR.  The VCR & Bewtamax 
as specific technologies, were for recording / playback / time shifting 
at the home / residential level.  Businesses had counterparts before that.

I'm told that there were also movie houses that played traditional 
cellulose movies.



-- 
Grant. . . .
unix || die


From dal at riseup.net  Mon Sep 19 16:35:34 2022
From: dal at riseup.net (Douglas Lucas)
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2022 23:35:34 +0000
Subject: [ih] Porn on the net
In-Reply-To: <CAFq6nVGR9tnK7kQruz5fX+X7S1T9Fe0yFkvkQgtkm1cBDaQ4Tg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVGR9tnK7kQruz5fX+X7S1T9Fe0yFkvkQgtkm1cBDaQ4Tg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <59a7e47bd270334a62fbecbb7b5c08f1@riseup.net>

 
This 2014 blog post by Heather Marsh, "The other Battle for the
Internet," discusses the unfortunate influence of pedo groups such as
the Pedophile Information Exchange on the early Internet, their using
cryptography and so on to hide their sharing of child abuse
documentation ("child porn").
https://georgiebc.wordpress.com/2014/11/08/the-other-battle-for-the-internet/
At the time of the writing, the battle between pedos and non-pedos was
being overlooked in favor of the higher profile battle between
investigative journalists and surveillance entities like the NSA. More
context may be found here:
https://georgiebc.wordpress.com/2019/06/18/wikileaks-data-justice-and-a-new-internet/

On 2022-09-19 19:12, Bob Purvy via Internet-history wrote: 

> I'm starting my 3rd book, which will mainly cover the 90s and the dot-com
> boom, and a friend Chris told me a story that I want to use. I wonder if
> any of you have similar stories?
> 
> Chris was in an elevator in the *very* early days of the Internet (before
> widespread adoption), and this sleazy-looking guy (bad looking, open collar
> shirt, chains around his neck) got in, and told him he was going to put
> PORNOGRAPHY on the Internet!
> 
> Chris was shocked & amused. Nudes on the net! He wondered if that would
> work?
> 
> So I know Usenet had its alt.sex.* groups forever, and I remember that in
> the *very* early days, "pornography" was the one monetization case that
> everyone could agree might work. Maybe the only one. When did you first
> hear of someone doing this for money?

From johnl at iecc.com  Mon Sep 19 19:09:11 2022
From: johnl at iecc.com (John Levine)
Date: 19 Sep 2022 22:09:11 -0400
Subject: [ih] Porn on the net
In-Reply-To: <CAA93jw4nEx1t3VK76FtayFy5=OJug2tPmu-y8=y1omYsTmfb-w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20220920020911.BA9B44AC53E5@ary.qy>

It appears that Dave Taht via Internet-history <dave.taht at gmail.com> said:
>Prior to the advent of the vcr, where would porn on the arpanet have come
>from? Scanners? 8mm films? ASCII art?

There was certainly ASCII art. I recall one of a nude woman with
strategically placed close parens.

I don't remember many details but there were also FTP servers where
people swapped naughty GIFs, mostly scans from magazines. The picture
section of a server at a university disappeared one day, replaced by a
note saying that they'd put the material back if someone could explain
what its educational purpose was.

Early on it was all just single images. Video was too big for dialup
connections, and it took a while for people to build up libraries
of MPEGs and connections fast enough to download or stream them.

R's,
John


From brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com  Mon Sep 19 20:03:43 2022
From: brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com (Brian E Carpenter)
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2022 15:03:43 +1200
Subject: [ih] Porn on the net
In-Reply-To: <20220920020911.BA9B44AC53E5@ary.qy>
References: <20220920020911.BA9B44AC53E5@ary.qy>
Message-ID: <b0b837be-178e-5e23-77e2-10ba20fc3357@gmail.com>

On 20-Sep-22 14:09, John Levine via Internet-history wrote:
> It appears that Dave Taht via Internet-history <dave.taht at gmail.com> said:
>> Prior to the advent of the vcr, where would porn on the arpanet have come
>> from? Scanners? 8mm films? ASCII art?
> 
> There was certainly ASCII art. I recall one of a nude woman with
> strategically placed close parens.

