Winter/Spring 1998 Usenet, The Unsung Hero of the Internet Volume 8 No 1 “A large part of the success of Usenet is due to the fact that its admins. do *not* generally quash argument and unpopular opinion. This made it a crucible for testing ideas and opinions in one of the closest approaches to the ‘marketplace of ideas’ that has been seen in history.” Gregory G. Woodbury
Interview with Tom Truscott: Ronda: How did you become interested in computer chess? You have said it wasn’t that you were inter- On the Environment ested in chess itself. and Early Days of Usenet News by Ronda Hauben Tom: Well, I’m not sure. Here is rambling specula- [email protected] tion. As a kid I did not read much, but some things caught my imagination. One was a short story, Danny [Editor’s Note: Following is an edited interview by Dunn and the Homework Machine. (I think Danny Ronda Hauben with Tom Truscott, one of the pioneers Dunn was a kid who invented all kinds of fun stuff.) who created Usenet. It is based on an e-mail exchange.] I thought that this would be a neat machine to have. I realize it is a big leap from homework to chess Ronda: First can you say a little about your back- playing, but somehow it makes sense to me…. ground and interests in computer science before you My first chance to use a computer (an interactive became involved in Usenet? BASIC system) was in a summer program between junior and senior years of high school. My first large Tom: As an undergraduate I got interested in writing a program played checkers. It didn’t play all that well, computer chess program. I don’t play chess well but my but it seemed to have potential. As a Duke freshman chemistry lab partner did and so we undertook a my chemistry lab partner was Bruce Wright, an multi-year project to write a chess program that could excellent chess player. beat Bobby Fisher (my goal) or at least be able to beat I told him we could write a computer chess a rank amateur (partner Bruce Wright’s goal). program that would beat Bobby Fisher. He didn’t think so, but we started writing the program anyway. I was interested because of the Table of Contents computing challenge and no doubt the fame that we would garner by defeating Fisher, and I guess Bruce Interview with Tom Truscott ...... Page 1 was interested because he wanted to learn comput- Editorial ...... Page 8 ing. We spent a LOT of time writing it, and we Factsheet Five: ACN ...... Page 9 learned a lot about how not to write programs. Cooperative Nature of Usenet ...... Page 9 I guess one thing about computer game pro- Creating Broadsides ...... Page 10 grams is that they are like robots S a somewhat History of the Net is Important ...... Page 14 autonomous thing. Netizens: Review of Reviews ...... Page 20 At tournaments the program tells me what Book Reviews: Netizens ...... Page 22 moves to make for it, asks me how much time it has Community in k12.chat.teacher ...... Page 23 left on the clock, stuff like that. And writing a soft- Wiener and Licklider ...... Page 31 ware robot is a lot easier than building a real one. Amateur Computerist Index: 1988-1998 ....Page 35 Why I (and other people) find robots fascinating is
Page 1 beyond me, but there it is. of computing then. The next oldest paper I found was from 1957 by someone who implemented a program Ronda: I have read some articles from the 1970s that similar to Shannon’s proposal. It played terribly. describe how computer chess was understood as Our first computer chess tournament was the something important. Did you have that sense? North American Computer Chess Championships, (CCC) held in November 1974 at the ACM Annual Tom: Yes, and we had the incentive to believe that Conference in San Diego. (We competed in a local because computer chess was far too expensive to be a human tournament earlier that year.) Because ACM mere hobby. From a computational point of view, chess was sponsoring it I decided to become an ACM and checkers are remarkably similar problems. And the member (in April 1974, I was a junior by then) if world’s best checkers player is still a human. But just only to see the announcements about the upcoming try asking Columbia (i.e. some university –Ed.) for tournament. It was tough reading for an undergradu- plane tickets to a computer checkers tournament, or ate but there were some interesting papers. A particu- asking the Association of Computing Machinery larly interesting one appeared that year, about a time (ACM) to spend thousands of dollars to host one! sharing system that ran on a PDP-11.2 It sounded so But enough of this cynicism. much more sensible than the IBM MVT/TSO com- When computer chess, and more generally Artifi- puter system that we were using. Simple things were cial Intelligence (AI), were just starting out, no one simple, and yet one could do nifty things as well. knew what was going to happen. Computer games were (and are) like the drosophila fruit fly of AI because the Ronda: What was the Duke computer you wrote problems are relatively simple, the rules are clear, there your first chess program for? are plenty of human experts for comparison, and there are objective measures of “success.” Many felt that Tom: It was an IBM System 370 Model 165, 80 breakthroughs in general AI would happen first in this nanosecond cycle time (12.5 MHZ in today’s lingo), simpler arena. three megabytes of main memory (later upgraded to People still don’t know what is going to happen. I four megabytes for a mere $100,000). Pretty much guess there haven’t been big breakthroughs, but there the top of the line at the time. We did our develop- are a number of “lessons” from computer chess that are ment in batch mode (the source code was on punched argued and/or used in the general AI context. One cards and the compiled code was stored on disk) and (controversial) lesson is that computers should not used time-sharing option (TSO) when competing in “think” by mimicking humans. Should planes fly by tournaments. flapping their wings? If nothing else, computer chess will make a signifi- Ronda: What happened at the tournament? cant dent in the human psyche when a computer deci- sively defeats the human world chess champion. Tom: Bruce Wright and I called our program It is going to happen sure as Silicon Valley makes “Duchess”. It did quite well, and it was there that I chips. And it will be like a tiny version of the moon met Ken Thompson who also had a good chess landing. It will be something of a stunt, and not really program. His machine was running a background that important, but it will have a symbolic impact that task sopping up idle CPU time by solving simple will change how people think. chess end games! (For example King and Rook vs. King). There was no chance we could do something Ronda: Can you say what you did once you and Bruce like that on our mainframe which cost 20 cents per Wright decided to write a championship chess pro- second. But on the other hand our three MIP main- gram? frame was about the fastest there was, and could compute rings around a little PDP. Tom: I discovered that Claude Shannon had written a There were twelve teams competing in the very early paper on how to construct a chess playing tournament. We were on a stage in a large room with machine.1 It was remarkably farsighted given the state seating for spectators. Each team had a computer
Page 2 terminal (something like a dot-matrix printer with a Ronda: What does ‘losing on time’ in chess mean? keyboard in front and an acoustic modem on the back). And a telephone. Boy were those phone calls expensive. Tom: As is typical in human tournaments, each But the ACM was picking up the tab, and Duke was player has two hours to make their first 40 moves, giving us the computer time. and get an additional 30 minutes for each 10 moves At the 1974 tournament, we knocked off MIT’s after that. The games utilize a pair of clocks, one for “TECH-II” in the first round. They had come in second each player. Whenever it is a given player’s turn, the previous year, and we were a newcomer, so that was their clock is ticking. If they use up two hours before something of an upset. completing 40 moves, they “lose on time”. In the second round we got clobbered by the “Duchess” was intending to complete 40 moves in perennial champ, “CHESS 4.0" from Northwestern 1:40 (i.e. with 20 minutes to spare), but the program University. crashed so many times while trying to complete the In the third round we played Bell Labs’ “Belle”. (I last few moves that it ran out of time. think it was called “Tinker Belle” at one point.) I had met the author earlier, before the second round, when he Ronda: Can you describe what happened after the showed me how good his program was at solving chess tournament? How did you get to work at Bell mating problems. I wasn’t that interested in chess, but Labs in the Summer of 1979? humored him while he pulled a chess position out of a library and had the program find a mate in 5 (or some Tom: Duchess competed in every ACM CCC from such). I guess if I actually played chess I would have 1974 to 1980, but the next time I met Ken Thompson been impressed. was at the 1976 UNIX Users Group meeting at So when the third round began Bruce Wright and I Harvard. That was great fun. There were about 60 were on one side of a table, and Ken Thompson and attendees. I was a grad student and we had just someone else from Bell Labs (who years later I realized installed UNIX (Version 6) and somewhere along the was Brian Kernighan) were on the other side. I noticed way I made the connection between “Belle” and that when Ken Thompson logged on, the Bell Labs Thompson and UNIX. I was also at the 1978 UNIX computer printed: Users Group meeting at Columbia University, and I “Chess tonight, please don’t compute.” think both Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie were I mentioned that that was really neat to be able to there. Thompson also competed in the 1978 ACM get the computer center to put out a notice like that. He CCC. I think he had some special chess hardware but said something noncommital in response. So the game it was no match for the much-improved mainframe began. A few hours and a few thousand dollars later we programs. really had “Belle” on the ropes. All it had left was a Because of our mutual interests Thompson lone king and we were about to queen a pawn! But then would even call up our computer at Duke from time our program ABENDed (core dumped) in a way that to time, and “write” me. That was pretty intense, my caused the phone line to drop. We dialed back in and set trying to pick perfect sentences to send along to the things up, same thing. Every so often it would actually genius at the other end. I think it was during one of make a move. But making the phone call was slow (we those “write” sessions in early 1979, that he asked if had to ask for an outside line from the hotel operator) I would be interested in a summer job. and painful (rotary dial you know) and eventually our program lost on time. Ronda: What did you work on at Bell Labs when you Later, after the tournament, we concluded that the worked there under Ken Thompson that summer? problem was not in our program. Rather it was a prob- lem caused by TSO trying to load overlays from a Tom: I remember making changes to the “ed” text partitioned MVT data set that had become excessively editor command, and working on a global optimizer fragmented. Did I mention something earlier about for C. simple things being simple? Thus was our mighty mainframe slain by a minicomputer. But I didn’t realize Ronda: Can you say what it was like working at Bell it was UNIX.
Page 3 Labs in the Summer of 1979? locations. Of course no e-mail came from the outside S they didn’t have UUCP yet. (I have a curious Tom: Well, I fell into the following routine: memory of Mark Horton sending me a letter, but that Woke up at 11 a.m. Got to Bell Labs at noon so I probably did not happen.) Anyway I was too smug to could play volleyball out on the front lawn with Mike pay much attention to other Bell Labs sites. After all Lesk and Steven Bourne and other folks. (After a few I was at the very root of UNIX itself, hacking on the weeks the security folks told us they couldn’t have a machine named “research” and eating pizza with Ken regulated monopoly running around loose like that.) Thompson and Dennis Ritchie! Lunch at 1 p.m. in the Bell Labs restaurant. Ken Of course when the summer was over and I was Thompson and Dennis Ritchie and Greg Chesson were back at Duke, one of the first things I did was arrange regulars. They had lunch at 1 p.m. because sometimes a UUCP connection to “research”. They called us they didn’t get to work until then (...) nightly, which was great. Sometimes Dennis Ritchie would entertain us with a horror story about a non-UNIX system that he had to Ronda: What was the origin of Usenet? Was there a deal with recently. I think one day Ken Thompson Unix News program before you folks at Duke and explained the C-compiler Trojan-Horse hack he did. (It University of North Carolina developed Netnews? might have been in the lab, but lunch sounds right.) I thought it was cute but didn’t recognize the larger Tom: I think the DEC PDP 11/70 there (at Bell Labs implications. He later described it in his “Reflections on named “research”) had a primitive “news” program Trusting Trust” Turing Award paper (which was nicely that printed unread files found in the directory written so I think Ritchie helped him with it). I tried to /usr/news. think of clever things to say, which was not an easy But Duke already had a program (from one of thing. the early user group tapes) that supported multiple At 2 p.m. the day began, which involved doing “categories” of news. (I don’t think the program was pretty much whatever we wanted. called “news” though), so I wasn’t impressed. Richie was working on “Streams”, I think. Ken In the UNIX (Version 7) manual set there were Thompson was working on typesetting software but two papers on UUCP. One was “A Dial-Up Network mostly working on a chess machine. (In 1980 he won of UNIX™ Systems” by D. A. Nowitz and M.E. the Third World Computer Chess Championship, Lesk, August 1978. The other was “UUCP Imple- defeating the “Duchess” chess program that I co- mentation Description” by D. A. Nowitz, October authored.) 1978. (UNIX V7 didn’t ship until the summer of Often at 7 p.m. a group would go out for dinner 1979 though.). So I have always thought of Dan (they liked pizza). Occasionally someone would host Nowitz as a principal author of UUCP. It is odd that dinner at their home. Afterwards I would go back to the in a recent USENIX ;Login: I think I saw Mike Lesk labs and work until midnight. And the next day I would but NOT Nowitz being given some recognition for get up “at the crack of noon”, as Thompson put it. UUCP. There was a kind of lull that summer because UNIX (Version 7) had just been wrapped up. That was Ronda: Did you continue to play computer chess the summer that the Seventh Edition of UNIX was sent after you and the other folks at the University of out with lots of new software such as “sed”, “awk”, North Carolina and Duke created Usenet? “uucp”, and the Bourne shell. Ritchie did various paperwork and tape-making to get it out the door. Tom: In 1980 we competed in the Third World Computer Chess Championship held in Linz, Aus- Ronda: Was there any special work being done with tria. Ken and Joe Condon (a researcher at Bell Labs) UUCP during that summer at Bell Labs? had completed their hardware chess machine and snagged first place. (From then on, hardware chess Tom: I didn’t pay much attention to UUCP that sum- machines have dominated the championships. The mer, though I did receive e-mail from other Bell Labs flexibility of software programs has not been enough
Page 4 to overcome the raw speed of chess hardware.) 2. I had worked for Ken Thompson at Bell Labs in “Duchess” came in second (or maybe third, I the summer of 1979 and was in UNIX heaven the forget). whole time. I also attended the summer 1979 Claude Shannon was in attendance, and even USENIX conference in Toronto. Returning to Duke handed out the trophies at the awards ceremony. in the fall meant the end of that. Our only connection Afterwards we all went over to a TV studio to with the outside UNIX world was the user group watch a West German TV special on computer chess newsletter ;Login:, but we had not seen one in a and the championship. Claude Shannon and his wife while. It was published on an erratic schedule by a were very engaging people. Someone took a photo of all professor [Mel Ferentz] who had a lot of other of us, I have a copy buried somewhere.3 demands on his time. We were quite nervous that should anything happen to him this tenuous connec- Ronda: What happened when you got back to Duke in tion would be lost entirely. Fall 1979? Did you keep in contact with folks from Bell Labs? 3. UNIX (Version 7) came with UUCP. This com- plex (for its day) program made it easy to send e-mail Tom: When I got back to Duke I set up UUCP, and and files to other UNIX (Version 7) sites over phone Thompson also called in from time to time. lines provided that one end had an auto-dialing We really didn’t get much software updating from telephone and modem and the other an auto-answer- them. Technically they should not supply it anyway, due ing telephone and modem. The Duke Computer to the various rules and regulations involved. Science PDP 11/70 had both.” (We built the auto-dialers ourselves. An interest- Ronda: I wondered if anything happened at Bell Labs ing story ...) over the summer that helped you to propose Usenet... We were using UUCP to contact two other UNIX machines at Duke and also one at UNC.- Tom: Not really. Chapel Hill. So one night Jim and I had a rambling conversa- Ronda: Can you say what it was that led you or you tion about these things and the idea behind Usenet and Jim Ellis to conceive of Usenet? just popped out. We held a few meetings to figure out the details. Tom: Well, here is some text I wrote about that a few Two other local UNIX enthusiasts also attended: months ago: Dennis Rockwell from Duke and Steven Bellovin “I think there was a confluence of things in fall from UNC. We decided on the transfer format (what 1979 that brought it about. an article would look like on the wire) and on the basic functionality of the software. Steven Bellovin 1. Jim had installed the latest UNIX (Version 7) which implemented this stuff with shell scripts as proof of broke many old programs including a public domain concept. It was impressively slow, but it worked! “news” program that had been sent out on one of the We also decided on terminology such as “news- early UNIX User Group tapes. (In summer 1979 the groups”. We probably chose that due to the newslet- user group was renamed USENIX to avoid trademark ter analogy. This was long before the PC and “bulle- problems.) [It was earlier than that, but the first new tin boards”. We may have chosen incorrectly but it meeting was summer 1979] I don’t think the program wasn’t due to carelessness. One thing we didn’t was called “news” (perhaps it was called “items”). I decide on was the name of the network. I think early think it allowed items to be entered under one of several on Jim coined “Usenet”, but our first announcement “categories”. It had a number of problems (including a did not use that (or any other) name. 512 byte limit per item), so we were thinking about An energetic new Duke graduate student, writing a completely new program. Then we could Stephen Daniel, also turned out to be a UNIX enthu- contribute it to the next user group tape and hopefully siast. He created the dotted newsgroup structure that achieve some minor level of fame. we know and love today, and wrote the first produc- tion version of news (“A-news”).
