Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 23:06:31 -0700
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From: Michael Travers 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Origins of the phrase Virtual Community
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Sender: Michael Travers 
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of the phrase Virtual Community

    Sender: Sally Bates 
    Subject: ?Origins of the phrase Virtual Community

    I'm interested in tracking down the origins of the phrase vitual
    community.  A friendly Yale library undertook a Nexis search for
    me and could find nothing earlier than Rheingold.  Rheingold thinks
    he may have read it somewhere but isn't sure.  In a paper that's
    been submitted for publication in a meteorology journal, I've
    attributed Rheingold with coining the phrase, but I'm uneasy about
    this.

Rheingold definitely did not originate the phrase. For an earlier
published usage, see the proceedings of the CPSR-sponsored symposium
Directions in Advanced Computing 92. As part of this symposium, I
organized a panel discussion titled "Virtual Society and Virtual
Community". This title was arrived at through discussion with Douglas
Schuler, the symposium organizer. So we may have coined the phrase,
although most likely it was floating around before we used it. BTW I
believe that Rheingold attended this event.
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 23:16:43 -0700
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From: "Peter D. Junger" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> "Vaporware" & MS-DOS.
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Sender: "Peter D. Junger" 
Subject: Re: CM> "Vaporware" & MS-DOS.

Community Memory writes:

:
: Sender: Ersatzzz@aol.com
: Subject: the vapors
:
:
:   hasn't the tale now passed into legend
:   about how Gates and his partner told IBM
:   that they had an operating system ready for
:   their forthcoming PC, and that it just needed
:   a little tinkering... and then wrote DOS in a
:   matter of months, thus getting in on the
:   ground floor with a non-existant product, and
:   deterring IBM from looking elsewhere?

I don't know what Gates and Co. told IBM, but MSDOS and PCDOS was
purchased by Microsoft from a small company--the original DOS was a
quick and dirty rip-off for the 8086/8088 of CP/M for the 8080, 8085,
and Z80.  The original IBM PC was announced as coming with three
operating systems:  CP/M, PCDOS, and the P-system that was used with a
semi-compiled version of Pascal.  (I don't remember ever coming across
the P-system and don't remember much about it.)

To me the really interesting bit of history has to do with the failure
of Digital Research's CP/M to become the standard operating system for
the PC.  By the time the PC came out, Digital Research had MP/M, a
multi-tasking OS that was infinitely better than the original PCDOS.

If anyone knows the true story of why CP/M lost out I certainly would
like to hear it.

--
Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
Internet:  junger@pdj2-ra.f-remote.cwru.edu    junger@samsara.law.cwru.edu
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 23:21:02 -0700
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From: "A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> "Virtual Community" & "Digital Community"
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Sender: "A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security"

Subject: "Virtual Community"

Not sure when that started but know I saw "digital villiage" in the
early/mid '80s and it seemed to mean the same thing. Believe DECUS
sposored something along those lines around then with a dialup BBS.

                                                P.fla
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 23:25:24 -0700
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From: "A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security" 
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Subject: CM> Vaproware & the Osborne
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Sender: "A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security"

Subject: Vaproware & the Osborne

>Sometimes preannouncement is not malicious but just stupid. Osborne
>Computer com
>pany, the makers of the first portable computer (42 lbs.) went into bankrupcy s
>hortly after announcing a new model while dealer's shelves were stocked with th
>e old stuff. The cash flow dried up and the company ran out of funds before the
> new model could be delivered.

Saw a number of Osbornes and the original model just was not that interesting.
Tiny screen with a limited display. My absolute criteria was that whatever
I bought had to have at least 80x24 to be usable since a major use was to
be in talking to mainframes where the "real" work was to be done.

I had a VT-100 and modem at home at the time, and was just not willing to
spend $3000 (could still buy a good car for that then) for something that
was less capable.

As I have mentioned before, other than the Sinclair ZX-80 and 81 "toys", the
first computer I bought was a Columbia VP-1600 "transportable" - 8088/dual
floppy/32 lbs/128k but was able to emulate a VT-100 "good enough".

                                        Warmly,
                                                Padgett
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 23:29:47 -0700
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Subject: CM> Vaproware & MS-DOS
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Sender: "A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security"

Subject: Vaproware & MS-DOS

>  back, hasn't the tale now passed into legend
>  about how Gates and his partner told IBM
>  that they had an operating system ready for
>  their forthcoming PC, and that it just needed
>  a little tinkering... and then wrote DOS in a
>  matter of months, thus getting in on the
>  ground floor with a non-existant product, and
>  deterring IBM from looking elsewhere?