That of course started as EBCDIC art on IBM line printers, or earlier.
I suspect that scurrilous material was available for sending long before
there was any network to send it on.

https://groups.google.com/g/alt.folklore.computers/c/i-fJcVXkCLU/m/VFBYHdMuhdMJ

      Brian

> 
> I don't remember many details but there were also FTP servers where
> people swapped naughty GIFs, mostly scans from magazines. The picture
> section of a server at a university disappeared one day, replaced by a
> note saying that they'd put the material back if someone could explain
> what its educational purpose was.
> 
> Early on it was all just single images. Video was too big for dialup
> connections, and it took a while for people to build up libraries
> of MPEGs and connections fast enough to download or stream them.
> 
> R's,
> John


From rob at stanford.com.au  Mon Sep 19 20:11:52 2022
From: rob at stanford.com.au (Robert Stanford)
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2022 13:11:52 +1000
Subject: [ih] Porn on the net
In-Reply-To: <CAPfiqjZnAdH0NO7zCvx0ooyBx4act6Ykj4t=3p4wvfZeCzGRxA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVGR9tnK7kQruz5fX+X7S1T9Fe0yFkvkQgtkm1cBDaQ4Tg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAPfiqjZnAdH0NO7zCvx0ooyBx4act6Ykj4t=3p4wvfZeCzGRxA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <e182b8d1-f05c-270c-34ed-042672c8d2e0@stanford.com.au>

Apparently before all that we had "EDITH" on the IBM1401.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtlrITxB5qg



On 20/9/22 05:46, Leo Vegoda via Internet-history wrote:
> On Mon, 19 Sept 2022 at 12:13, Bob Purvy via Internet-history
> <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> So I know Usenet had its alt.sex.* groups forever, and I remember that in
>> the *very* early days, "pornography" was the one monetization case that
>> everyone could agree might work. Maybe the only one. When did you first
>> hear of someone doing this for money?
> The FT recently published a fairly deep investigation of money and
> porn in podcast form: Hot Money.
>
> Episode 4 deals with Rusty and Edie's BBS but I think they covered the
> whole scene from very early networking to almost today quite clearly.
>
> https://www.ft.com/content/762e4648-06d7-4abd-8d1e-ccefb74b3244 and
> presumably all the places podcasts are published.



From tte at cs.fau.de  Mon Sep 19 22:58:01 2022
From: tte at cs.fau.de (Toerless Eckert)
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2022 07:58:01 +0200
Subject: [ih] Porn on the net
In-Reply-To: <b0b837be-178e-5e23-77e2-10ba20fc3357@gmail.com>
References: <20220920020911.BA9B44AC53E5@ary.qy>
 <b0b837be-178e-5e23-77e2-10ba20fc3357@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <YylWacXq/5VSuXk9@faui48e.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>


On Tue, Sep 20, 2022 at 03:03:43PM +1200, Brian E Carpenter via Internet-history wrote:
> On 20-Sep-22 14:09, John Levine via Internet-history wrote:
> > It appears that Dave Taht via Internet-history <dave.taht at gmail.com> said:
> > > Prior to the advent of the vcr, where would porn on the arpanet have come
> > > from? Scanners? 8mm films? ASCII art?
> > 
> > There was certainly ASCII art. I recall one of a nude woman with
> > strategically placed close parens.
> 
> That of course started as EBCDIC art on IBM line printers, or earlier.
> I suspect that scurrilous material was available for sending long before
> there was any network to send it on.
> 
> https://groups.google.com/g/alt.folklore.computers/c/i-fJcVXkCLU/m/VFBYHdMuhdMJ

Define "network to send it on".

