[124779] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: What is "The Internet" TCP/IP or UNIX-to-UNIX ?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert Brockway)
Sun Apr 4 22:44:43 2010
Date: Sun, 4 Apr 2010 22:45:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Brockway <robert@timetraveller.org>
To: nanog@nanog.org
In-Reply-To: <4BB9496C.6090809@jsbc.cc>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On Sun, 4 Apr 2010, Jim Burwell wrote:
> I agree. I remember back in the 80s when I first got access to UseNet
> and UUCP based email thinking and saying things like "the net will
> change the world", because for the first time people from all over the
> globe were communicating fairly openly and inexpensively, and somehow
> the internet and UUCP seemed to come in "under the radar" back then. I
> had more than a few people scoff at me for thinking that way though. :-)
I know exactly what you mean. I first connected got online in 1992 (late
by the standards of some around here :) ). Right away I knew it was going
to change everything. I tried to explain this to people but mostly got a
blank stare in return.
These days you hear people occassionally say that no one predicted the
explosive impact of the Internet. I did, and so did a lot of others. I
will say that I expected it was going to take us longer to get to this
point (near ubiquitous network access in the developed world, and network
technologies being widely adopted by government & business to deliver
services).
In any case, we're at the beginning of this revolution, not the end. I
expect it will take several centuries for the full impact of the
information revolution to become evident.
Cheers,
Rob
--
Email: robert@timetraveller.org
IRC: Solver
Web: http://www.practicalsysadmin.com
Open Source: The revolution that silently changed the world