May be an urban legend but it just ain't so. My recollection (by crackey), is
that Mr. Bill & co (didn't Pauul Allen do most of MS programming ?) said
"yup" & went to Seattle Computer Products where Tim Patterson has a thingy
called 86/DOS. MS leased it at first, then bought all rights around 1984
or so.

Tim is still around somewhere (see his columns in "Dr. Dobb's" occasionally,
why not ask him what happened ?

While we are on that subject, v1.0 (I have a copy *somewhere*) was pretty
basic. There was no "DEL" command - you used "ERASE", no directory structure
(but then the PC did not support hard disks in 1981). Back then most people
did not even buy an OS (wasn't it around $400 extra then ?) Instead running
almost completely off the built-in ROM BASIC (why IBM was talking to Mr.
Bill in the first place.)

                                        Warmly,
                                                        Padgett
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 23:38:30 -0700
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From: Phil Gyford 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> "Vaporware" & Ted Nelson's Xanadu, Pointer to Wired story.
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Sender: Phil Gyford 
Subject: Re: CM> "Vaporware" & Ted Nelson's Xanadu.

>There was a very well done article about Ted Nelson in WIRED Magazine a year
>ago or more ago which claimed that his XANADU software project was the
>longest standing and most expensive vaporware project ever.

You can find the complete article at:
http://www.hotwired.com/wired/3.06/features/xanadu.html


' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' '
 P H I L   G Y F O R D              WIRED UK     work: +44 (0)171 775 3434
                            phil@wired.co.uk     facs: +44 (0)171 775 3401
             http://www.paranoia.com/~fabius     home: +44 (0)171 622 9058
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 23:42:34 -0700
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From: Nelson Winkless 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Some memories of magazines
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Sender: Nelson Winkless 
Subject: CM: Some memories of magazines

        The comments by Larry Press and Walt Crawford stir recollections
that really deserve some research before I blither about them, but that's
too much work, so...
        SCCS (Southern California Computer Society) Interface Magazine
foundered, as Larry recalls...and my cloudy memory says that Bob Jones (with
his wife and gang of kids) stepped in to publish a magazine for that very
large club of computer enthusiasts. I think some dispute broke out over who
actually owned the magazine, when it turned out to be worth owning, and they
parted ways...Bob going off the publish Interface Age, which flourished for
some years.
        The leader of  SCCS was a round, balding chap (Dr. Lou...unh...Lou
...can't quite make that name snap in) who was a prominent attendee at the
World Altair Computer Conference. During some computer show in San
Francisco, he led three or four of us on a tour of the restaurants at
Ghirardelli Square. This involved walking among the patrons until Lou found
somebody eating a dish that
was interesting. He'd stand over the diner, pointing out the items on his
plate, and commenting on their preparation and desirability. We, his captive
audience, were as puzzled by this remarkable performance as the diners were.
"Why are we watching people eat?" asked Carol Stagg, a member of our party
who was then an ad space rep for Personal Computing. When Larry raises the
topic of SCCS, it immediately evokes memories of embarrassment at Senor Pico's.
        Walt's enthusiasm for Creative Computing brings back a flood of
things. When I became editor of Personal Computing, my dad became interested
in computers, got one, began doing some advertising work (He was a bigtime
ad copywriter...did the Kellogg's cereals spots for years, among other
things, and wrote the Snap, Crackle & Pop song with one of my brothers) for
Gene Murrow at Computer Power and Light in Studio City...and to my horror,
began to publish articles in computer magazines under his own name.
        The problem was that his name was the same as mine. He was NBW Jr.
I'm NBW III... but nobody pays any attention to the numbers. "You can't do
that," I said. "It looks as if the editor of one magazine is writing for
another. It's one thing to have your son follow in your footsteps, but to
have your father do it is too confusing!"
        He was a bit testy, but began to use the name Timothy Purinton in
doing a series of articles David Ahl bought for Creative. (These things
involved a running character, a kid named Stan, who was a wizard at figuring
odds, and applying his computer to matters that involved them.) After a
couple of years of this, David was pretty tired of young Stan, and told me
he thought the idea was worn out. "Don't tell me," I said, "go talk to Timothy."
        ...and one other point. Walt liked the practical "user" aspects of
Creative, in contrast with Byte's relatively heavy technical slant. It was
necessary to find a niche for each magazine. Byte was clearly a technical
journal. We thought of Creative largely as a game magazine (Hammurabi, etc..)
I made a big issue of saying that Personal Computing was a magazine "about
people using computers." I didn't know much about the technology of computers
(and not much about producing magazines), but I could write and select
entertaining stuff about people, so that gave us the niche.
        We had a running them comparing personal computer enterprises with a
kid's lemonade stand. We referred to The Lemonade Computer Company (for
which Kim Behm did a number of of superb illustrations). It wasn't all that
easy to find practical personal computer applications in the mid 70's. We
ran pieces on selling spreadsheet services (pre-VisiCalc), one on keeping
golf scores and statistics for tournaments, and one on selling "instant
portraits" printed out in alpha characters by computer in booths at fairs,
among a few others.
        The situation has changed in twenty years...but not by adding a
whole lot of applications that people can sell as Lemonade services.
Instead, the systems and software packages are placed in the hands of the
end-users of the services. Some of us didn't anticipate this clearly.
        Enough.