When i was serving in the navy in the 80th, i think
i saw the tailend of ASCII (nude) "art" on teletypewriters, stored on (i guess) ITA 2
alphabet punched tape and sent accordingly over the radio "network".
Luckily, there was already end-to-end encryption for "privacy protection" back then ;-)

19th century seems to have been uninspired though, this thing starte later
than i would have guessed:

https://www.bullfrag.com/remembering-the-mythical-ascii-art-of-the-90s-and-2000s/

"As stated in the book Typewriter Art: A Modern Anthology we owe it to the butterfly created by Flora FF Stacey on a typewriter back in 1898."

Cheers
    Toerless

>      Brian
> 
> > 
> > I don't remember many details but there were also FTP servers where
> > people swapped naughty GIFs, mostly scans from magazines. The picture
> > section of a server at a university disappeared one day, replaced by a
> > note saying that they'd put the material back if someone could explain
> > what its educational purpose was.
> > 
> > Early on it was all just single images. Video was too big for dialup
> > connections, and it took a while for people to build up libraries
> > of MPEGs and connections fast enough to download or stream them.
> > 
> > R's,
> > John
> -- 
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history

-- 
---
tte at cs.fau.de


From agmalis at gmail.com  Tue Sep 20 06:15:55 2022
From: agmalis at gmail.com (Andrew G. Malis)
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2022 09:15:55 -0400
Subject: [ih] Porn on the net
In-Reply-To: <CAFq6nVHVfFdVW0a=rBZprW9WMjz+UJSEkaYk6PHX_2bvbD3woA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVGR9tnK7kQruz5fX+X7S1T9Fe0yFkvkQgtkm1cBDaQ4Tg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAPfiqjZnAdH0NO7zCvx0ooyBx4act6Ykj4t=3p4wvfZeCzGRxA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHVfFdVW0a=rBZprW9WMjz+UJSEkaYk6PHX_2bvbD3woA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAA=duU18e37D8cqhj=souMEGn9dA_FhAuirQzWiccCMN1gT6EA@mail.gmail.com>

Bob,

That was a GREAT IETF meeting. Kathy Huber and I did some fun sightseeing
together around the area (Bandelier, etc.), I learned the New Mexico
official question ("Red or green?", referring to which chili you wanted
with your meal), and I distinctly remember Noel Chiappa was giving a late
afternoon technical talk and the room we were in had windows set behind the
speaker (Noel). While Noel was speaking, there was a spectacular sunset
over the mountains outside the window, and Noel missed the whole thing
because he was facing us. I also discovered that I'm allergic to cottonwood
when I encountered a fireplace in the hotel burning a cottonwood fire. :-)

Cheers,
Andy


On Mon, Sep 19, 2022 at 4:04 PM Bob Purvy via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> thanks, everyone. Keep 'em coming.
>
> To be more specific: I was at the Santa Fe IETF
> <https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/22> in 1991. I'm planning to "repurpose"
> Chris's experience for one of my characters who was there. The thought is,
> "the Internet" wasn't yet on *everyone's* mind, but obviously some
> forward-thinking individuals were onto it.
>
> On Mon, Sep 19, 2022 at 12:47 PM Leo Vegoda <leo at vegoda.org> wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 19 Sept 2022 at 12:13, Bob Purvy via Internet-history
> > <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > > So I know Usenet had its alt.sex.* groups forever, and I remember that
> in
> > > the *very* early days, "pornography" was the one monetization case that
> > > everyone could agree might work. Maybe the only one. When did you first
> > > hear of someone doing this for money?
> >
> > The FT recently published a fairly deep investigation of money and
> > porn in podcast form: Hot Money.
> >
> > Episode 4 deals with Rusty and Edie's BBS but I think they covered the
> > whole scene from very early networking to almost today quite clearly.
> >
> > https://www.ft.com/content/762e4648-06d7-4abd-8d1e-ccefb74b3244 and
> > presumably all the places podcasts are published.
> >
> --
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>