Page 5 Ronda: Fred Brooks, who wrote The Mythical Man Ronda: Across the ARPAnet? Month about the problems of creating large software projects was a Professor at the University of North Tom: I’m not sure, but it seems likely. Perhaps not Carolina. Did he do anything to help with Usenet? across the country, but across the campus would be rather attractive. It (“A-news”) had general support Tom: He was not involved in the early (or later) Usenet for non-uucp transports [like ARPAnet] in early as far as I know. He did pay for a leased line between 1980. UNC and Duke that made communication via UUCP a “free good”. But we really didn’t seek faculty help for Ronda: Do you have any idea how early in 1980? Usenet except for clerical issues such as handling long distance bills until we were reimbursed. Tom: Quite early. Well before the Delaware USENIX Conference. The “uprop.n” paper (that was Ronda: How did you present Usenet to people at handed out at that conference) has a section on this I USENIX in Winter of 1980? will include here: “Remote systems can also subscribe to news- Tom: Jim Ellis presented a talk, but people did not groups on an individual basis. For each such system come specifically to hear his talk. There was no pre- a subscription list and a transmission protocol are announcement of Usenet. We didn’t even have a name maintained. Whenever an article should be sent to a for the thing. There were 400 attendees, no parallel remote system, the transmission protocol of that sessions, and pretty much everyone heard everything. system is executed with a formatted version of the Ah, the good old days. article as input. This program performs the necessary magic to send an article to the news program on the Ronda: I have been told that the reason “A-news” was remote system. This might, for example, be done by written is that the early shell script version of Usenet remote execution or the article could be encapsulated was too slow and tied up the computer science depart- and mailed to the remote system, when another ments computer. Is that why the “A-news” version of program would recover it and pass it on to the local Usenet was done to replace the shell script version? news program.”
Tom: We never seriously considered implementing Ronda: I wondered if there were technical limita- news as a shell script. tions to the number and names of newsgroups under It did not tie up the Department computer. We did, the original “A-news” program and then under the however, have that problem with regard to UUCP. A early versions of “B-news”. I have been reading the grad student, Jothy Rosenburg, had a PDP/11 at Duke discussion in “A-news” about forming new groups Student Health that ran UNIX. He used UUCP to ship and wondered if there were constraints that had to files back and forth. The files got larger and larger tying be taken into account due to the software. up our phone lines (we only had two) and when he shipped a 500 Kbyte file which at 300 baud took 5 Tom: The early documentation said that newsgroup hours to transfer, some people indeed hit the roof.... names were restricted to 14 or fewer characters, but Besides Jothy, people blamed the problem on people that was arbitrarily chosen. (“A-news” did not store playing computer games. But I monitored phone use articles in a newsgroup tree, so the old UNIX limita- rather carefully and statistically game playing was a tion of 14 character filenames did not apply here.) total non-problem. But people had their minds made up. There was no limit on the number of news- This was in the fall of 1979 before news. News to UNC groups. However, rather than have individual .newsrc (and to phs) used fast leased lines which were not a files, “A-news” stored each user’s subscription list as problem. News elsewhere happened in the dead of night a single line in the file /usr/spool/news/uindex. The which again was not a problem. Usenet was being maximum line was originally 200 bytes, which limits shipped via e-mail (not gateways of mailing lists) long the number of explicitly requested newsgroups. On before 1982. the other hand, one could subscribe to “all” to read
Page 6 everything so this was not that big a deal at first. The “200” was also arbitrarily chosen, and was increased Tom: Usenet provided a good way to have online over time. discussions, and so I think it (accidentally) played The real problem was the huge number of news quite a large role in this. I think of personal e-mail, articles. The software was very inefficient at processing mailing lists, and news articles as differing in their articles (which would have been okay for three articles purpose and audience, but not in their content or per day) and was painfully slow as a result of the traffic. format. Stretching this further, we might view Web There was also a naive assumption that the news pages simply as “messages” over which unusual care program could allocate an array to hold all the news has been lavished. And at the other end we might articles the user wanted to read (or otherwise process). view “chat” style conversations as sequences of But the PDP 11/70 did not have enough memory for messages over which unusually little care has been more than about 1000 articles! So we hacked the lavished. Usenet just happened to find a sweet spot program to deal with about 1000 articles at a time. somewhere in the middle. Anyway, it seems reason- able that all these different kinds of messages could Ronda: Do you remember the earliest means of keeping be formatted and handled in a more uniform manner. track of what newsgroups there were that people could subscribe to S or did people just subscribe to all? I have Ronda: Do you think we have succeeded in creating noticed that someone posted a list of newsgroups in the Worldnet? early 1980s (maybe by 1982) I do not have the earliest posts so I wonder if such lists had been made earlier or Tom: It is easy to say “no”, because less than half the if there was only a need for them at a certain point. world’s population have ever used a telephone, let alone a computer. We don’t yet have ubiquitous Tom: Originally people could create a newsgroup just networking. And yet almost all of the Worldnet by submitting something to it, and similarly could vision has been implemented and is in widespread subscribe to non-existent newsgroups. This got to be a use. The Worldnet discussions were about creating problem because people would misspell newsgroup online journals and creating an online storage of the names. So we added a /usr/spool/news/ngfile which had world’s knowledge. There were concerns about a list of all the known newsgroups, and if someone fairness (would minority viewpoints be suppressed?) submitted or subscribed to an unknown group they were and multi-culturalism (would we have a tyranny of warned and asked if they wanted to add it to ngfile. the English language, or perhaps instead a Tower of Newsgroup creation became a bigger deal in “B-news” Babel?). Well, the discussions have been overtaken which created actual directories for the various news- by reality, and the concerns are no longer academic! groups. ------
Ronda: You have said that human-nets was an impor- Notes tant newsgroup that was available in the early days of Usenet. Can you say what you felt was important about (1) The paper was Claude E. Shannon, “A Chess-- it and why it was called human-nets? Playing Machine”, Scientific American, p. 48, Febru- ary 1950. Tom: “human-nets” was a discussion of the implica- tions of world-wide ubiquitous networking. This (2) This was the July 1974 paper by Ritchie and network of the future was referred to as “Worldnet”. It Thompson on the Unix Time Sharing System that was a very interesting mailing list and possible only due was published in the Communications of the ACM to the ability of the network itself to permit those Number 17. (The earliest announcement perhaps of interested in this obscure subject to communicate. Unix to the world.)
Ronda: What role do you feel Usenet has played in all (3) Reproduced in Netizens: On the History and of this? Impact of Usenet & the Internet by Michael Hauben
Page 7 and Ronda Hauben. In a similar way today, there is a need for such broad ranging discussion among many people. But today the issue is not merely the future of the com- Editorial puter, but the future of the Internet and of the com- puter as a new means of communication. Championing Usenet While small groups of government officials in the U.S., for example, are planning to replace the In Fall 1992, the Amateur Computerist published a dynamic Net of the present with their model of a collection of articles about Usenet. By 1992,Usenet, buying and selling bazaar from the past, other seg- which was born in Fall 1979, had grown and developed ments of the U.S. government and population recog- into a network and forum linking millions of computer nize the importance of the Net as a new form of users around the world. But few of those not on Usenet communication media. knew anything of its nature or existence. And many on Writing in the early 1960s, the German philoso- Usenet had rarely taken the time to consider what they pher Jürgen Habermas explained why the ability to had become part of. The Fall 1992 Amateur Com- have discussion among people with diverse views puterist collection of articles was one of the early which characterizes what we called “the public acknowledgments that Usenet was something signifi- sphere.” is so important. cant, and thus made it possible for those on Usenet or Habermas explains the power of critical rational not yet on Usenet to pause and reflect on this important discussion and debate to determine the public interest new development in human to human communication. on “the basis of which alone a rational agreement Since that time, the Internet has become a subject between publicly competing opinions could freely be that has gripped the imagination of people around the reached.” He describes different periods of history world. E-mail, Usenet, IRC, Telnet, and FTP and now where such rational discussion by a sector of the the World Wide Web (WWW) have become some of population, was able to determine the important the uses of the Net that have enhanced communication issues of the day. among people, making our world smaller and more In the U.S. federal district court decision in a dynamic than ever before. However much of the press, case involving the Internet (ACLU versus Reno), one at least in the U.S., is only charmed by the WWW, of the judges, Judge Stewart Dalzell, eloquently misrepresenting it as the Internet, and presenting described the importance and power of Usenet and electronic commerce (e-commerce) as the nature and the Internet as a new media making possible a similar future of the Net. kind of democratic participation and discussion. He Meanwhile, hidden in general from public view, is wrote: “The plaintiffs in these actions correctly the cooperative and dynamic form of communication describe the ‘democratizing’ effects of Internet com- that is the regenerative aspect of the Net. As networking munication: individual citizens of limited means can visionaries Robert Taylor and J.C.R. Licklider pointed speak to a worldwide audience on issues of concern out, when people communicate in an active way, new to them. Federalists and Anti-Federalists may debate ideas emerge. The development of a global network is the structure of their government nightly, but these but one of the products of this constructive interaction. debates occur in newsgroups and chat rooms rather In 1961, in a speech given at an MIT conference than in pamphlets.... The Internet is a far more about the future of the computer, British writer C. P. speech-enhancing medium than print, the village Snow noted that government officials would be making green, or the mails.” decisions that would affect the future of the computer. Judge Dalzell documents that there is a vibrant He cautioned against having those decisions made in new form of public sphere developing online similar secret by a small group of people who did not under- to that which Habermas described in other historical stand the nature of the computer. Instead, he urged that periods. Habermas’ concept of the public sphere as broad a set of people as possible be involved in the provides a way to recognize the democratic struc- discussion of the issues governments would need to tures and the people who develop them as a crucial resolve to plan for how the computer would be devel- aspect of evolving social and political structures. oped, so that the computer would benefit society. A new form of public sphere is being created as
Page 8 the conditions and the actors develop with the ability two-column pages that are actually “readable”, run and the need for the democratic processes and forms of off on an office xerox machine with a single corner the public sphere. And in a similar way, there are those staple. The other key difference is that The Amateur interests trying to corrupt this newly forming public Computerist is a publication about computers, sphere. technology, and the Internet while Wired primarily This issue of the Amateur Computerist focuses on focuses on business, marketing, and corporations. the capability of online technology, particularly Usenet, The best thing I can say about The Amateur Com- to encourage those who are online to contribute their puterist is that it’s for former or current Wired news and views, to have diverse opinions aired and subscribers who are disgusted with its flag-waving considered. This is a singular and special achievement corporate stance and are looking for something with that networking technology, particularly Usenet, makes an emphasis on real technology. possible. This is creating a new public sphere that This thoughtful issue explores how the many promises to transform society in a way that can reflect facets of the Internet has transformed society. They the interests of a broader set of people than formerly and cover everything from Usenet to e-mail to freenets to make possible a new form of democratic participation. the Web. It starts off with a great piece that explores Those who promote e-commerce as the future of the how online discussion forums like newsgroups are Internet, and the categorization of online users as toppling the authoritative voice of newspapers. “customers” of merchants of e-commerce, are trying to Another fabulous piece is Ronda’s history of Usenet, replace the dynamic democratic potential of the Internet covering how it grew out of a small group of re- with the old model of the citizen as passive actor of a searchers who wanted to exchange tips on imple- commercially dominated society. menting Unix. Other highlights include excerpts This is why we feel it is crucial to examine and from the recent federal decision on the CDA, explore the importance of discussion and debate and of thoughts on online education, and the report from uncensored posts that are carried on Usenet, both from INET‘96. its earliest days and in current newsgroups. We have taken this as our topic for this issue of the Amateur Computerist. The Cooperative Nature of Many people over many long years have worked to make it possible for the communication that the Net Usenet makes possible to grow and flourish. Will the Net by Gregory G. Woodbury continue to grow and flourish as a significant new [email protected] means of human to human communication? This is a crucial question for our times. We hope that this issue [Editor’s Note: In a thread in the newsgroup of the Amateur Computerist helps Netizens to answer news.future, a poster in August 1993 wrote that he this question in an ever more vital and active way. felt those on Usenet had a commitment to the anar- chy that he felt characterized Usenet. In response Greg Woodbury, a Usenet pioneer who has been on Usenet since its earliest days, disagreed that one Factsheet Five: ACN Vol 7 No 2 should characterize Usenet as an anarchy and wrote the following post describing his view of the organi- [Editors Note: Factsheet Five is a magazine which zational structure of Usenet.] describes hundreds of Zines. Here is what it had to say Postulating the concept of net.anarchy as being about the Amateur Computerist vol. 7 no. 2 in its at the base of a belief system (or “faith”) is an inter- Winter 1997 issue.] esting twist on the topic. Part of the confusion arises, I think, from a misunderstanding of what is meant -The Amateur Computerist- when folks call netnews an “anarchy.” The governance structure of the net (and there The Amateur Computerist is like the complete *is* one) does not (yet) have an “archy” word around antitheses of Wired magazine. Look at its design simple to describe it. It is not an hierarchy, it is not an
