[634] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Perhaps dismissal of packet radio in the classroom is unwarranted
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Roy Smith)
Thu Apr 25 10:24:03 1991
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 91 10:22:30 EDT
From: Roy Smith <roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu>
To: bill@tuatara.uofs.edu, lws@capybara.comm.wang.com
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
With all this talk of networking over UHF TV channels and multicast news
feeds, I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the stargate project of a few
years ago. As I remember, the idea was to insert into the vertical interval
of a commercial broadcast TV station digital information which could
be plucked out by the proper receiver (this is already done quite commonly,
I understand, for the network's own purposes). You get a few bytes every
vertical retrace and I believe it worked out to an average of 1200 or 2400
bps.
My recolection is that the prototype receivers were built, WTBS agreed
to donate their vertical interval and data was actually being fed into
the system; anybody with a receiver/decoder/buffer-box and a cable feed
with WTBS on it could get broadcast usenet. I think there was a demo at
one or more usenix meetings.
What ever happened to that; is it still in operation? I seems to me that
anybody comptemplating doing this sort of stuff should at least examine
their results (be they failure or success) to see if there is anything to
be learned from the experience.
/roy
