[ih] Early History of the Internet

[Miles Fidelman]

At a conceptual level, it really does start with Licklider - though 
concepts of Akashic Memory & Cosmic Consciousness have been with us a 
LOT longer, as was the "Victorian Internet" of teletypes, and Bush's "As 
We May Think."

Personally, I was fortunate to arrive at MIT in the fall of 1971, and 
immediately started hanging around 545 Tech Square, and of course, got 
an account on the MIT-AI PDP-10.  Licklider was back at MIT.  Greenblatt 
was sleeping under his desk, Gates was at Harvard, and a few weeks after 
my arrival, Ray Tomlinson sent the first ARPANET email.  Compuserve was 
in business.

The progress, over the next 4 years, was absolutely astounding:
- email lists replaced the interoffice mail packets that held the NWG & 
IETF together (not sure when the IETF came together) - internet 
"governance," by standards and contracts, was off and running
- virtual teams & communities formed overnight - mit.bboard, techinfo, 
and the DATACOMPUTER presaged USENET, gopher, and the Web
- epublishing was off and running
- ecommerce was off and running (proposals, contracts, progress reports 
flowing between Tech Square & DARPA)
- e-education was off and running (project Athena)
- Berkeley Community Memory launched in 1973 (presaging the rise of 
bulletin boards, fidonet, freenets, and my own work on "civic networking")

We can debate specific details & timing - but the "spirit" of the 
Internet was going strong from well before the first packets crossed the 
ARPANET.  Even then, we were starting to think about "network-centric 
operations," and beginning to transition to network-centric 
organizations, industries, economies, societies .. on our way to a 
network-centric world.

Cheers,

Miles Fidelman

-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra

Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
nothing works and no one knows why.  ... unknown