Page 9 oligarchy, it isn’t an “aristocracy”, nor do any of the possible that some folks are using a variety of faith other “archy” or “ocracy” words quite describe it. Since postulates in their conceptions of it. it cannot be put into a neat little category, it is lumped I, however, do not think that being an “anarchy” into the “not otherwise specified” category, which is one of those for most people. The term remains in happens to be “anarchy.” use simply because there isn’t any other term that can As it stands, there is no good way to even describe be applied to netnews instead. the structures that do exist. They are distributed (as There are, IMnsHO1, a few folks who have made opposed to centralized), they are “consensual” (as faith postulates out of the “advantages of democracy” opposed to majority rule), they are both individual and and other concepts. :-) collective, and they are highly mutable/dynamic. A few years ago there was some major discussion Wolfe about the use of the term “organized” in relation to ------netnews. (Actually, in the application of the word [1] IMnsHO := “In My (not so) Humble Opinion” a organizations to Usenet/Netnews.) Such discussions common net acronym. arise periodically on the net, and serve to clarify the governance in the minds of those involved. For other reasons, the use of the term “operational [Editor’s Note: The following is the second part of anarchy” in relation to netnews serves to remind those this article. The first part appeared in the Amateur involved that we are involved in a co-operative situa- Computerist, vol. 7 No. 2. A footnoted version is tion, where the ultimate responsibility of the contents available from the author] rests squarely on the poster of an article. Much of the arguments about netnews governance are attempts to Creating Broadsides for Our avoid this basic fact. :-) Another reason that “anarchy” continues to be Day Part 2 applied is to remind folks that the site owners and their by Ronda Hauben agents (the admin.) hold basic real property rights (in [email protected] most places) to their machines that are used in provid- ing this cooperative service, and that these rights are V - Creating the Form for Usenet joined with concomitant real (i.e. legal) responsibilities. Additional complications arise when the existing The earliest days of Usenet demonstrate both the “laws” are applied to a situation that has far outpaced principles and practices in embryo of new and more the ability of the “system” to keep up with it. One democratic forms that this new technology makes example is the application of “copyright” to the articles possible. The issues developed in certain key news- created by the posters. groups during this early period clarify the problems Then comes the questions of how to “model” this that a new communications medium bring to the dynamic system in such a way that a human can com- fore. The model for Usenet that pioneers had early on prehend it and deal with it. Several different models was of an electronic newsletter. “Not to belittle any may apply (simultaneously!) to it. The inability to new newsgroup, but it strikes me that we are devel- choose a single, simple model further adds to the oping a real electronic newspaper here,” wrote Geor- confusing (and thus anarchic) quality of netnews. ge Otto in a post in January 1982. “We already have I can claim (with a bit of pride :-) ) to have a science section, an automotive section, a comic watched netnews/Usenet grow from its two-machine section, movie review column, sports section, travel origin into three, then four, and then up its growth section, book reviews, even want ads.” Michael curve. The very basic assumption that people using the Shiloh noted that he enjoyed the network both “for netnews software wanted to have interactive communi- entertainment and for receiving the latest news on cation is still essentially unchallenged as the purpose for many subjects,” Another user pointed out that he this “creature” we call netnews/Usenet to exist. didn’t feel the news wires belonged on Usenet, There *is* a quasi-religious quality about netnews “Although the news wire is something I want to see in some of the arguments that occur, and it is quite in Worldnet,” he explained, “ I don’t want it on
Page 10 Usenet, unless it belongs in one of the other news- improve Usenet. For example, Chris (at cincy) noted groups.” J. C. Winterton explained that he didn’t feel that it was then necessary to save the news item one that Usenet “should become an arm of AP, Reuthers, wanted to respond to, exit netnews to write one’s etc.” However, in considering what Usenet should make reply, and then send it and return to Usenet. Instead, possible, one user at allegra at Bell Labs wrote, he proposed that a means of automatically replying “Wouldn’t it be great to use this electronic medium to be built into the netnews software. send notes to our government officials. I never seem to Often proposals for how to improve Usenet were write postal letters or telegrams,” he admitted, “but we submitted online with requests for comments and all seem to find these electric notes convenient enough discussion. However, when ARPAnet digests were to use often. Can you imagine net.reagan with a few read by those on Usenet, it was difficult to respond to authentic replies?” Another user added “or what if we the individual posts since the email address of the could lobby our favorite senator (net.lobby, gateway to Usenet was given as the source of the net.senator?)” In articulating the importance of Usenet, digests, rather than the poster’s e-mail. Several on Mel Haas wrote that the effort had to be to “Try to Usenet discussed how this made it difficult to re- make the net a useful exchange of useful information spond to the writer, and raised possible ways to and ideas that will pay for the service and help people.” remedy the problem. In response, Horton explained Another user explained his view that Usenet “was that he was beginning to think that a change should supposed to represent electronic mail and bulletins be made and the real sender listed. He asked for among a group of professionals with a common interest, “Comments” on his proposed change. thus representing fast communication about important Steve Bellovin, one of Usenet’s creators, noted technological topics.” S. McGeady noted, a bit in that he was one of the people who had created the old dismay, “We are running a networked democracy form. He welcomed making a change, and proposed here.” Observing that, “computer networks, news and generating a “Reply-to” field for the email address of mail systems are much closer to the ‘broadsides’ of the original author so that they would receive the yesterday, Alan Watt asked, “are they therefore pro- response if one did “reply” with a lower case r but if tected under the free speech amendment?” one used an upper case R, the reply would be sent to To make such communication possible, it was Usenet as a follow up message. important that rapid replies be possible after the item In May 1981, Matt Glickman posting from the was posted. “The problem of disjointed communica- University of California Berkeley, announced that he tions is very real,” wrote Jerry Schwartz at harpo, and Mark Horton were working on a new version of “Frequently we receive the reply to an item before we the Netnews software used to transport Usenet. By receive the item.” To help alleviate the confusion that July 1981, the software was going into the testing might result from this situation, he recommended, “that phase. Horton posted that “Comments on the conver- people put a line or two at the beginning of their sub- sion process are welcome.” mission (like the head of this one) to indicate what they In a similar way, in Nov. 1981, Horton proposed are replying to.” a policy for Usenet. He asked “If anyone objects to Such long delays in being able to respond to posts this policy, please let me know.” Also Horton posted were problematic, “If Netnews is to be used for an that he observed that people seemed to confuse interactive medium for discussion,” wrote Mark Horton, Usenet with the UUCPnet that was used to transport “a reply could take over a week to get back, with a two Usenet. Therefore, Horton proposed, “I am toying week turnaround. Clearly, this is the worst case, and a with the idea of changing the names Usenet (the delay of a few days is more likely than a week. But network itself) and Netnews (the collection of soft- there would be a significant lag, and conversations ware that implement Netnews) both to “newsnet”. would be way out of sync with each other.” Horton But he commented, “Since this is a sweeping noted that he was replying to a message that had been change, and since I’m not God, I would like to see posted two weeks before. discussion on whether this is a good thing to do. The newsgroup net.news was created to discuss Please reply to net.news.” His request drew an Usenet itself. In this newsgroup, users discussed immediate response. One such reply was from changes that they felt could be made in the software to Bellovin. Bellovin wrote, “Mark, we picked ‘Usenet’
Page 11 in deliberate imitation of ‘USENIX’, (one of) the UNIX THE NET (e.g. all you folks that are reading this.)” User’s Groups. At the time, we hoped that it might Horton, however, proposed that votes wait till become ‘the official network’ of USENIX.” the USENIX meeting and be carried out in person, Others suggested a variety of names, including “since carrying out a discussion on this medium is WEB with the comment “unfortunately, sounds too very reasonable, but carrying out a vote is not, I much like a TV station.” suggest that we all air our opinions here and that Names like “Arachnet”, “Arachne” and “Compuco” after we talk ourselves out, those who can’t make it “meaning a computer conferencing” and “info-ex”, i.e. to USENIX should find somebody who can and have short for information exchange, were proposed. them cast your vote by proxy. (Preferably someone Bill Jollitz supported a suggestion by Lauren you can talk with in person and hand a piece of paper Weinstein on the need to be careful of names with to with your signature on it.)” existing trademarks. Both agreed that it was important Agreeing that the policies should be discussed at to raise the issue of “how this net will grow.” Though USENIX, Brian Redman wrote “It’s unfortunate certain problems like those of a technical or political indeed that more people can’t be represented at our nature were “well handled in the forum of the network January meeting.... My suggestion that we wait ‘till itself,” they felt other problems should be discussed at the meeting is in response to Mark’s suggestion that USENIX, as “it’s the only large forum appropriate at the we set some policies. I can’t imagine that an actual time.” vote by the readers could be carried out fairly,” he Other names suggested included “Thinknet” or cautioned, adding, “I for one would vote on behalf of “Idnet” as names to represent the need for intelligent all the integers in a VAX.” discussion that was represented on the net. “And Others objected to having decisions made at speaking of Web,” another poster responded, if there USENIX rather than online. Among the objections were discussion on the subject it could turn into a were those raised by Greg Ordy from Case Western “Dragnet.” University (cwruecmp) who wrote, “I submit that if Weinstein proposed that any renaming proposal be it takes an across the country meeting to settle the brought up at the January 1982 USENIX meeting issues at hand, we are in big trouble.... It’s the old because it was important to have a “reasoned consider- loudest talker and prettiest face that sways opinions. ation of any new name.” I would think that this neutral medium would be an Another post indicated the user had searched ideal place to judge only on content, not on packag- through the Webster’s dictionary using the Unix tool ing.” He also noted that “the amount of non-technical grep and listed all the words he found ending in “net.” news is starting to swamp the straight Unix stuff....” In a post dated Nov. 22, Horton listed a set of And he asked, “How much time does the average possible names and asked for a vote. He wrote, “Usenet news reader/writer spend with news each day?” is the current name of the logical net of sites running the Dave Curry also questioned relying on a netnews programs. They make up an electronic distrib- USENIX meeting to make decisions on Usenet uted bulletin board.” Horton submitted several policy policy. He wrote, “I must say that putting the deci- issues as a proposal to Usenet. There was online discus- sions on Usenet policy into the hands of those people sion about these proposals. Several, however, com- attending the USENIX conference (certainly a mented that they would be attending the USENIX minority of those who read news, etc.) is grossly meeting in Santa Monica, California in January 1982 unfair. I myself cannot afford to attend the confer- and asked that any policy wait till that meeting. ence (I don’t know if I would, even if I could), and “I have gotten lots of pressure,” Horton writes, “to am certain numerous others aren’t for numerous let the people at USENIX make the decision (and for reasons. He proposed that, “the decisions should be the network name, too) and I want to state for the record made over the net.” And he outlined a procedure to that while I fully hope to postpone all such decisions have those on the net involved in determining the until at least USENIX, the people who can’t make it to decisions. Santa Monica this January have just as much right to be Horton’s policy proposal had included a proce- heard as those who can.... I want to hear both groups, dure to set up new newsgroups. Horton suggested a but the real public that counts here is the USERS OF committee of those who knew how Usenet func-