        --Nels




-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nelson Winkless                   Email: correspo@swcp.com
ABQ Communications Corporation    Voice: 505-897-0822
P.O. Box 1432                     Fax:   505-898-6525
Corrales NM 87048 USA             Website: http://www.swcp.com/correspo
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 23:46:35 -0700
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From: "Suzanne M. Johnson" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Origin of "Virtual"
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Sender: "Suzanne M. Johnson" 
Subject: Origin of "Virtual"

Regarding the request from Sally Bates on origin of "Virtual Community"..

Back in the early 70's when Tenex became one of the first virtual memory
operating systems, I can recall seeing and hearing "virtual" appended to
many nouns.

I  suggest perhaps looking at the works of Christopher Evans (The Mighty
Micro, The Micro Millenium) and/or Jacques Vallee (The Network Revolution).
(Evans is early 70's, Vallee 70's and early 80's.)
__________________________________________________
Suzanne M. Johnson           Sunnyvale, California
              johnson@rahul.net
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 23:50:47 -0700
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From: "Bill Anderson" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> IMSAI 8080 and early word processors
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Sender: "Bill Anderson" 
Subject: Re: CM> S-100 microcomputers

I still own an IMSAI 8080, serial no. 25. When I first purchased the
machine in I think February 1973 or 74, it was the Altair/Imsai bus.
That became the Altair/Imsai/Polymorphic bus. I was at the meeting on
the bus standard that changed the name to S-100 bus. Wayne Green was not
to happy about it and blasted in the decision in Byte magazine.

BTW:) My IMSAI still works. However, since I no longer have an ASCII
terminal, I have to use a my desktop or laptop (both Pentiums) as a
terminal. My machine has the first Dutronic 8K memory boards in it, plus
a couple Vector graphic 16K boards. My system went from Teletype and
papertape, to video monitor with a Cherry Keyboard, to ASCII terminal.
Along with paper tape, I tried the audio cassette and then went to 8in
floppy disks. Some of the parts in that machine probably came from
Tarbell. In those days, one had to be could at solder to build a PC.

As for old word processing software. I think I still have an original
copy of Electric Pencil floating around.

Although the machine suffered many upgrades, I continued to use it on a
regular basis until about 1983. Altough I know longer have them, I used
to own an Onyx Z80 with a Corvus shoebox harddisk, and an Onyx Z8000
running the first version of UNIX released by Bob Marsh. Of course, I
just got rid of my 300 baud acoustic coupler on the last move.
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 23:54:51 -0700
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From: "Laurence I. Press" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Origins of "virtual community" and J.C.R. Licklider, 1968.
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Sender: "Laurence I. Press" 
Subject: Re: CPSR-HISTORY digest 31

> Sender: Sally Bates 
> Subject: ?Origins of the phrase Virtual Community
>
>
> I'm interested in tracking down the origins of the phrase vitual
> community.  A friendly Yale library undertook a Nexis search for

Licklider, J. C. R. and Taylor, Robert W., "The Computer as a
Communication Device," Science and Technology, April, 1968, 21-31,
speaks of communities of "communities of comon interest" as opposed to
communities of common location.  The context was scientific resarch
and collaborative work using networked computers.  Not the exact
phrase, but perhaps the meaning you are looking for.

