Project:Early Internet History And Documentation

This is NCommander's notepad for reconstructing the history of the early Internet and what I plan cover in the near future

The Early Days

The early days represent periods of time prior to the creation of the first multitasking systems. This era primarily consisted of single user machines like the PDP-1, or big iron like the IBM 1401. This section most consists of backstory and context for the broader project.

Era of Islands

The era of the islands refers to the period when multiple users used a single system, both remotely and not. This era covers the late 1960s, to the mid 119 0s, and primarily related to the development of multi-user computing.

• Started with the idea of timesharing, or multiprocessing
  • MIT CTCSS
  • Multics
  • PLATO
• Early systems/uses - Multics as a source
  • Local mail/communications/mailing list
    • Forums/DECUverse Conference
  • Remote work/teleterminal
  • Word processing
  • Software Development
• Creation of Games
  • Adventure/Dungeon

PLATO Notes

PLATO was one of the first attempts to integrate computer and learning, spawning multiple generations of computing, and yet remained mostly independent of the coastal computing efforts, such as Project MAC or Xerox PARC. PLATO was the model of an operating system running ontop of a mainframe like system, such as a CDC 6800 or similar by PLATO IV. .

While PLATO didn't have much impact on the development of the network or Internet, it was massive in the creation of the culture of the Internet. Last CDC Cyber mainframe shut down in 2006, with PLATO along side it, but colletions continue with cyber1.org and similar.

The Local Network

This represents the period of time where local organizations interconnected all their computers, and then tied them together, starting from the end of mid-1970s, to the early 90s.

This covers the major influences from this timeperiod

• UUCP
• BerkNet (it actually exists!)
• Novell IPX
• LAN Manager/NETBIOS
• Bulletin Board Systems
• Relational Databases

N notes: Ingres is included with 2BSD ...

Berkeley Network (Berknet)

NEEDS FURTHER RESEARCH

Most of the Information from this section comes from Eric Schmidt's retrospective of Berknet from BSD4.2

Berknet was included with the second release of BSD, for the PDP-11, released in 1979, and included Berknet, a LAN solution developed in house for University of Berkeley. It was designed to work with batch processing, and included the following commands and functionality. Given Berknet is entirely serial based, it may be relatively easy to get it working on emulation.

netcp

Intended to copy files from system to system

netcp junk Cory:/usr/pascal/sh

mail/netmail

Berknet allowed users to download mail from other machines, and read it. Implied from the documentation that UUCP feeds at Berkeley only went to a single machine - need to cross-check this with UUCPNETMAP nets

netlpr

Enables remote printing within a LAN.

netq/netrqm/netlog

Manages the requests queue

An Interconnected World

This was the era when the islands began to be interconnected; representing the tail end of the 70s to the mid 1980s. This era is marked by the introduction of the personal microcomputers such as the Commodore PET, IBM PC, and the Apple II.

• UUCPNET/USENET
• sendmail
• ARPANET
• CSNET
• Birth of ICANN/IANA
• FidoNet (1983)

The World Wide Web

1983+ and onward, this is marked by adopt of TCP/IP, and the birth of what would become the modern Internet. Major discoveries points from this period

• TCP/IP
• BSD4.2+
• Legacy of Sun Microsystems
  • NFS, NIS,
• NeXTstep
  • WorldWideWeb.app