[ih] A revolution in Internet point-of-view - Was Re: Internet analyses (Was Re: IPv8...)

[vinton cerf]

To add to Dave's story, the night BEFORE the $25M reveal and ad campaign
one of the key and new features of MCI Mail stopped working. We had devised
a way for people with email addresses to send, not only to other MCI Mail
subscribers, but to other email providers, to TELEX recipients AND to
postal addresses. We printed out messages that included postal
destinations, put them in bright orange envelopes and mailed them. You
could even specify urgency and we'd send them by overnight mail. The HP
system that did the printing stopped working late the night before. The
lead programmer at HP was on his honeymoon in Las Vegas. I had to wake him
up (well, I assume I woke him up) to fix the system, which he did at some
personal expense, I guess. It came up in time for the CEO, Bill McGowan, to
make remarks to establish date/time and for overnight mail referencing
these remarks to be sent to reporters around the world.

v


On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 12:25 PM Dave Crocker via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> On 4/30/2026 7:28 AM, Tony Li wrote:
> > Backhoes happen.
>
>
> Not Internet history, but since it involved Vint and me and your
> reference.,..
>
> Fall of 1983 had the first public demonstration of MCI Mail.  9 month
> project that should have taken 2 years, but we met the deadline.
>
> Massive party afterwards, with champagne -- well, ok, only freixenet
> cava -- flowing even in the street.  (Some of us drank some out on M
> street.)
>
> At one point, I was on the phone back to the Naperville, IL, where the
> servers were based, sharing the feeling with one of the lead operators.
> She was every bit as drunk as I was.
>
> No idea what we were talking about but she stopped and said "oh. it just
> got dark.  and it's so quiet."
>
> Backhoe, only a few hours after massive public demo of the service. And
> as I recall, the generators did not kick in.
>
> d/
>
> --
> Dave Crocker
>
> dhc at dcrocker.net
> bluesky: @dcrocker.bsky.social
> mast: @dcrocker at mastodon.social
> +1.408.329.0791
>
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> Northern California Coastal Region
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>
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