Lar

[Moderator's Note: J.C.R. Licklider may well be the most influential, and
least publicly recognized, person in the history of computer science.  He
set ARPA on course towards constructing ARPANET and directed Project MAC at
MIT; he also funded Engelbart's work on creating the mouse and windows.  If
anyone has  recollections of Licklider, I think we would all be delighted
to read them.]
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 01:08:39 -0700
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From: peter@baileynm.com (Peter da Silva)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Origins of word "vaporware."
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Sender: peter@baileynm.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of word "vaporware."

> Oh yes, Vaporware is not limited to the Software world. When the
> Commodore Amiga (or was that the Atari ST? I can never remember) was
> first demonstrated at a trade show, it was running an amazing set of
> software. The products looked like Microsoft Word, and other such
> products. The demonstrators didn't want you to get to close, though,
> because if you did, you would have found out that it was an IBM PC
> stuffed into an Amiga case!

It certainly wan't the Amiga. Its flagship demos were the bouncing ball,
the eagle, and other graphics wonders. I suspect it might have been the
ST because it was "IBM compatible" in an odd way: it ran a derivitive of
CP/M-68K, the 68000 version of Digital Research's clone of Microsoft's
clone of Digital Research's 8080 operating system. This compatibility
went down all the way to odd design quirks of MS-DOS (like the DUP system
call, copied from UNIX apparently to eventually support multitasking but
finally used for other purposes) but was in the final analysis completely
useless: MS-DOS software wasn't easily ported to the ST because of the
radically different memory management environments.

(I had an ST, briefly, but soon abandoned it for the Amiga)
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 01:15:34 -0700
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From: LESPEA@muze.com (Leslie Pearson)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Early On-Line Services
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Sender: LESPEA@muze.com (Leslie Pearson)
Subject: Early On-Line Services


Does anyone remember the early On-Line services such as the Source? (I
had friends who had an account on that in 1981-1982.) I also recently
found some documents for a service called People Link/Plink that was
active in the mid 1980's. I still occasionally e-mail or exchange
Christmas cards with people I met there.

I briefly glanced at the old literature - the baud rate was 300 baud with
an extra charge for 1200 baud - wow - the on-line world has come a long
way!

Leslie Pearson
(lespea@muze.com)
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 01:20:35 -0700
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From: William Murray 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of the term "Vaporware"
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Sender: William Murray 
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of the term "Vaporware"


I'm pretty sure that I saw this word for the first time in a review of
a computer show--most likely Computer Faire.  It was used to by the
reviewer to characterize a program called VisiOn.  The reviewer was
highly critical because VisiOn didn't really exist, and since it had
already been announced, the only possible reason for the show demo was
to deter potential customers from buying competing products.

I don't know if this was the origin of the word.  Soon thereafter it
was in common use.
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 01:26:39 -0700
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From: /S=J.WALKERLIDDELL/OU1=S26L07A/AD=ATTMAIL/C=US@mhs-fswa.attmail.com
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: The IBM 360/67
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Sender: /S=J.WALKERLIDDELL/OU1=S26L07A/AD=ATTMAIL/C=US@mhs-fswa.attmail.com
Subject: The IBM 360/67

This may have been the system that inspired one of my favorite
computer folk tunes, "You Can Build a Mainframe from the Things You
Find at Home."  I won't bore you with the first four verses, but the
last goes like this:

     Well I got my system running, I'll admit it's not the best.
     The data isn't [sic] right and the response time is a mess.
     It crashes every hour, and it isn't worth a damn,
     But I'm satisfied because it works just like an IBM!

                                             Jenny
/s=J.WalkerLiddell/ou1=s26l07a@mhs-fswa.attmail.com
         "...I find e-mail to be often undependable and annoying to
access..."  Clifford Stoll, _Silicon Snake Oil_
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 01:31:33 -0700
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From: darrahs@bucks.edu
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> "Vaporware" & Ted Nelson's Xanadu.
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Sender: darrahs@bucks.edu
Subject: Re: CM> "Vaporware" & Ted Nelson's Xanadu.