Page 12 tioned to make decisions on the names of new news- lines proposed ought to be guided by the principle of groups. Others on Usenet commented on the proposed ‘what is obviously for the common good that every- procedure. Jerry Schwartz at harpo disagreed, “Rather one will accept it once stated’.” than a committee to determine the names of groups,” he wrote, “I propose a group ‘net.names’. The official He believed that “the character of Usenet will be procedure to create a new group would be to announce the consensus of the individuals who maintain it at a proposed new group in ‘net.general.’ People interested each local site, in spite of what any central committee in the group would reply via mail to the originator, and requires or forbids.” any objections to the name would be posted to From the discussion, he added, it appeared that ‘net.names’. After a few days the originator can make a in many cases “management isn’t even aware that decision on the name and announce the creation of the Usenet exists. The real danger,” he continued, “is group in ‘net.general’. Any discussion of the changes to that if management doesn’t know about Usenet, it the names of existing groups could also go in follows that for most installations no one has an ‘net.news’.” official responsibility to maintain it. This is certainly Another response added, “I find it hard to believe true for us.” He continued, “Maintaining the news that Mark is proposing a committee to approve of new system on our single machine takes some measurable newsgroups. Up to that point, his proposal sounds fine. portion of my not-too-empty schedule each day. I How about just establishing rules for new groups.” He squeeze out the necessary time because of perception detailed some proposed rules: (3)” A post by Mel Haas added, “My personal hope “1 - Send a request for interested parties to net.general is that the net will add to our capability to communi- cate, and do away with the horrible decisions that are 2 - Interested parties reply to the sender. made by committee meetings ‘in secret’ at some conference or other. I hope that all discussion of this 3 - If there is enough interest, replies are collected and (of censorship etc) or any other topic relating to the sent out as the first transmission of the new group.” net is relayed to the net.” Jolitz said that he would report to those on the “This system,” he commented, “seems simple and Net who couldn’t attend the USENIX meeting about self policing. If there is enough interest for a group to be what went on. And Brian Redman responded that started, then it is no committee’s business to say it USENIX is “NOT a secret organization. BTW, shouldn’t exist.” And he added, “I even get the feeling Usenet was introduced at a USENIX meeting.” that if there was a committee, it would really end up Another poster acknowledged that “most of the being a rubber stamp since who has the time to do the sites here at Bell Labs Indian Hill are running Net- work necessary to come to a rational decision about a news without benefit of super-user collaboration or group? Or if the committee does turn a group down, the even approval...” meta-discussion generated would probably be worse than any group I can think of. If someone violates the VI - The Online Public Forum and Creating a New rules, I’m sure that they could be jumped on and their Form of Town Hall Democracy (illegal) newsgroup disallowed by the local administra- tor.” Those online found themselves creating a new Alan Watt outlined the principles he felt were communication medium and a new communication governing the creation and development of Usenet: environment. The discussion on early Usenet over “1) Usenet is a strictly volunteer organization: policy proposals demonstrated an open process nobody HAS to join, and guidelines cannot be enforced. where people were encouraged to contribute. Issues 2) Any local news administrator has the de facto and proposals were debated to determine the princi- power to impose any kind of censorship technically ples to guide the decisions made and the procedures feasible. adopted. In addition, this discussion raised the 3) Systems will only participate in Usenet if the question of what parts of the democratic process can perceived benefits exceed the visible costs. Any guide- be carried out online versus what areas need face to
Page 13 face meetings or other means of implementation. And on Usenet is now assumed procedure. Thomas Paine how can these different forms interrelate? During the explains that if the principles determining a new discussion of policy issues in the 1981-82 period, form are good principles, the form will reflect and several people commented that they didn’t trust votes spread the good principles, and vice versa. The carried out online, pointing out the ease with which democratic process developed by those who formed votes could be tampered with in an online voting Usenet, established the foundation for it to grow and process. They also pointed to the discrepancy between flourish. In The Rights of Man, Paine describes his the tentative vote carried out online about choosing a observations when he left Great Britain and came to new name for Usenet and the vote held at the USENIX the U.S. He found a new form had been created in meeting where the vote for a new name for Usenet the new world of America to guide how governments yielded very different results. could function. In a similar way, the discussion on In a similar way, through online discussion and Usenet during its early days shows how a new form consideration, the new newsgroup naming and creation was created to guide the development of the online process was examined and a means found to create a community. Studying these early efforts of the working procedure, as opposed to depending on a Usenet pioneers shows how they gave the world a proposed appointed committee to carry out the proce- new communication media and a new form of online dure. town hall democracy. In The Rights of Man, Tom Paine describes the importance of the discussion among people to deter- mine the underlying principles upon which new forms [Editor’s Note: In the following written in 1994, by can be fashioned. “Forms grow out of principles and ARPAnet pioneer Keith Lynch recalling his early operate to continue the principles they grow from,” days online and comments on some of the challenges Paine observed. “It is impossible to practice a bad form to the future of the Net.] on anything but a bad principle,” he continued. Paine also proposed that the beginning of a new form is the History of the Net is Important most important and most difficult step, “as the probabil- by Keith F. Lynch ity is always greater against a thing beginning than of [email protected] proceeding after it has begun.” The discussion made possible in net.news during Well, originally it was just “The ARPAnet”. In this early period on Usenet demonstrates how problems 1977 friends introduced me to it. We used a TI can be examined to determine the crucial principles so [Texas Instrument] Silent 700 terminal. This was a as to set the foundation for a community or social printing terminal which used thermal paper and compact. Before there are agreed upon principles and built-in 300 baud acoustic coupled modem. One policies, the interests and desires of those who are would dial a local “TIP”. For instance there was one joining together need to be explored and debated. The at Mitre, a nearby company. One would then type principles of any social compact need to be determined “@L 134” to connect to host 134, or whatever. before the forms, so the forms that will serve these There was no TIP (later TAC) login at that time. needs can be created. Host numbers were always a single number of up to The insistence of various participants on Usenet three digits. No dots. Host names were always short during this early period for input into the decisions and uppercase, and also had no dots. about Usenet, echoed and articulated in Mark Horton’s A TIP was a machine which did nothing except statement that “I’m not God,” demonstrated the com- allow dial-up users to connect to other machines. mitment that such decisions had to be determined by Later they were renamed TACs. There was no Net users. This was a statement of the fact that sover- security on them. Not only was no password needed, eignty resided in the users, not in any individual or but you could issue commands to other sessions on organization. the TAC! Everyone was expecting that TAC login This open process created a foundation upon which was imminent, but it wasn’t installed for a long time. Usenet could expand and develop. Much that was only Not until 1986, I think. dreamt about or proposed as wishful thinking in 1981
Page 14 I’ve heard of guest users being asked not to use a character-based editing language. TAC because all its lines were busy – who resolved the ITS stood for the Incompatible Time-sharing problem by paying for an extra phone line and modem System, an obvious take-off on CTSS, the Compati- to be installed at the TAC! ble Time-Sharing System. (Just as Unix is a take-off TACs had some little-known features, for instance on the earlier TENEX, TWENEX, and MULTICS.) a way to link to a user dialed into another TAC, so you All four ITS machines also had UNTALK, a can have a real-time conversation without connecting to split-screen conferencing program similar to the later a computer. This was handy during hours when guest “talk” on Unix and PHONE on VMS. I was told it users weren’t allowed to log in on the ITS systems at was written by a user whose ITS username was MIT. If you were both good typists, you could disable UNCOLA and who had committed suicide. I don’t echo, so that when either of you typed, only the person know if it was the first program of that type, but it not typing saw it. Which meant you could both type at was the first I had seen. the same time without stepping on each other. ITS was a strange operating system. Commands A couple times, I would dial into a TAC from a took effect without one’s needing to type
Page 15 restricted. And guests didn’t get personal directories. that, I was using my own 1200 baud modem. Early Also, there was no file protection. Anyone could read this year I rescued a TI Silent 700 terminal from the or alter any file on the system. And anyone could spy trash can at a hamfest, mostly just for old times’ on anyone else’s session, and even link to their exec and sake. (The TI had been marked $15, but nobody issue commands to it. This is something I really miss in bought it. They cost about $1000 new in the late Unix and VMS – when a user needs assistance it would 70s.) be very handy to be able to look over their shoulder and In 1986, I started using a service called PC to type commands for them while they watch, remotely. Pursuit. It allowed one to make off-hours long Guests were allowed to, and even encouraged to, distance computer calls to about 30 cities in the US, modify the system. If people didn’t like the modifica- including Boston. I used it not just to get onto ITS, tions, they were taken out again. but also onto various BBS systems around the The ITS convention was that it was O.K. to read country. other people’s mail. Eventually, this collided with the In 1986, 1987, 1989, 1989 again, and 1990, I net-wide convention that this wasn’t O.K., with some visited MIT in person. unfortunate results, which included at least one divorce, In May 1990, the last ITS machine was shut that of Marty and Nancy Conner, who had married after down. But I also had guest accounts on Unix systems meeting on the Bandykin mailing list. at MIT by then. It was one of those on which I first The Bandykin list was originally set up for the used Usenet newsgroups, perhaps in 1987 or so. friends of Bandy (Andrew Scott Beals) to console him Previously, most of my activity had been reading and for the loss of his girlfriend. I think this was in 1984 or posting to mailing lists, having real-time chats, and so. It was alluded to, not by name, in Quarterman and downloading various text files. I recall one four-way Hoskins’ “Notable Computer Networks” (CACM, real-time chat which included people in Virginia, October 1986 – please don’t try to write a history of the Norway, the Philippines, and Missouri. net until you’ve read this paper). It was later renamed to In 1991 I switched from using a Unix system at Kin, when Bandy wished to be dissociated from it. MIT to using Digex, a Unix system in Maryland, a Before dying, it spawned off a number of other lists, local call from here. Not long after, I dropped PC including Elbows, Lectroids, TANSTAAFL, and Pursuit. PC Pursuit was nice at first, but they chang- Info-Frobkin. That last list gave rise to FTP Software, a ed from allowing unlimited off-hours usage to one thriving Cambridge firm with which the company I hour a day, while increasing their rates from $20 a work for has recently done business. (FTP Software was month to $30 a month. Also, their local number was presumably named after the net’s File Transfer Protocol, busy most of the time, and connections were slug- which of course greatly predated it.) gish, and frequently punctuated with the notorious The Kin list died because Marty Conner reserved “** POSSIBLE DATA LOSS 00 55 **” which the right to add anyone and everyone to the list. The invariably meant several pages had been discarded. new lists were constituted without him, and with strict I probably would have dropped it anyhow, as there rules about who could join. were only two long distance BBSs I called regularly, It wasn’t until 1981 that I had fairly consistent and one had shut down, while the other had moved access from home, using a borrowed 300 baud modem out of a PC Pursuit area (and has since shut down). and H19 terminal. Prior to that, I had often gone months Digex was founded, and is headed by, Doug or sometimes years between access. After 1981, I have Humphrey, whom I first met in person at a conven- never been offline for more than a month. I missed a tion called WATS-80 which he hosted in Washing- month in 1986 due to TAC logins finally being in- ton DC in 1980. Oddly, instead of using his real stalled. And another month in 1993, when I was install- name there, he called himself “Aubrey Philipsz” after ing computers overseas. (Ironically, as of last month a character in James Hogan’s 1978 novel The Gene- those overseas computers are now on the net!) sis Machine. I may have met him online earlier. He In 1982 I got my own Heathkit H19 terminal and was DIGEX on the ITS machines. In those days, he assembled it. I used it until I got a 286 PC in 1986. I’m had a large DEC-10 in his small apartment. He had still using that PC. I’m currently using a 2400 baud bought it for scrap prices. He used to wear the key to modem I borrowed from work three years ago. Prior to it around his neck as jewelry.
