On 11/10/26 22:42, CGS wrote:
On 2026-10-10, Jeffrey Walton <[email protected]> wrote:
And, when "The Internet" came to be used, to supersede the use of the
AARPAnet DARPAnet, and, in Australia, the node network (the network that
is/was a node of the AARPAnet/DARPAnet), that was a step in the
evolution of ICT, after which step, came the development and
establishment of the widespread use of, the World Wide Web, which is
now, mostly misnamed as "The Internet", which the World Wide Web is not.
You should consider joining the Internet History mailing list. A lot
of the [remaining] original Internet engineers hang there and share
their stories, including their recollections of working group
activities and deliverables that laid the foundation for the modern
Internet. The discussions are held in public to help document what
happened in the very beginnings.
AFAIK, both the Internet and the WWW predate Pine (which was released in
1992).
<https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history>.
Jeff
As a person who studied a university unit relating to a particular
country in a particular century of history, with having learnt of
different versions of histories, including famous "historians" being
known for embellishing their histories with mythologies, one thing that
I learnt of history, that I have told others, relating to histories, is
that a history is only the particular history according to the person
telling the particular history, and, no particular history should be
taken to be absolutely accurate, but regarded as only the particular
storyteller's opinion of the particular history, like the parable of the
ten blind Indians and the elephant.
In viewing some of the current published histories of "The Internet",
the ARPAnet was supposed to have ceased to exist in 1992, with "The
Internet" having been in existence and in widespread use from 1990 or
before.
When I commenced study at the WACAE in 1992, I encountered my first
experience of computer internetworking, and, as I previously described,
the access via dialix, via the AARnet, to the ARPAnet, which now is said
to have not existed at that time.
At that time, in Australia, outside the AARnet and the ARPAnet, for
which access was only for academic institutions and students, access to
international internetworking did not exist.
While I was enrolled at that university, I viewed, at an IT department
screening for interested staff and students, a movie that was recorded
at Cornell University, about the Mach kernel, a (then) wonderfully
innovative kernel that provided multithreading, and could be
incorporated into operating systems, such as UNIX, and, the movie
included communication between the physical lecture/presentation of
which the movie was a recording, and, other locations, via two-way
remote video communication, in what would now be regarded as a
conference call, so that people who were not physically present at the
location where the presentation was being made, but were in lecture
theatres elsewhere, could view and participate in the presentation, as
if they were physically present, seeing and hearing the presentation,
and, being able to ask and have answered, questions, "in real time", as
if they were physically present. At that time, that was a wonderful new
technology, apart from the Mach kernel. By requesting of, and,
negotiating with, the Head Of The (academic) IT Department I obtained an
auxiliary screening of the movie, for the Perth Linux Users Group
(PLUG), which also conducted a PLUG meeting, immediately before or
after the screening of the movie, in the lecture theatre. At that
meeting, it was announced that the Linux kernel had reached (about)
version 0.8, and, and achieved being ported to the 80386 CPU.
It was some years later, after 1995, I believe, when "The Internet" was
available for public access in Australia.
I accept that, internationally, Australia is a primitive and backward
country, with retrogressive federal governments, with policies such as
excluding the common people from access to education, with education,
like healthcare, being only for privileged and rich people.
When I was learning FORTRAN, in the 1980's, when FORTRAN-77 had been in
use elsewhere, for however many years, and, FORTRAN-90 had been
specified and was about to be released, at the institution that I was
being taught FORTRAN, we were being taught FORTRAN-4, and, at another
institution where I was taught FORTRAN, we were taught FORTRAN-77, with
an assignment to write a preprocessor to translate FORTRAN-77 code into
FORTRAN-4 code (or, the other way around, or, both ways), with the
preprocessor being written in FORTRAN-77.
In 1975, at secondary school, I had started learning FORTRAN (that was
FORTRAN-4, with Hollerith characters), and, we learnt the punching of
cards, using hand held devices that required fingers pressing three keys
simultaneously, and, the code that we wrote, was on code sheets that
would be sent to a (relatively) local pulp and paper mill, where, as a
favour to the secondary school, the staff would key in our code sheets,
which would then generate the punched cards for our code, and, try to
run our code, and send us back the results, to show whether our code was
valid or faulty.
That was computing at that time, in secondary school. Later that year,
when my time at the school had ended, and, I was working in a bank, I
was involved in the processing of transactions. each transaction had to
be keyed into a machine that did a form of reconciliation of the
transactions, to ensure that what the machine produced in its output,
reconciled with what the handwritten records of the transactions, showed
as having occurred. The paperwork of the transactions (the forms -
deposit slips, withdrawals, cheques,etc), were bagged, along with the
printout form the machine, for groups of transactions, at the close of
transactions for the day (transactions for the day, closed at 3pm, with
the bank open for trading, from 10am to 4pm), and, the bag(s) were
collected at about 4pm each trading day, to be sent to the data
processing centre for the bank (for the bank, involving multiple
branches), about 150 miles away, and, the printed reports relating to
the transactions, and, the status of the accounts at the bank branch,
would be delivered to the branch, the next morning, when the staff were
present at the bank, before the bank opened for trading, for the staff
to action the printed reports. This was batch processing, which is how
banks operated at that time, before interactive and dynamic processing,
and, decades before online banking.
Now, with all of this, and, with what I have previously said, about pine
and the ARPAnet and the AARnet, and dialix, etc, in the context of what
I have said above, relating to history, this is the knowledge that I
have, and, this is my knowledge, according to me, and, from my memory,
my knowledge from what I have learnt from, and, my experience.
And, other people may have different experience(s), and, different
opinions of what they regard as knowledge, according to what they
believe, and so, I do not assert that what I have said, is absolutely
correct, only that it is correct, according to my memory and belief.
And, that is why the oath/affirmation that is imposed in law court
proceedings, needs to be changed, to start introducing truthfulness into
evidence; instead of
"the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth"
the wording should be
"the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so far as I
believe it to be true"
as one person's truth, may not be another person's truth, but, both
people may genuinely believe what they say to be true, to be true. It is
like the parable of the ten blind Indians and the elephant.
But, then, the prospect of that happening, and, for truth to be
consequently introduced into court proceedings, is negligible, as I am
just a pleb, and, the authorities care only about their power, and, not
what we plebs have to say, and, certainly, not about the truth.
And, my only active involvement in the history of "The Internet" and/or
the World Wide Web, is that I once, some decades ago, participated as a
member of an ICANN working group relating to domain names, , and I
distinctly remember that what I had said, about one item raised, was not
taken well, and was overruled and discarded by powerful people in the
working group, according to their self-interests in the matter, and so,
I believe that I had no significant effect on the history of "The
Internet", thence, my joining the special interest group mailing list
regarding the history of "The Internet", would be of no benefit of which
I am aware, as I believe that I have not made any significant
contribution to the history of "The Internet".
The telling of a history, is not producing the history - it is only the
telling of what an individual tells of the particular history, as I have
said above. That is not to say that the telling of a history, is either
true or false, or that it may be, in the whole, or, in parts, one or the
other, but, that a telling of that history, should only ever be regarded
as the history according to the particular person's telling of the history.
And, as the famous intellectual Forrest Gump was reputed to say, "And
that is all I have to say about that.".
..
Bret Busby
Armadale
Western Australia
(UTC+0800)
.................