If I recall correctly, Jay Bolter discusses
Nelson's XANADU project extensively in his
book _Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext,
and the History of Writing_  I don't think
Bolter said anything about XANADU as vaporware,
but he did seem to be suggesting XANADU had
acquired some kind of *mythic* status -- and
that (perhaps) it might not ever become a
*reality*  I don't have the book here right now,
so I hope I'm not mis-remembering.

Susan Darrah
darrahs@bucks.edu
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 01:37:13 -0700
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From: Robert.Foster@radiology.msu.edu
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Origins of NEXIS?
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Sender: Robert.Foster@radiology.msu.edu
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of the phrase Virtual Community

Greetings from the Virtual Desktop of Bob Foster

>> How far back does Nexis go?

What is this _Nexis_ that people refer to.
You can email me directly on this thanks.

Bob.

[Moderator's Note: LEXIS-NEXIS may be one of the oldest, and most robust,
examples of an online database accessible from myriad points across the
globe.  If anyone worked on implementing LEXIS-NEXIS, or has stories of its
creation, please send them to the list.  There's also a story here of how
newspapers signed away electronic rights to this service long before
understanding that one day they'd want them back.]
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 01:46:22 -0700
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From: davidsol@panix.com (David S. Bennahum)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Origins of first computer game.
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I am writing not as moderator, but as participant.

For years, I was told that the first computer game (meaning a game with
graphics, arcade-like) was created by Steve Russel, a student at MIT's
Project MAC, around 1963. (For a good recounting of this, see Steven Levy's
_Hackers_.) The game was called Spacewar.  I now leared that the first
computer game may have been built in 1958 by someone named William
Higin-Botham who worked at Brookhaven National Laboratories in Upton, New
York.  Apparently he built a game of "tennis" that sounds a lot like Pong.
His research involved designing radars and graphical displays, and
calculating object trajectories.  Simulating a tennis ball between two bats
was apparently an easy problem, a problem which led to this game.

Is this accurate?

best,
db
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 01:06:41 -0700
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From: Les Earnest 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> J.C.R. Licklider
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Sender: Les Earnest 
Subject: CM> J.C.R. Licklider

The Moderator writes:
   J.C.R. Licklider may well be the most influential, and
   least publicly recognized, person in the history of computer science.  He
   set ARPA on course towards constructing ARPANET and directed Project MAC at
   MIT; he also funded Engelbart's work on creating the mouse and windows.  If
   anyone has  recollections of Licklider, I think we would all be delighted
   to read them.

Licklider was a great guy and an inspiration to work with.  He was
indeed very influential, mostly through his recognition and support of
inventions by others, but he did not direct Project MAC nor was he
directly involved in starting ARPAnet, though he created the
environment that made it possible.

I first met Lick in 1949 when he gave me my first summer job as an
undergraduate.  He was spending the summer at the Naval Electronics
Lab in San Diego, experimenting with the intelligibility of digitized
speech under various encodings, a project that was about ten years
ahead of its time.

I next ran into him sometime after 1956 when I went to MIT Lincoln Lab
to work on SAGE and found that he was a professor at MIT and doing
consulting work at BBN.  MIT was a hotbed of computer-related
development at that time, based on Whirlwind, SAGE, MTC (the Memory
Test Computer, used to test Jay Forester's magnetic core memory idea),
TX-0 (a microcoded machine and the first transistorized computer
there) and TX-2 (a 37-bit computer with elaborate byte manipulation
features).

The most important technological advance after the invention of
computers, I believe, was timesharing, which made interactive
computing feasible for the first time.  The basic principles of
timesharing were first stated by Prof. John McCarthy in an MIT memo
dated January 1, 1959, which led to the establishment of Project Mac.
McCarthy's interest in this scheme was motivated by his desire for
economical intereactive computing in support of his research in
artificial intelligence and was substantially influenced by the
example of SAGE, which was a special-purpose timesharing system.

The first two demonstration timesharing systems were created by Prof.
Fernando Corbato at MIT and by John McCarthy and Ed Fredkin at BBN,
both in the summer of 1962.  McCarthy was invited to head Project MAC
but chose instead to move to Stanford, so MAC was headed by Prof.
Fano.