Page 16 In 1989 he had an ITS system in his apartment, so, as there was no formal procedures for information which was only one of two not at MIT (the other was in on new lists, or on changes in old lists, to be con- Scandinavia somewhere). I don’t think he still has it. (I veyed to him. wonder if there’s a law against killing an endangered I gradually became aware of Usenet via refer- operating system.) ences in SF-Lovers, Human-Nets and other mailing I remember his mentioning ARPAnet, and how lists. It became clear that some people didn’t see easy it was to get onto it, during a talk he gave at something called the “SF-Lovers Digest,” but instead WATS-80 in 1980. The implication was that we were read something called “fa.sf-lovers”. I became aware all unauthorized users, but that nobody really minded – of what newsgroups were, and that they all began yet. with “net.” except the ones which were aliased to an I don’t think Usenet was mentioned at that conven- ARPAnet mailing list, which began with “fa.”. tion. Nothing began with alt. or misc. or rec. or sci. or soc. WATS-80 was mentioned in the Washington Post. in those days. I’m sure I still have the newspaper clipping somewhere. Speaking of SF-Lovers, Brad Templeton put the (I always save everything forever, but often have a hard first few years of archives (starting in 1979) on a time finding it later, since it’s mixed in with everything CD-ROM last year, along with lots of recent SF else I’ve saved.) novels and short stories. My brother has a copy. It’s As you can see from my header, I’m still on Digex. easy to scan these archives, unlike my personal [That was in 1994 -ed] It’s grown a lot since I first archives which are on thousands of five inch dis- logged on here, from a SUN-3 with an “MX record” kettes, mostly unlabeled, in no particular order. It (not directly on the net) with about 1000 newsgroups, to was fun to see my own postings, older than some several large SUN-4s linked to the Internet backbone current net users, now immortalized in plastic and with a T1 line, carrying about 9000 newsgroups. tinfoil. I still have an account on a Unix machine at MIT, (I just checked that disc, and found that the first too, which I can telnet into, but I seldom use it. mention of fa.sf-lovers in the SF-Lovers digest was in August 1982, in a message which also mentions > one of the questions I am most interested in sorting net.sf-lovers. I don’t know if those were two different > out is “What was the degree of Usenet/Internet newsgroups. I can forward that message to you if you > overlap at various times”? like.) Actually, SF-Lovers didn’t begin in 1979. It had That’s hard to answer. I can give you my impres- an earlier incarnation, whose archives apparently sions. ITS was never part of Usenet. The idea of a haven’t been preserved anywhere. It was shut down newsgroup is a fairly obvious one, given mailing lists. after Senator William Proxmire gave the ARPAnet I recall commenting in 1979 or 1980, that it was silly to his golden fleece award for wasting taxpayers’ mail a copy of the same thing separately to lots of money, citing SF-Lovers and the wine lovers mailing people on the same machine, rather than mailing a lists as examples. (I don’t know when this was, but pointer to it, and having one copy in a common area. In it should be easy to look up.) The wine lovers mail- fact, the SF-Lovers digest was set up that way for some ing list never came back. users for a while in 1980 S instead of being mailed the Usenet people also participated in mailing lists. digest, they had the option of being mailed a notifica- They always had addresses in the form foo!bar! tion that there’s a new digest, so they can read it from baz!zoo!yar!yaz where foo and yaz were the starting the online archives. This was discontinued after a year and ending points, or perhaps the other way around. or two, probably because it was only practical when ARPAnet addresses were always in the form most readers were on ITS, which is where the list FOO@BAR, or if they were on some kind of subnet originated. Almost all mailing lists originated from ITS, FOO%BAR@BAZ. Traffic which had traversed the since it had the most advanced mailer software. nets would look like foo!bar!baz%ZOO@YAR. It Rich Zellich maintained a “list of lists” which wasn’t always clear which way to parse this. could be ftp’d from SRI-NIC.ARPA. For all I know, he I definitely had the impression that ARPAnet still does. But it was hopelessly out of date by 1983 or (later, Internet) and Usenet were two very different
Page 17 things, and that mail got from one to the other only > Have you seen any history work done on Usenet because one or two machines happened to be on both > and ARPAnet history? networks. These gateway machines which were on both networks kept changing, presumably because once word I don’t think so. Not until the past year have I got out that one was acting as a gateway, it quickly noticed lots of books being available, describing became overloaded, and soon refused to act as a gate- what the net is like now, and how to do things with way anymore. it. It makes sense that such books would appear My impression (which may have been wrong) was before books that describe how it came to be that that the Usenet mailing lists were completely different way, and what it was like earlier, the latter being of from the ARPAnet mailing lists, although some adven- lesser immediate practical use. turous Usenetters were subscribed to the latter via a The net’s history is very small, measured in gateway. person-years. Perhaps 50 million? Compared to There was a Usenet map file, consisting of several about 20 billion person-years of U.S. history, and a pages of ASCII line drawings meant to be connected similar number of person-years for the Roman together, which showed all the systems on the Usenet, Empire, that isn’t very much. Thus one might expect and which ones talked (via uucp) to which other ones. one net history book for every 400 U.S. history I may still have a hardcopy of this somewhere. I books. recall that only one or two machines on the map was also an ARPAnet host. But it was hard to tell, since a > ... and when it is often written about, the details are host’s Usenet name and ARPAnet name could be (and > often wrong (when it is written about by the press, usually were) completely different. > etc.) Today, I have the impression that Internet and Usenet are essentially the same thing. And that the I’ve noticed that the press tends to be quite overwhelming majority of newsgroup traffic flows via accurate, except when they’re writing on a subject I TCP/IP over the Internet, rather than via uucp over dial- know something about. :-) up modems. Trying to separate them today seems about Concerning quoting styles, the ARPAnet style as productive as distinguishing the Angles from the was to indent the text being quoted, the Usenet style Saxons today. (which I’ve long since adopted) was to quote mes- I recall that Usenet users were considered somehow sages with a “>” character at the beginning of each lower class. For instance there was a message on the quoted line, and the Fidonet style was to quote Bandykin list suggesting that Usenet people be banned messages with the person’s initials followed by a “>” from the list. I wrote a reply, replacing “Usenet” with character at the beginning of each quoted line. All “black”, and “Internet” with “white,” showing that three styles are now found on all three nets, as are “netism” (as I then named it) is as bad as racism. (I’m various other styles, many of them nearly unreadable. sure I still have a copy of these messages.) Often, the “>” is replaced by some other charac- Today, on some newsgroups there’s similar, but ter such as “|”, probably to get around software that lesser, netism toward AOL, Delphi, and/or Fidonet puts limits on quoted text. users. The earliest mailing list I’m aware of is MSGGROUP, a list for discussing e-mail and related > And I would love to know about the 1980 issues. I’ve recently seen some online archives of it > ARPAnet crash - that’s just after Usenet started dating back to 1975, and I downloaded the earliest > (when in 1980 was the crash?) parts of it as a souvenir. The first digestified mailing lists were October? I don’t recall the cause, except that it SF-Lovers and Human-Nets, which became came as an enormous surprise, as the ARPAnet was digestified in January 1980, because the daily volume supposed to be crash-proof. Some kind of self-propagat- became too great for the ITS mailer to handle over- ing host table update had a bug in it, I think. It was night. With digestification came de facto moderation, definitely an accident, not malicious, not an attempt to since there was no automatic software for crash anything. digestification. These may have been the first mailing
Page 18 lists to be moderated. was now being exceeded. The first *automatic* digestification, at least Later came the infamous FCC “modem tax” among the lists I read at the time, was on the Space threat. The outrageous idea was that the net, PC Digest. I remember being very surprised by it. This was Pursuit, etc, were underselling the phone company probably around 1982. and the post office, and that this was unacceptable. I think I first saw smileys in 1981 or 1982. The Thus, whenever information crosses a state line original one was :-). electronically, it would be charged as much as it FTP, telnet, and mail date back to the beginning of would cost to send via a regular modem over a the ARPAnet, though they changed somewhat when regular long distance phone line. (This was when NCP was replaced by TCP/IP (in 1982?). IRC, WWW, regular modems didn’t exceed 1200 BPS.) This Archie, and Gopher are quite recent. I used something threat later came back as a recurring “urban legend,” just like IRC on the BITNET in 1987 or so, and I’m but it was quite real the first time. Fortunately, the pretty sure there was no IRC at that time, though there FCC received more letters opposing it than they had were MUDs. I used something just like a one-channel received in all history on all other issues combined, IRC on an HP-2000 (not on any net) in 1977. so they reluctantly backed down. Packet nets such as I’m not sure when FAQs started, though I’m pretty the Internet and PC Pursuit are inherently much sure they came from Usenet, not Internet. cheaper than a dedicated phone line. It’s like the GIFs, I’m pretty sure originally came from difference between sharing a lane on the road, and CompuServe. having a whole lane dedicated to you for the duration of your trip. Naturally, the latter costs much more. A > > (I do hope newsgroups have been, and are being, dial-up phone line is exactly equivalent to ftping a > > totally archived.) 64KB file every second, plus another one at the same time in the opposite direction, for the duration of > They were by Henry Spencer at the university of one’s session. > Toronto - but he gave his tapes last summer to This “modem tax” would have been an extreme > someone who claimed they would make a CD-ROM and senseless distortion of the marketplace, roughly > of them ... equivalent to putting a one million percent tax on trucks driven forwards, but not on those driven in Make a CD-ROM of the complete archives of reverse gear. Usenet? I believe the current volume is about equal to There’s long been a lot of commonality between one CD-ROM per *week*. people on the net and people at Science Fiction conventions (cons). Not only are SF cons discussed > But also – some of the research I have done in the a lot on the net, but SF cons have had “@ parties,” or > past is available from wuarchive.wustl.edu in “@! parties” since at least 1986. There are also often > directory /doc/misc/acn/netbook parties associated with a given mailing list or news- group. I’m not sure whether in general people dis- I’ll get that file as soon as I finish writing this. (I cover the net at cons, or cons on the net, or whether, don’t want to bias my recollections, and feed back like me, they discover both independently. information already in the file to you.) Also, either a disproportionate number of liber- Until 1990 or so, my perception was that the net, or tarians are on the net, or – just as likely – the news at least my access to it, was likely to go away soon. media are lying to us about how many libertarians are TAC login was coming soon. Guest users at MIT were in the general population. always becoming more numerous and weren’t as well There’s also a lot of overlap with ham radio behaved as in the “good old days,” thus were likely to types. The net is the exciting electronic frontier that soon all be flushed. The net often became unusably I thought I had permanently missed when reading slow (i.e. five or ten minutes for what I type to echo – amateur radio magazines from the 1910s. I used to sometimes I’d type ahead a whole session, including the have a ham radio licence, but let it lapse when I logout, before getting the password prompt) and it was discovered the net. I couldn’t combine the two obvious that guests would be flushed since the capacity hobbies, as ASCII wasn’t allowed on the air until
Page 19 1980. And packet ham radio came much later. (It’s I’m against Usenet 2, or any other retreat due to interesting to note that the American Radio Relay spam. I don’t discard any e-mail unread, or munge League was founded in 1916 by hams to organize my address, or cease posting helpful messages to networks of hams to relay messages (their own and Usenet, or move to Usenet 2, or register with remove messages from the general public) across the country, lists, or do anything else to surrender any part of the and, ten years later, across the world, using Morse code. net to spammers, or to imply their legitimacy. It still exists, and I was a member for a while.) Let THEM built a second Usenet or a second An early mailing list was Human Nets. It was for Internet. I won’t let them drive me off this one. I the discussion of “Worldnet,” a hypothetical future wish everyone felt the same. I wish every spam to ten worldwide computer network. The list is long gone, but million victims was met with ten million strongly I hope the archives are available online somewhere. worded complaints. We made AGIS back down. They’d make valuable reading for you, since by reading We drove Spamford off the net, along with them “backwards” you can get a good image of what the Nancynet, Walt Rines’ Quantcom, and a dozen other net was like at that time, just as the best way to see what rogue domains. Spammers are on the defensive now. was considered bad about a time and place is to read a See http://www.clark.net/pub/kfl/ftc.html for my utopian novel written then and there, since a utopia is coverage of the FTC spam hearings six months ago, always fairly similar to what the author is accustomed which I attended. See http://www.clark.net/pub/kfl/ to, with the bad features removed or reversed. toll.html for my list of toll-free numbers seen in One April Fool’s Day sometime in the early ’80s, recent e-mail spam. there was a hoax posting from KREMVAX, which Also see http://www.clark.net/pub/kfl/timeline purported to be a VAX in the Kremlin in the USSR. .html, which should be of interest to every Internet This was considered quite hilarious, since the historian.”] ARPAnet was for US defense, and the USSR was our enemy. At that time, there were hosts at US bases overseas, but nowhere else outside the US. Much later, Netizens: Review of Reviews after Russia was on the Internet, someone in Russia became aware of this prank, and named their Internet The Amateur Computerist is proud to announce host KREMVAX as a lark. the book Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet by Michael Hauben and > Thanks for writing. Would you like to say Ronda Hauben, two founding editors of the Amateur > something about today? Computerist, appeared in May 1997. It was published Today there are more systems on the net in our by the IEEE Computer Society Press. Many of the computer room where I work, than were on the whole chapters of this 345 page hard cover book had net in 1977. Some of these systems are a single circuit previously appeared in earlier versions as articles in board that could fit in my shirt pocket. the Amateur Computerist. It is now available in bookstores but remains online as it has been since And tomorrow? January 1994 at http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben ------/netbook/. In October 1997 a Japanese translation [The above e-mail message was written over three years was published by Chuokoron-Sha. The book has ago. The author’s web site is at http://www.clark.net been greeted by a number of interesting reviews in /pub/kfl/. In a recent e-mail message Keith Lynch English and Japanese. updated this e-mail exchange: “Note that in 1994 I saw Michael Swaine writes in Dr. Dobbs Journal, a WWW as just another random service on the net, along magazine for programmers, that he liked “the copi- with Archie, Gopher, and IRC, rather than the 800 ous quotations from the actual participants” in the pound gorilla it has become. And spam was such a development of UNIX, Usenet and the Internet that minor issue in those days that I didn’t even mention it, Netizens documents. “The Haubens,” he writes, while today it takes up the majority of my online time. “have produced a readable but well documented I believe spam is the greatest threat the net has ever story of the development of the Internet. They spent known.
