- The Early History of Usenet, Part I: Prologue (cs.columbia.edu)
November 2019 is, as best I can recall, the 40th anniversary of the conception of Usenet. (What’s Usenet? The Wikipedia article is ok but not perfect.) I should have written a proper paper; instead, there will (probably) be an irregular series of blog posts. I’ll do Part I of N tonight.
- How the ARPANET Protocols Worked (twobithistory.org)
The ARPANET changed computing forever by proving that computers of wildly different manufacture could be connected using standardized protocols. In my post on the historical significance of the ARPANET, I mentioned a few of those protocols, but didn’t describe them in any detail. So I wanted to take a closer look at them. I also wanted to see how much of the design of those early protocols survives in the protocols we use today.
- Earth Abides (Wikipedia)
Earth Abides is a 1949 American post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by George R. Stewart. The novel tells the story of the fall of civilization from deadly disease and the emergence of a new culture with simpler tools. Set in the 1940s in Berkeley, California, the story is told by Isherwood Williams, who emerges from isolation in the mountains to find almost everyone dead.
- ARPANET (Wikipedia)
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first computer networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical foundation of the Internet. The ARPANET was established by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (now DARPA) of the United States Department of Defense.