ARPA was established as a result of the acute national paranoia
brought on by successes in Soviet space technology in the late 1950s
and Licklider was recruited to start the Information Processing
Technology office there.  Inasmuch as Lick had ties to both MIT and
BBN and he perceived the importance of timesharing, he used his ARPA
position to fund several timesharing development projects, one of
which was Project MAC.  As we know, timesharing became a very
successful multi-billion dollar industry (in spite of the fact that
IBM never figured out how to do it) and made possible a number of
later developments, one of which was ARPAnet and another was practical
display-oriented interactive computing.

[Aside: One thing that annoys me about a couple of computer histories
that have appeared on PBS television in recent years is the pretense
that interactive computing began with personal computers and
workstations.  In fact, most of the basic principles of display-based
interaction were developed on timesharing systems, which first
appeared in the mid-1960s and continued to offer services superior to
those of workstations until the mid-1980s.]

Licklider also initiated ARPA's substantial funding of artificial
intelligence research in the early 1960s, in the hope that this field
could be developed to the point where computers could contribute to
the so-called command-control problem.  He was quite aware of the
functional failures of SAGE and the other command-control systems
being developed during that era.  While the AI projects did spin off
quite a bit of useful technology over the thirty years or so that they
were heavily funded by ARPA, I believe that it would be fair to say
that artificial intelligence research has not contributed much of
direct value to the military establishement so far.  Meanwhile,
however, the Defense Department has continued to squander orders of
magnitude more money on useless command-control-communications
systems.

After his first stint as head of ARPA IPT, Licklider tapped Ivan
Sutherland to take over around 1965.  Ivan had just finished doing his
PhD dissertation on Sketchpad, using the TX-2 in "slow timesharing"
mode (each user typically got 15 minutes of bare machine time every
hour or two).  Ivan, in turn, recruited Bob Taylor as his assistant
and when Ivan moved on to Harvard, Bob took over and recruited Larry
Roberts from NASA.  Larry had also recently finished his PhD, on
machine perception of three dimensional objects, and had subsequently
developed an experimental communication link between the TX-2
computer, which by then had been converted to true timesharing, and
the AN/FSQ-32 machine at System Development Corp. in Santa Monica,
another timesharing project funded by Lick's office.

Larry Roberts came to ARPA with the idea of developing ARPAnet and was
the true father of that project.  Both Taylor and Licklider recognized
the importance of computer communications between timesharing systems,
though Lick was not affiliated with ARPA at that time.  Taylor
arranged for the financial support of the project that brought it into
existence.  Roberts later took over as IPT head for a time, then moved
on to BBN, which had become the ARPAnet contractor (against his
recommendation, by the way).

It is interesting to note that among those who shared the TX-2
computer at MIT Lincoln Lab's in the early 1960s during most evenings
and weekends were PhD candidates Ivan Sutherland and Larry Roberts
(cited above), Len Kleinrock, who later moved to UCLA and did much of
the ARPAnet traffic queuing analysis, and Tom Stockham, who moved to
the University of Utah and developed audio analysis techniques that he
later was called upon to apply to the infamous recording gap on
Richard Nixon's tape.

Les Earnest (les@cs.stanford.edu)               Phone:  415 941-3984
12769 Dianne Drive Los Altos Hills, CA 94022    Fax:  415 941-3934
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 01:15:23 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
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From: Audrie Krause 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> CPSR leadership changes.
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[Moderator's Note: Audrie Krause, Executive Director of CPSR, the
organization behind Community Memory, has resigned.  She requested that I
forward the following note to the list, which follows.  Audrie was
instrumental in forming this discussion group and supporting this project.
I want to publicly thank her for making this group possible, and wish her
the best.]
-----------------------------------------------------

Dear CPSR Members and Friends,

I am writing to notify you that I have resigned my position as CPSR's
Executive Director, effective July 23, in order to explore the potential for
creating an organization dedicated to developing grassroots support for
technology-related social and political issues.  My goal is to promote more
effective citizen activism around issues such as technology-assisted privacy
protection, electronic access to public records, and government surveillance
technology.  I hope to accomplish this by creating NetAction, an
organization that will link the online activists who are working on these
issues with traditional community-based organizations.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my tenure with CPSR, and I want to thank all of
you for the support and encouragement that you have given me, as well as for
the significant amount of volunteer  time and energy that many of you have
devoted to CPSR during my tenure as Executive Director.