Page 20 years working on the book, and really seem to have vision of a global computer” network. He ends his done their research.” He urges authors of other technical review saying, “look closely while reading the book books to emulate them. and you may find yourself viewing the world a little In a review in ComputerWorld, a computer industry bit differently when you finish.” weekly publication, Johanna Ambrosio recommends Karin Geiselhart, a PhD student in Australia, “… this book is a must-read for anyone even remotely reviewed Netizens for the journal Internet Research. connected with or to the Internet.” She describes it as She welcomes Netizens as “a book which champions “part philosophical tome…, part social science and part grassroots democracy.” By speaking through the history…. worth the price of admission solely for its online citizens that helped shape the net in its early look at some of the Internet/ARPAnet pioneers.” She days, she writes, “Netizens demonstrates the potential points to the visions documented in the book such as for users being active participants in an ongoing viewing communication as an interactive creative process” of development. She reminds us that process and the importance of people in the computer “technology should serve people.” Geiselhart remem- industry today learning from them. The review ends, bers Vint Cerf commenting in Montreal at the “Read this book. As good books are supposed to do, it INET’96 conference that “Democracy doesn't scale” makes you think.” but she ends her review by commenting that, An article in the Orange County Register (Ca) by “Netizens is an affirmation by the authors on behalf Leslie Gornstein reviews Netizens for the newspaper’s of all their fellow Usenet contributors, and all of us 400,000 readers and includes a telephone interview with who have benefitted in some way from the altruism the authors. The headline reads “Should Net Access Be and free information which flows across the Internet. a Right?” Ms. Gornstein reports that the book “calls for Theirs is an optimistic mantra: democracy can scale.” Net access for all,” even suggesting “a bill of rights for The Japanese translation has on its cover in online dwellers.” She writes that this book – both a English, “Net + Citizens = Netizens”. It is 381 pages history of the Internet and a theory on its role in society but does not contain all the chapters of the English – advocates, “Equal Internet access time for all. Equal version. It is reviewed in the Sunday 10/26/97 edition quality of connection for all. Banishment of official of Nihon Keizai Shimbun more commonly known as ‘spokespersons’…. Banishment of personal profit “Nikkei” (the Wall Street Journal of Japan). The resulting from what others contribute online….” She review by senior staff writer Waichi Sekiguchi quotes from the book that, “The Net is not a service, it discusses who Netizens are, stressing that the authors is a right” and includes that Internet dwellers must of Netizens are referring to “the people who work contribute as much as they benefit. In the interview cooperatively with all the people on the Net and portion of her article, the reporter asks, “So you see the coordinate the work they do all over the world Internet as a utility?” and gets the answer, “…that is through the Net.” Mr. Sekiguchi writes that Netizens how the early pioneers saw it.” This review for a more are a new species of Homo sapiens who participate general audience stresses the social aspect of the book in ways that are more democratic than in the rest of and the importance of the book to those not online yet. society. He points out that the authors of the book In the December 1997 issue of ;Login:, Daniel find cooperative and democratic behavior on Usenet Lazenby reminds the Unix community and others who and that they say that individuals being able to send read ;Login: that “ordinary people have made and can and receive information is more democratic and make a difference.” That he says is what Netizens powerful than the mass media where only a small documents by capturing the story of those who quietly number of people send the information. The reviewer nurtured and fostered the current revolution caused by writes that this book is particularly important in network technology. He writes that Netizens is easy to Japan because readers there will learn from it how to read and he is struck by the potential it shows for hear the voice of Netizens needed for the current Usenet and the Internet to create a much grander com- administrative reform movement. munications and information revolution than even the Besides offline reviews of Netizens there has printing press achieved. The reviewer points out the been some mention of the book online (See the importance of staying true to a vision with the example review by Mark Horton below). The Chronicle of of “Licklider’s refusal to set his sights lower than the Higher Education on its Academe Today mailing list
Page 21 pointed to Netizens as a new book on the societal impact ARPAnet are chronicled, from the selection of the of the Internet and the history of Usenet now in book- first four sites in 1968 to the people involved and stores which can also be accessed online. In another how they solved the early problems of the net. online review, Cye Waldman writes that even though to Netizens also tells the story of the UNIX operating him the Internet means the World Wide Web it is system, how it came about, the key contributors, important to read this book so all Netizens are “aware of even how the “grep” command got its name. the forces that are shaping our lives.” Netizens is not a Photos from the 1950s showing computer center casual history of the Internet as is found in many books machine rooms with IBM 704 components taking up he concludes but “rather, it is a thoroughly researched the entire room, key researchers at places like MIT, piece of work that chronicles one of the most important computer chess tournaments, and the founders of phenomena of the decade.” Usenet add to the sense of history. This is a positive start for Netizens. If any readers This is an excellent book. The academic style of the Amateur Computerist write a review or see one, means you’ll have to think to read it. This book is a we would be interested in knowing about it. We again vital element in any Internet historian’s library. congratulate Ronda and Michael on seeing the product of their hard work gaining some of the respect and review it deserves. REVIEW from ;Login: by Daniel Lazenby [email protected] Two Book Reviews: Netizens REVIEW from CMC Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and by Mark Horton the Internet by Michael and Ronda Hauben Michael Hauben and Ronda Hauben. IEEE Computer Published by the IEEE Computer Society Society, 1997, ISBN 0-8186-7706-6. Pp. 345, $28.95
Netizens describes the history of the Internet, The title says it all. This book tells the story of focusing especially on the formation of the Usenet how ordinary people have made and can make a bulletin board system. For me it was a trip down difference. Often the revolution caused by a technol- memory lane. The social and political implications of ogy and the people who quietly nurtured and fostered opening up communication among a group of academic it into being is not recorded until well after the fact. philosophers was groundbreaking, and Netizens is there Netizens strives to capture the history while some to give us the play-by-play. founders are still able to provide firsthand accounts. The book includes interviews with the founders of This easily read book chronicles the evolution of Usenet and with the pioneers who contributed to its Usenet and the Internet. Not only does Netizens character and growth. The story of how Tom Truscott’s chronicle the past; it strives to illustrate the life- summer job at Bell Labs, volleyball, chess, and “rising changing influence Usenet and the Internet have had at the crack of noon” turned into the seed of Usenet is on people and society. The book also takes a few inspiring, especially in this age of cost-cutting and moments to ponder the changes yet to come. This disposable computer software. The authors make good book is based on academic research papers that use of an archive of the first few years of Usenet post- Michael and Ronda originally published on the ings. Those of us who were there remember much, but Internet. the archive is like putting history on videotape. Quotes Netizens is broken into four major parts, “The from the formative days remind us of the issues of the Present,” “The Past,” “And the Future,” and “Contri- time, such as the unwillingness of the ARPAnet to talk butions Toward Developing a Theoretical Frame- to Usenet; censorship; and how the high cost of getting work.” The first part recaps what has been created Usenet to Europe was overcome. and how it was created. “The Past” reviews where Chapters of the book tell the history of many of the Usenet and the Internet came from. This part of the building blocks of the Internet. The early days of the book explores the grassroots beginnings of Usenet
Page 22 and the gestation of what is now known as the Internet. three nodes grew into several hundred nodes and The third part explores the effects of the net on individ- eventually became part of the Internet. uals, organizations, and societal structures. “Contribu- This book illustrates that ordinary people with tions Toward Developing a Theoretical Framework” limited resources and a vision can made a difference. contains two chapters. The first compares the printing The grass-root’s creation of Usenet by Tom Truscott, press, Usenet, and the Internet. At the time of its inven- Jim Ellis, Steve Bellovin, and others is such an tion, the printing press created both communication and example. People with significant resources and a information revolutions. This part of the book presents vision can solve a specific, localized problem and Usenet’s and the Internet’s potential for creating an- simultaneously lay the foundation for solving global other, much grander, communication and information needs. Licklider’s refusal to set his sights lower than revolution. the vision of a global computer [network] is an In this day of ubiquitous modems, the Internet, example of exceeding short-term expectations. Look Internet providers, and personal computers, one some- closely while reading the book, and you may find times forget there was a time when these things were yourself viewing the world a little bit differently not widely available. Many people and organizations when you finish. were responsible for the creation of the Internet and ------Usenet. Much thanks should go to the Department of Review from ;login:, Vol. 22, No. 6 December, Defense for funding the early research. Among the 1997, pages 56-57, Newsletter of USENIX many people involved, several stood out. J.C.R. Licklider and Robert Taylor are two names associated with the founding of the Internet. They saw the com- Community in the Usenet News- puter as a communications tool with global connectivity and as a way to share both computer and human re- group k12.chat.teacher sources. This perspective was a very radical idea in by Michael Hauben 1968, when computers from different manufacturers [email protected] could not exchange data or communicate with each other. With Department of Defense research dollars and Usenet newsgroups cover a diverse spread of the Advance Research Projects Agency (ARPA), interests. I chose to explore what human community Licklider solved the immediate problem of getting can develop facilitated by the Usenet form of com- incompatible computers to talk. But he never lost his puter mediated communication (CMC) by looking at global vision. His efforts resulted in the computer the newsgroup k12.chat.teacher. communications networks (ARPAnet). The global An interesting framework to use to analyze this Internet can trace its roots back to this simple ARPAnet. forum is M. K. Halliday’s definitions of field, What if you were a poor, under-endowed university semiotic tenor and mode (see Halliday’s Language without Defense Department research dollars? How and Social Man). As participants in newsgroups could you get your computers talking to each other? usually do not share the same physical environment, Enter the “poor man’s ARPAnet.” Tom Truscott, Jim all information needs to be shared in the typed out Ellis, and Steve Bellovin all had a desire to automati- text of messages, whether it is the content or context cally share files and articles among several computer of the questions. In CMC there is no field to be platforms. Fortunately, they were university students looked for outside of the actual interaction saved to and cash poor. So they did the only thing they could do: the newsgroup in messages (and also in private e- they acquired some university computer time and an mail). However, the topic of the newsgroup defines auto dialer and applied a little creative UNIX hacking the tenor in that this particular section is for the (the positive kind). Using these limited resources, these discussion of teachers with other teachers in a k12 fellows developed what is now known as Usenet. Their situation. For the most part the newsgroup is a first incarnation of Usenet simply dialed another com- community of peers, with other visitors, some wel- puter, checked for new files, and then copied all the new comed and some not. files to itself. They set up their first Usenet network on The mode and the field of each message are the three university computers. Within a few years, these most variable elements in this framework. For mode,
Page 23 the messages can be 1) providing information, 2) posing teachers in their work, other classes in other schools, a statement, or 3) posing a question. Responses can be and what turned out to be the mainstay of conversa- 1) making a constructive agreement, 2) making a tion, the teaching profession. constructive disagreement, 3) providing details or Other topics covered included asking technical experiences as evidence, 4) asking more questions, 5) questions about using computers and other new making acknowledgment or emphatic support. In technologies in the classroom setting, either in the addition to these, there are out of place responses and presentation of material to students or for the interac- messages or responses attempting to be disruptive. As tive use by students. Other useful postings included the subject matter comprises part of the field of each the announcements of web pages and e-mail lists that message, that is what will be further explored in the rest teachers might find interesting in developing curricu- of this article. lum or students might find interesting exploring as The data source explored is the Usenet newsgroup part of time on the world wide web. k12.chat.teacher where kindergarten through 12th grade Sadly k12.chat.teacher is not obscure enough to teachers and others discuss education. Teachers use it as hide from the noise on the Net, widely posted inap- a support and resource group to talk about the problems, propriate spam messages which usually never interest responsibilities and duties as a teacher. Concerns about the readers. These messages are accompanied by education, and working conditions are also brought up other commercial advertisements which teachers are by current teachers and people preparing to be teachers. used to seeing in normal education journals and The data consists of messages collected over two time magazines. These seem to be carry-overs from the periods - from February 7, 1997 to February 25, 1997 old media, and are not the same as the grassroots and from March 26, 1997 to March 31, 1997. The voices of teachers airing their real problems leading sample from the newsgroup includes single messages towards discussion that is valuable to all who read and message threads from this newsgroup. Message and share the common situation. However, the forum threads are created by news reading software linking has more airing of the new voice than the old, mak- original messages, with responses made to the original ing it worthwhile to join the community. message and subsequent responses. In addition to the The people primarily vocal in the community of public responses, private e-mail messages were most k12.chat.teacher are current teachers teaching in likely sent to the original posters of messages. However, public and private k12 classrooms, students studying because e-mail is private I have not gotten to see such to be teachers and looking for jobs, and parents. responses since I only looked in the public message Seeing parents involved was surprising at first, but board. If I were to continue this research or extend this their discussions of home schooling and talking project I might contact the original posters of messages about the education of children and adolescents was to find out if they would be willing to share any private quite appropriate. Both teachers and parents spoke of responses that they received. the parent’s role in their children’s education, and I have found the discourse and community in this how caring parents should be equally interested in newsgroup to be constructive and worthy of study, as aiding their children’s education as teachers are there appear to be a large cross-section of active people required to be, if not more so. It would be interesting who create the critical mass needed for useful discus- to study other newsgroups such as misc.education to sion and conversations. I have not encoded the individ- see who reads and is active utilizing other news- ual’s names because Usenet newsgroups are public groups concerning education. bulletin board areas available to anyone who has access Following are examples of messages posted to to either Usenet or the Internet. People who participate this Usenet newsgroup, with some descriptive analy- in newsgroups usually understand this, and post mes- sis. The five major categories were teachers and their sages hoping others will read them and provide com- relations A) to their job and the teaching profession, mentary. This desire to share and communicate is what B) to their students, C) to parents, D) to other teach- makes Usenet valuable. It is essentially a public space. ers, and E) to administrators. The remaining two The main areas of discourse, as part of the field of categories are F) examples of miscellaneous ques- the messages, are teachers’ relations to their students, tions and G) JUNK postings/SPAMS. school administration, the students’ parents, other
Page 24 CATEGORIES (and common topics) >I am pursuing a degree in education (Secondary English); > I am beginning to hear about different certifications > which are in addition to the overall teacher certification. A) Discussing the Teaching Profession. > For example someone yesterday mentioned to me that >she was thinking about trying to get her computer A large number of the messages here were from >technology endorsement. What are these additional > certifications for? Do I need them even if I am already teachers or student teachers looking for jobs or thinking > adept at the subject which the endorsement covers? of looking for jobs. A number of the teachers were > currently substitute teachers either remarking on their >Confused. uncertainty of moving towards obtaining a full time job, >Michael > or describing their strategies towards gaining one. I suppose this varies by state, so it would probably be best to Others were first or second year teachers looking to gain contact your state teachers’ credentialing agency, most likely certifications to get better teaching jobs or better paying located in the state capital. positions. Other people were looking for help with As far as endorsements, or authorizations as my credential particular curricula or sharing their lesson plans and lists them: these do not, strangely enough mean knowledge web pages. Various messages asked for help with of the subject, but rather permission to teach the subject. building curriculum units. Teacher concern was another You may be fluent in Spanish or Greek, but you can’t subject especially the role of what was wondered to be *teach* it without the authorization on your credential. an either overly zealous principal or possibly just a It’s good to pick up as many authorizations as you can (you deeply concerned one. can pick up more after you have your credential, by the Each of the remaining broad topics received less way), because school districts like people who are versatile, so as enrollment rises or falls, or more Spanish speakers amount of focus, but were still represented. move in (or out) of the district or the school acquires more computers, or four years of math or basket making becomes Example 1: a requirement to get into junior college, you’ll be able to step From: “Jennifer M. Blaske”
Page 25 One person wrote: > >>I feel classes should be more fun and that responsibility > Kurt Duncan ([email protected] ) writes: >> is the teachers. > Idiot = one who does not know what an idiom is. :> > just kidding Another person wrote: > >Wrong! Learning is *your* responsibility. > Don’t you mean > shake a leg Personally, I think they’re both right. It is BOTH the teacher’s > get the lead out and the student’s responsibility. It takes two to teach. <...OTHER IDIOMS DELETED...> > pinch a penny For myself, as a teacher, the question is, “What is the definition > got the ax of fun?” Or, rather than fun, interesting. I have many intelli- > gent, thoughtful students who can find interest in difficult, > etc. etc. there are a million the only way I’ve seen challenging material, but unfortunately, they are in the minority. > these taught (and this was just for fun to play with I sometimes feel frustrated that my students do not want to take > language) students would draw a picture of the idiom the time to penetrate readings that are not immediately easy to > and write it and perhaps it’s explanation at the bottom. understand but are nonetheless interesting. Or to go through the > It was interesting to find out that they have idioms in process of solving difficult problems. For many students > other languages also. You might explore that as an “difficult” means “boring,” (or “not fun.”) My objective is not > additional activity. to make school “fun,” but only meaningful, relevant and > --- interesting, but some things are just difficult and require a good > deal of cognition, which is demanding. ************************************************* > The idea of “dumbing down” school is often to make it more > “Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap “fun,” and thereby watering down material to make it flashy and > compared to that of an ignorant nation.”-Walter Cronkite. shiny and like a game, but there can be tremendous satisfaction > in reading difficult literature (both fiction and non-fiction) or ************************************************* ploughing through a high level math activity. For me, the most > LINDA LOMBARDO AMHERST, VIRGINIA “fun” I ever have is having a stimulating conversation with someone who is knowledgeable and articulate about many One of the ways I’ve introduced idioms is by reading the topics. The only way to arrive at that level of broad knowledge children a book called The King Who Rained by Fred Guynn is to confront intellectual challenges. Be willing to do that and alias Herman Munster. He wrote several books like this and you will find your classes a good deal more interesting and they are fantastic. His illustrations are terrific too. The kids therefore “fun.” love it. –beth Deborah C) Teachers Relations with Parents. Example 2: From: Elizabeth Keith
Page 26 between parents and teachers get raised, and this leads asked to give a try at getting the point across. to the consciousness needed before changes can happen The purpose of such an exercise would not be to train in the larger society. parents to teach but to give parents a taste of it and so some vocabulary to facilitate talking with teachers. Example 1: –Phil Cain From: “M. A.”