From amckenzie3 at yahoo.com  Tue Sep 20 07:23:27 2022
From: amckenzie3 at yahoo.com (Alex McKenzie)
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2022 14:23:27 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: [ih] Dave Walden
References: <1576754694.156034.1663683807426.ref@mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <1576754694.156034.1663683807426@mail.yahoo.com>

The most recent issue of the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing has published a biography of Dave Walden which I wrote.? If you don't have access to the Annals you can find a copy of my final draft text athttp://alexmckenzie.weebly.com/david-corydon-waldens-five-careers.html

Cheers,Alex


From sob at sobco.com  Tue Sep 20 08:15:27 2022
From: sob at sobco.com (Scott Bradner)
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2022 11:15:27 -0400
Subject: [ih] Porn on the net
In-Reply-To: <CAA=duU18e37D8cqhj=souMEGn9dA_FhAuirQzWiccCMN1gT6EA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAFq6nVGR9tnK7kQruz5fX+X7S1T9Fe0yFkvkQgtkm1cBDaQ4Tg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAPfiqjZnAdH0NO7zCvx0ooyBx4act6Ykj4t=3p4wvfZeCzGRxA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAFq6nVHVfFdVW0a=rBZprW9WMjz+UJSEkaYk6PHX_2bvbD3woA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAA=duU18e37D8cqhj=souMEGn9dA_FhAuirQzWiccCMN1gT6EA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <57906AA3-56DF-4107-B99C-0BFFDE7F5799@sobco.com>

as I recall, Noel's talk was on Nimrod

Scott

> On Sep 20, 2022, at 9:15 AM, Andrew G. Malis via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> Bob,
> 
> That was a GREAT IETF meeting. Kathy Huber and I did some fun sightseeing
> together around the area (Bandelier, etc.), I learned the New Mexico
> official question ("Red or green?", referring to which chili you wanted
> with your meal), and I distinctly remember Noel Chiappa was giving a late
> afternoon technical talk and the room we were in had windows set behind the
> speaker (Noel). While Noel was speaking, there was a spectacular sunset
> over the mountains outside the window, and Noel missed the whole thing
> because he was facing us. I also discovered that I'm allergic to cottonwood
> when I encountered a fireplace in the hotel burning a cottonwood fire. :-)
> 
> Cheers,
> Andy
> 
> 
> On Mon, Sep 19, 2022 at 4:04 PM Bob Purvy via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
>> thanks, everyone. Keep 'em coming.
>> 
>> To be more specific: I was at the Santa Fe IETF
>> <https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/22> in 1991. I'm planning to "repurpose"
>> Chris's experience for one of my characters who was there. The thought is,
>> "the Internet" wasn't yet on *everyone's* mind, but obviously some
>> forward-thinking individuals were onto it.
>> 
>> On Mon, Sep 19, 2022 at 12:47 PM Leo Vegoda <leo at vegoda.org> wrote:
>> 
>>> On Mon, 19 Sept 2022 at 12:13, Bob Purvy via Internet-history
>>> <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> [...]
>>> 
>>>> So I know Usenet had its alt.sex.* groups forever, and I remember that
>> in
>>>> the *very* early days, "pornography" was the one monetization case that
>>>> everyone could agree might work. Maybe the only one. When did you first
>>>> hear of someone doing this for money?
>>> 
>>> The FT recently published a fairly deep investigation of money and
>>> porn in podcast form: Hot Money.
>>> 
>>> Episode 4 deals with Rusty and Edie's BBS but I think they covered the
>>> whole scene from very early networking to almost today quite clearly.
>>> 
>>> https://www.ft.com/content/762e4648-06d7-4abd-8d1e-ccefb74b3244 and
>>> presumably all the places podcasts are published.
>>> 
>> --
>> Internet-history mailing list
>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>> 
> -- 
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history