Page 27 Example 2: > whole child”. The only catch is that that’s all they’ve told From: [email protected] (jul) > us. Anyone (who does not use averaging) want to share Subject: Re: Need info on teachers fearing technology... > their grading systems? Date: Wed Feb 12 09:56:04 1997 Sounds like one of those great school board concepts that are “Sarah M. Syrek”
–jul Example 2: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: c4
Page 28 >requested before. He wants a desk...a chair (he’s in there the King assassination. Some of these graphics were embed- > 45 minutes), he wants to see lesson plan books (no one ded in the PowerPoint slides, others left on the web. Addi- > has done that since I have been teaching at
F) Miscellaneous Useful Questions Example 2: From: Ted Johnson
Page 29 Example 3: Seneca, 4B.C.-65A.D. From: [email protected] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Subject: MacSchool + NetWare DO NOT SEND UNSOLICITED Date: Tue Feb 11 22:21:05 1997 EMAIL TO THIS ADDRESS.
Is anyone running MacSchool on a NetWare server instead of an CONCLUSION AppleShare server? Are there any side effects from doing this? -- Paul Holtz The newsgroup k12.chat.teacher is a place where ISD 834 - Stillwater, MN k12 teachers gather to discuss their profession and Technical Support Specialist work lives. As such the audience which gathers has ------==== Posted via Deja News ====------http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet a strong degree of common interests and shared knowledge, and the participants work towards the G) JUNK Postings purpose of communication as requesting and impart- ing information along with discussing specific issues. It would be incomplete to show you the newsgroup The newsgroup also demonstrates Licklider and without examples of the junk that has to be sorted Taylor’s vision of the development of a physical through. Some of these are SPAMs which are indis- network which promotes the social network of criminately sent to numerous newsgroups without any connection of people with like interests. regard for the fact people use newsgroup shopping to With the lack of additional context in the field or read message about particular subjects, of which these tenor whether body language or context of place, SPAMs have no relevance. Other messages include people are learning the importance in the written text commercial advertisements. Finally, when someone and are careful to include situational details. Simi- posted just to make trouble, there were two responses: larly the lack of observable details of social clues means users have to project their social roles and Example 1: position to help define the tenor of the communica- From: [email protected] (Roxanne H. Cramer) tion. The discussion between parents and teachers Subject: Re: School Play highlights some of this. What roles do each play, and Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 00:32:20 GMT how can they come to communicate on an comfort- I find it hard to believe that a request for information on a school able and equal level? play was answered so cruelly. In general, I’ve found this group The many conversations simultaneously ongoing to be very helpful and supportive. I hope the teacher from allow the reader to chose from the variety and range Mexico does not think we’re all such boors! of concerns of the teaching profession. If you think Roxanne Cramer --- of a teacher just beginning or looking for a job, the [email protected] newsgroup offers a rare glimpse into the actual situation of teaching. For the experienced teacher it Example 2: offers a place to share in the problems and frustra- From: [email protected] (jul) tions of the situation. And for teachers who feel Subject: Re: School Play successful, a place to share those successes with Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 12:30:24 GMT others who might find they are interesting or useful [email protected] (Roxanne H. Cramer) opined: in their own classrooms. Essentially, the k12.chat >I find it hard to believe that a request for information on a .teacher newsgroup allows for the collective gather- > school play was answered so cruelly. In general, I’ve > found this group to be very helpful and supportive. I ing of educators so that they do not feel alone in their > hope the teacher from Mexico does not think we’re all situation. But the newsgroup is currently only an > such boors! embryo of the possibility - as it is doubtful its impor- tance is recognized by school administrations, or Yes, John, you should be ashamed... jul even if access is made readily available to teachers. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ However, hopefully by spreading knowledge of the “What were once group, teachers will grasp the importance and push vices are now the for access and time to be made available. manners of the day.”
Page 30 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Collot, Milena and Nancy Belmore. (1996). “Electronic Norbert Wiener, J.C.R. Licklider Language: A New Variety of English.” In Susan C. Herring (Ed.) Computer Mediated Communication: and the Global Communications Linguistic, Social and Cross-Cultural Perspectives (pp. Network 13-28). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins by Jay Hauben Publishing Company. [email protected]
Murray, Denise E. (1990). “CmC: A Report on the In the last quarter of the twentieth century a new Nature and Evolution of On-line e-messages.” English global communications network emerged with a Today, 23, 42 - 46. growing effect on most aspects of human society. In the events that launched and nourished this network Licklider, J.C.R. and Robert Taylor. (1968, April). “The a prominent role was played by J.C.R. Licklider. He Computer as a Communication Device.” Science and not only envisioned a great leap for human society Technology: For the Technical Men in Management, based on a tight coupling and networking of people 76, 21-31. Also reprinted in In Memoriam: J.C.R. and computers, he did much to infect others with his Licklider: 1915-1990. Report 61. Systems Research early enthusiasm. He also set in motion a public Center. Digital Equipment Corporation. Palo Alto, sponsorship and funding mechanism that brought the California. August 7, 1990. Pp. 21-41. Available Online communications network he envisioned into reality. at http://www.memex.org/licklider .html in Adobe PDF In the 1960s, Licklider published two seminal arti- format. cles: “Man Computer Symbiosis”1 in 1960 and “The Computer as a Communications Device”2 written Halliday, M. A. K. (1967). Language and Social Man. with Robert Taylor in 1968. Looking for the intellec- London: Longman. tual roots of these papers and Licklider’s vision, at least one researcher3 was drawn to the work of Hauben, Michael. “Behind the Net: The Untold Story of Norbert Wiener. This article will look at some of the the ARPAnet and Computer Science.” In Hauben, related work of Norbert Wiener and J.C.R. Licklider. Michael and Ronda Hauben. (1997). Netizens: On the Norbert Wiener began his teaching and research History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet (pp. career at MIT in 1919 at the age of 24. He distin- 96-114) Los Alamitos, California: IEEE Computer guished himself with original contributions in mathe- Society Press. Available Online (1994) matics and in the connection of mathematics with http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/ physical systems as in his study of Brownian motion. Perhaps he is best known for what he called “the Feenberg, Andrew. (1989). “A User’s Guide to the science of cybernetics or the theory of communica- Pragmatics of Computer Mediated Communication.” tion and control in the machine and in the living Semiotica, 75, 257-278. organism.”4 Wiener traces the cybernetic synthesis connecting engineering and neurophysiology and his Eldred, Janet Carey and Gail E. Hawisher. (1995). insights about communication to his work in the “Researching Electronic Networks.” Written Communi- 1940s related to anti-aircraft predictors. cation, 12, 330 - 369. In connection with World War II, Wiener under- took to analyze the problem of improving the success Gulia, Milena and Barry Wellman. ( 1997). “Virtual of anti-aircraft fire. An anti-aircraft gunner must Communities: When Social Networks are Computer shoot ahead of where his target is at the time of Networks.” In Smith, Marc and Peter Kollock. Commu- firing. The amount and direction ahead must be nities in Cyberspace: Perspectives on New Forms of estimated quickly and accurately. Where to aim is Social Organization California: University of California based on knowledge of how the plane has been Press. Available online at http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu traveling and where it is likely to travel in the time /soc/csoc/cinc/wellman.htm
Page 31 the shell takes to reach it even if the pilot takes evasive support for Wiener to launch two series of similar action. Wiener was able to contribute to the solution of interdisciplinary sessions, one in New York City and this prediction problem partly because he had previ- the other in Cambridge, MA. He also worked out his ously developed the equations to be solved when new synthesis in Cybernetics or Control and Com- knowledge in one region is used to predict behavior in munication in the Animal and the Machine (The another (Hopf-Wiener). Wiener was also familiar with Technology Press, 1948; MIT Press, 1961) and later the work at MIT of Vannevar Bush with analog comput- popularized it in The Human Use of Human Beings ers. Putting the pieces together, Wiener envisioned the (Houghton Mifflin, 1950). direct coupling of anti-aircraft guns with radar detection Wiener’s work raised an important question. and automatic aiming based on his mathematical What should be the relations between people and solution of the prediction equation. Motors attached to machines in the age of automation? He called for an the gun turrets could position and aim the gun under the “independent study of systems involving human and control of data generated by the mathematical process- mechanical elements to decide which functions ing of input from radar. In fact, as radar became per- should properly be assigned to the two agencies, fected the process was mechanized to the point where human and machine.”7 Wiener also worried that the human element could be eliminated from automation would lead society to unbearable unem- anti-aircraft gun aiming and firing. Wiener reports that ployment unless it was carefully implemented with his work on this problem had a profound impact on him. full concern for the working people. Up until this work, the servomechanisms for the Communication was the unifying thread in control of gun turrets were always assumed to belong to Wiener’s synthesis. He concluded that “communica- power technology rather than communications technol- tion is the cement of society. Society does not consist ogy. What dawned on Wiener was that the action of the merely in a multiplicity of individuals meeting only motors could be conceived valuably as communicating in personal strife and for the sake of procreation, but the aiming parameters to the turret and hence that the in an intimate interplay of these individuals in a motors and the computers controlling them could be larger organism.”8 It was in the strengthening of this treated as communications devices. Wiener wrote that larger organism via the improvements in communi- this point of view made him “regard the computer as cations that his hope lie that the problems also another form of communications apparatus, concerned generated could be solved. He therefore sought to more with messages than with power.”5 In addition “bring to the attention of all the possibilities and the Wiener saw a striking analogy between the workings of dangers of the new developments.”9 an automatic anti-aircraft system and that of a living After WWII, Wiener’s ideas began to be known organism. There was input, processing of that input, and and discussed in scientific and technical circles. resulting response. He began to regard the brain and the When asked in an interview in 1988 where his nervous system in much the same light as a computing interest in digital computers came from, J.C.R. machine. Out of such considerations a new synthesis Licklider answered, “There was tremendous intellec- emerged which Wiener eventually termed cybernetics tual ferment in Cambridge after WWII. Norbert (from the Greek word for “steersman”). As the commu- Wiener ran a weekly circle of 40 or 50 people…. I nications and engineering consequences of Wiener’s was a faithful adherent to that.”10 He added that, even new ideas were worked out, he began to predict that the though he was a researcher and faculty member at series of analogies between the human nervous system Harvard at the time, he audited a seminar given by and the computer and control systems would lead to the Wiener and participated in an MIT faculty group that possibility of a very high level of automation.6 discussed cybernetics. The weekly circle launched by In 1944 at Princeton University, Wiener gathered a Wiener in 1948 that Licklider attended with his group of neurophysiologist, communications engineers, colleagues Walter Rosenblith and M. Fred Webster and computing machine people for an informal session was know as the seminar on scientific method. to layout some of his thinking. He found a willingness On the way home from each dinner meeting, on the part of the members of different disciplines to Licklider and his friends critiqued what had been learn what others were doing and to see the striking presented and discussed and shared with each other similarities. Encouraged by this gathering, there was what from their different disciplinary perspectives
Page 32 each had understood. extension of a person’s abilities and different from In 1950 Licklider left Harvard to join the MIT the long range goal of artificial intelligence research- faculty and research community of which Wiener was ers that the computer would one day replace or a part. Licklider described himself as “an experimental supercede human thinking. Wiener had also foreseen psychologist interested especially in how the brain a people-computer partnership. For example, Wiener works in conjunction with hearing, but also in speech envisioned a computer programmed to translate from and communication and human engineering.”12 At MIT one language to another whose output would be he participated in two summer studies sponsored by filtered through a human translation expert. The military branches which gave him “an opportunity…to human would make sure that the translation made hear of computers and radar sets and communica- sense in the final language. This expert might then tions.”13 His own work, very much in the Wiener reprogram the computer to do better or devise exer- tradition, was split into psychology, acoustics and cises for the computer from which it could learn to electronics. His efforts to try to model how the brain make improved translations. Licklider was carrying works in hearing with an analog computer convinced this prediction further by suggesting that computers him he really had to learn digital computing. Licklider could be involved in the formulation of questions and left MIT in 1957 to work at the acoustic consulting firm in the process of thinking and working through to of Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN) where he was their solution. The human would handle very low promised access to digital computing. However he probability situations, propose hypotheses, and make maintained his ties with MIT and its scientific and unusual connections; the computer would convert technical community and participated with Norbert hypotheses into testable models, retrieve information, Wiener and others in many important events there like create simulations, etc. Most of Licklider’s article the 1961 MIT Centennial Celebration. laid out research tasks that needed to be accom- At BBN, Licklider undertook a small research plished in order for this vision to be realized. These project that was to lead to his answer to Wiener’s included the need to achieve better computer mem- question of the future relation between people and ory capacities, to network and internetwork comput- computers. Licklider did a mini time-motion study of ers, to develop graphical and audio interfaces and for the activities during the hours regarded as devoted to languages that facilitated learning by both humans work of a technical person. Although he was aware of and computers. These research tasks were to make up the inadequacy of the sampling, he wrote, “I served as much of the research agenda of the newly emerging my own subject.” He found that 85% or more of his discipline of computer science. Licklider put forward “thinking” time was devoted to clerical or mechanical that agenda and then as director of the Information chores: searching, calculating, plotting, transforming, Processing Technologies Office of the Advance determining the dynamic or logical consequences of a Research Projects Agency (ARPA) fostered it by set of assumptions or hypothesis, preparing the way for arranging for its public support and funding. a decision or insight. Having had the opportunity at Besides taking up the question of the human- BBN to sit at an interactive computer for four or five computer relationship raised by Wiener’s work, hours on a regular basis, Licklider drew the conclusion Licklider together with Robert Taylor investigated that it should be possible to create a flexible relationship the implications of Wiener’s insight that computers via programming and interface devices between a were communications devices. For Wiener, commu- person and a computer so that both could contribute nication was closely linked with control: to manufac- what it does best to the accomplishment of mental work. ture a car, for example, people could communicate In “Man-Computer Symbiosis”, he presented his with a computer via programming. The computer conclusion that “in not too many years, human brains could then communicate the motions necessary to and computing machines will be coupled together very assemble the car to the tools via servomechanisms. tightly and that the resulting partnership will think as no The tools in turn would respond with motion and human brain has ever thought and process data in a way feedback. This was the automation revolution which not approached by information handling machines we Wiener’s experience with the anti-aircraft problem know today.” Licklider’s vision was different from that helped him to foresee. In “The Computer as a Com- of the computer becoming a servant for people or an munications Device”, Licklider and Taylor look for
Page 33 how the computer will help people do more than send century. It is not a surprise that there would be a and receive data. Their emphasis was deliberately on connection between the cybernetics synthesis that people. They saw the possibility that communication Wiener introduced and the contributions of pioneers would be dynamic. “When minds interact new ideas like Licklider. That a new global communications emerge” they wrote. They saw that the programmed network exists today is a tribute to Wiener and to digital computer helped create a medium that is plastic, Licklider and the other pioneers who developed the can be modeled, where premises could flow into conse- original insights into a promising advance for human quences, and “above all a common medium that can be society. contributed to and experimented with by all…. Its ------presence can change the nature and value of communi- cation even more profoundly than the printing press and Notes: the picture tube, for…a well-programmed computer can 1) J.C.R. Licklider, “Man-Computer Symbiosis,” In provide direct access both to informational resources IRE Transactions on Human Factors in Electronics, and to the process for making use of resources.”14 Vol HFE-1, March, 1960, Pp. 4-11. Also reprinted in Licklider and Taylor argued that when information “In Memoriam: J.C.R. Licklider: 1915-1990, Report transmission and information processing are combined 61", Systems Research Center, Digital Equipment and available on networks of computers cooperation, Corporation, Palo Alto, California, August 7, 1990, collaboration and coherence are much more likely to pp. 1-19. occur than among isolated researchers. By making possible quality transmission and processing of infor- 2) J.C.R. Licklider and Robert Taylor, “The Com- mation among geographically separated people, there puter as a Communication Device,” In Science and would follow the creation of communities not of Technology: For the Technical Men in Management, common location but based on commonality of interest No 76, April, 1968, pp. 21-31. Also reprinted in “In that would be large enough to support comprehensive Memoriam: J.C.R. Licklider: 1915-1990, Report 61,” accumulations of people, data and programs. Like Systems Research Center, Digital Equipment Corpo- Wiener, they saw great benefit to society as a result of ration, Palo Alto, California, August 7, 1990, pp. the communication revolution made possible by the 21-41. digital computer and the global computer network. But also just as Wiener warned of the danger of unplanned 3) See Ronda Hauben, “Cybernetics, Time sharing, automation, Licklider and Taylor included in their Human-Computer Symbiosis and Online Com- article a warning: “For the society, the impact will be munities: Creating a Supercommunity of Online good or bad depending mainly on the question: Will ‘to Communities,” chapter 6 in The Netizens and the be on line’ be a privilege or a right? If only a favored Wonderful World of the Net: On the History and the segment of the population gets a chance to enjoy the Impact of the Internet and Usenet News, Michael advantage of “intelligence amplification,” the network Hauben and Ronda Hauben, online manuscript, may exaggerate the discontinuity in the spectrum of January 10, 1994, URL http://www.columbia.edu/~ intellectual opportunity.”15 hauben/netbook/ Licklider and Taylor’s article in 1968 ushered in the great experiment that began in 1969 as the ARPAnet 4) Norbert Wiener, I Am A Mathematician: The and that we know today as the Internet. Later Life of a Prodigy, The MIT Press, Cambridge, In summary, in the 1940s Norbert Wiener devel- Massachusetts, 1956, p. 269. oped a synthesis that stressed the importance of commu- nications. The ideas and questions raised by him fueled 5) ibid., p. 265. an intellectual ferment in and around MIT. J.C.R. Licklider and other time sharing and networking pio- 6) ibid., p. 275. neers took part in that ferment and in the intellectual and technical community at MIT and the greater Boston 7) Norbert Wiener, God & Golem, Inc.: A Comment area which contributed so much to the technological on Certain Points Where Cybernetics Impinges on developments of the second half of the twentieth Religion, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts,
Page 34 1964, p. 71. Virtual Drives-Batch Files; Try This (IBM & Ap- ple); As I Was Saying; Computers & Free Speech; 8) I Am A Mathematician, p.326. Letter to Editor
9) ibid., p. 308. Volume 2 Number 1 (Jan 1989) Return to Sanity; Letters from Readers; Problem 10) Interview of J.C.R. Licklider by William Aspray and Corner; TRY THIS; Commodore County; Com- Arthur L. Norberg, tape recording, Cambridge, Massa- puter Hacking; Assigning Keys; History of Com- chusetts, 28 October 1988, OH 150, Charles Babbage puters Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minne- sota. Volume 2 Number 2 (Apr 1989) Why Learn to Program?; LETTERS from Readers; 11) “The Legacy of Norbert Wiener: A Centennial TRY THIS “Message”; TRY THIS “SE Q”; JOBS: Symbosium,” Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1994, p. 19. Hours and Sense; MAYDAY Poem; Sample Batch File; History of Computers (Part 2) 12) “The Project MAC Interviews” by John A. N. Lee and Robert Rosin, in IEEE Annals of the History of Volume 2 Number 3 (Summer 1989) Computing, vol 14 no 2, 1992, pp. 15-16. Impact of Computers Debate; Letters to Editor; Coco Corner (Try-This); Commodore County 13) ibid., p.16. USA; Out of the Abacus; History of Computer (Part 3) 14) “The Computer as a Communication Device,” p. 22. Volume 2 Number 4 (Fall 1989) 15) ibid., p. 40. Prosecutor’s Letter; Response: Labor Relation Hoax; Letters; Coco Corner; IBM version; Hero; Trig. Lesson (IBM); History of Computer (Part 4) [Editor’s Note: February 11, 1998 marked the tenth anniversary of the Amateur Computerist. Following are Volume 3 Number 1 (Winter 1990) the Tables of Contents of all the issues from our first 10 Public Funds; Don’t Replicate UAW-Ford School; years.] Their Walls Come Tumbling Down; LETTERS Amateur Computerist Index TO EDITOR; Commodore County USA; The Spirit of Babbage; Coco Corner; CAD/CAM/CIM; Volume 1 Number 1 (Feb 1988) HISTORY OF COMPUTERS (Part 5) Introduction; Dawn of a New Era; Dedication; World of Telecommunications; Future Belongs to Program- Volume 3 Number 2 (Spring 1990) mers; Try This (IBM); Commodore Tips and Tricks; THE LABORER, YES; FLOYD HOKE-MILLER Why Learn Programming (1898-1990); The Picket; THE SOWER OF THE SEEDS; COMPUTER EDUCATION; Letter from Volume 1 Number 2 (June 1988) Superintendent; Open Letter to SUPERINTEN- The Big Machine; Pass the Profits, Please; Technol- DENT; Letter to Governor; COMMODORE ogy Editorial; Sample BASIC Program; Try This COUNTY U.S.A.; C-64 Music Digitizer; IBM (IBM); Telecommunications; German Vocabulary Label Program; COCO CORNER; Bulletin Board Helper Program; Configuring Your System; Program- Numbers ming in C or BASIC?; Letter to the Editor Volume 3 Number 3 (Fall 1990) Volume 1 Number 3 (Oct 1988) WHAT CRITICISMS HAVE YOU; TIPS AND Radio-Electronics Letter; Responding Letters; Elec- TRICKS; LETTER TO EDITOR; EDITORIAL; tion & Computers; Savior in Waiting; Merit Network; Common Man of Greatness; COCO CORNER; EXCERPTS FROM BBS; C-64 RESET SWITCH
Page 35 Volume 3 Number 4 (Winter 1991) for the People; Soul of the Internet Hats off To Patriot; Amateurs Are Needed More Than Ever; Coco Corner; Bringing Automation Home; BBS Volume 6 Number 1 (Winter/Spring 1994) Discussion On The War; Computers for the People UNIX and Computer Science; An Interview with John Lions; An Interview with Berkley Tague; On Volume 4 Number 1 (Fall 1991) the 25th Anniversary of UNIX; Usenet News: The Computers for the People; Letters to the Editor; Ten Poor Man’s ARPAnet; What the Net Means to Me; Commandments - Networking; Try This Program; Plumbing The Depths of UNIX; Using UNIX USSR and the Computer; Command Line Calculator; Tools; C Program; New Net Book; The Linux Question of Censorship Movement; The Ten Commandments for C; May Day in the Morning; Free Software Foundation Volume 4 Number 2-3 (Winter/Spring 1992) Computers vs Plant Closures; Amateur Computerist Volume 6 Number 2-3 (Fall/Winter 1994/95) Index; Problem Corner; Union Forever; Letter To The What is a Netizen?; Licklider’s Vision and the Editor; Letters to Amateur Computerist; Letter to Future; Net Cultural Assumptions; Etiquette and Editor of Utne Reader; Review from the : PERIPH- the Internet; Ethics and the Internet; The Internet ERAL; Tribute-Modern Computer Pioneer; Interview Society; The Internet: Maintaining Diversity; Do with Staff Member; On Line Program; Computers For You Want to Lose Your Voice?; The Net: A Scien- The People; Pascal Program tific Perspective; Book Proposal; Netizens: The Impact of the Net; Rights of Netizens Volume 4 Number 4 (Summer 1992) Impact of the Computer on Society; Letters to the Volume 7 Number 1 (Winter/Spring 1996) Editor; Electronic Mail; Computers for the People; Net Access: A Privilege or a Right?; Canadian Try This (programs); From the Shop Floor; OPEN Community Networking; Netizens and Community ACCESS; Problem Corner; Interview with Staff Networks; Letter to the Editor; Access For All Member (part 2) FAQ; The Future of Democracy; Old Freedoms and New Technologies; Forming the Usenet Online Supplement (FALL 1992) Community; History of Cleveland Free-Net; Uni- INTRODUCTION; THE NET WORKS; ‘Arte’; versal Access to E-Mail; Prototype for Policy Deci- Computers and Usenet News; Computer as a sions; In Honor of ‘Doc’ Wilson Democratizer; CityNet in New Zealand; Learning About Usenet; FreeNet BBS’s; Two Books to Help Volume 7 Number 2 (Winter 1997) Users; Liberation Technology Power Tools of Our Times; Effect of Net on Pro- fessional News Media; Report from INET’96 Part Volume 5 Number 1-2 (Winter/Spring 1993) I; CDA Decision (Excerpts); E-mail Evangel ad- Interview with Henry Spencer; Tradition of May 1, dict; Culture and Communication; Online Educa- 1848; Social Forces Behind Usenet; The Net and the tion; Report from INET’96 Part II; Internet Impact Labor Movement; Letters to Editor; The New Dawn; of Daily Lives?; FCC Submission on Universal Pittsburgh Press Strike; John G. Kemeny; Computers Service; Letter to the Editor; Free-Nets and Politics for the People; Pascal Program; Try This Program in of Community; Broadsides for Our Day; Genora C; Charter for Newsgroup (Johnson) Dollinger (1913-1995)
Volume 5 Number 3-4 (Summer/Fall 1993) Volume 8 Number 1 (Winter 1998) From ARPAnet to Usenet News; Battle For Program- Interview with Tom Truscott; Editorial; Factsheet ming; COMMON SENSE; Imminent Death of the Five: ACN; Cooperative Nature of Usenet; Cre- Net; Letters To The Editor; News From Europe; From ating Broadsides; History of the Net is Important; The Shop Floor; Report: Summer 1993 USENIX; Netizens: Review of Reviews; Book Reviews: Proposals on NSF Backbone; C Program; Computers Netizens; Community in k12.chat.teacher; Wiener and Licklider; Amateur Computerist Index 1988/98
Page 36 The opinions expressed in articles are those of their authors and not necessarily the opinions of The Amateur Computerist newsletter. The Editors welcome submissions from a spectrum of viewpoints.
EDITORIAL STAFF Ronda Hauben William Rohler Norman O. Thompson Michael Hauben Jay Hauben The Amateur Computerist invites submissions. Send them to: J. Hauben, P.O. BOX 250101, NY, NY, 10025-1531. Articles can be submitted on paper or on IBM disk in ASCII format, or via e-mail. One year subscription (two issues) costs $10.00 (U.S.). Add $2.50 for foreign postage. Make checks payable to J. Hauben. Permission is given to reprint articles from this issue in a non profit publication provided credit is given, with name of author and source of article cited. ELECTRONIC EDITION Starting with Vol. 4, No. 2-3, The Amateur Computerist has been available via electronic mail on the Internet. To obtain a free copy or for a free e-mail subscription, send e-mail to: [email protected] or [email protected] The Amateur Computerist is also available via anonymous ftp and on the World Wide Web: ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/doc/misc/acn/ http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/acn/ http://www.columbia.edu/~jrh29/umcc/acn/ .
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