As most of you already know, many of the technology-related issues being
addressed today by online activists will impact the lives of people who are
not online.  In order to be successful in establishing sound public policy
on these issues, online activists must become familiar with and begin to use
the grassroots organizing techniques that community-based activists have
been using  effectively for years.  Furthermore, we must reach out to and
educate community activists and others in order to build effective
coalitions around technology-related policy issues.

What I hope to do is create an organization that will work to promote
effective grassroots citizen advocacy campaigns by educating online
activists in traditional grassroots organizing techniques, introducing
online organizing techniques to community-based organizations, and creating
effective coalitions around information-technology issues by linking online
activists with grassroots organizers.

If you are interested in learning more about my plans for NetAction, please
send email to: akrause@igc.org, or contact me by phone at: (415) 775-8674.
--
Audrie Krause
Email: akrause@igc.org * Phone: (415) 775-8674  *  Fax: (415) 673-3813
Mailing Address: 601 Van Ness Avenue, No. 631  San Francisco, CA 94102
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 01:25:28 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
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From: "Bill Anderson" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Vaproware & the Osborne
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Sender: "Bill Anderson" 
Subject: Re: CM> Vaproware & the Osborne

During the time of Osbornes collapse, I was a Product Engineering
Manager at Fortune Systems. I learned of the impending collapse from
someone who applied for a position at Fortune. The store is a bit more
complicated. While I don't remember the model numbers, the series of
events went in this order. Osborne purchased a huge inventory of parts
for their current model while pre-announcing the new model. Dealers put
their orders on hold waiting for the new model, which created a serious
cash flow crisis. As they struggled through recovery from that disaster,
Osborne pre-announced yet another new model to which dealers acted in
the same manner as the first pre-announcement. However, this time
Osborne didn't have the cash reserves to survive and closed their doors.

Bill Anderson
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 01:32:09 -0700
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From: mike alvarez 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Why DOS won out.
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Sender: mike alvarez 
Subject: Why DOS won out.

In Robert Cringely's book ACCIDENTAL EMPIRES, he states that IBM visited
Gates and company first and were told they should talk to the guy who
wrote CP/M. When IBM got there, Gary K. was out flying his plane; his
wife Mary, after scrutinizing IBM's disclosure agreement, didn't want to
sign it.  So IBM went back to Gates and the rest is history. Gates bought
Patterson's "quick and dirty" DOS for $50,000 (what a bargain, huh?), he
and Allen got DOS to where it'd run on the brand new IBM PC and that
folks is how we got to where we are today.

[Moderator's Note: Is there anyone on this list with first-hand experience
working for Bill Gates in the early years (or access to someone with those
memories who would be willing to contribute)?  Those recollections would be
much appreciated.]
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 01:39:03 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
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From: "Bill Anderson" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> The end of CP/M.
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Sender: "Bill Anderson" 
Subject: Re: CM> "Vaporware" & MS-DOS.

There are times when I wished I would have kept more documentation and
magazines from those days. Alas, moving them became to much of a burden.
CP/M lost the war when the machines grew to be larger than 64K of
memory. Digital Research was just too slow in responding to the market
changes. CP/M eventually became DR DOS and was purchased by Novell. I
still have DR DOS 6.0 and use Novell DOS 7 instead of MSDOS on the one
and only machine that I have left running Windows 3.11.

The big battle was between MP/M and OASIS. Without a doubt, OASIS was a
much better operating system. After fighting with MP/M for a few months,
I switched to OASIS. At that time, my IMSAI ran CP/M and OASIS, my Z-80
Onyx was strictly OASIS, and the other ONYX was running UNIX version 7.
All this was in late 70's and early 80's.

My Onyx Z8000 was replaced by a Fortune System and then finally, around
1986, I surrendered and purchased a PC Clone.

Has anyone ever stopped and consider the amount of money we have spent
upgrading and changing machines over the years.

Bill Anderson

On Jul 22, 11:16pm, Peter D. Junger wrote:
> Subject: CM> "Vaporware" & MS-DOS.
>
> Sender: "Peter D. Junger" 
> Subject: Re: CM> "Vaporware" & MS-DOS.
>
> Community Memory writes:
>
> :
> : Sender: Ersatzzz@aol.com
> : Subject: the vapors
> :
> :
> :   hasn't the tale now passed into legend
> :   about how Gates and his partner told IBM
> :   that they had an operating system ready for
> :   their forthcoming PC, and that it just needed
> :   a little tinkering... and then wrote DOS in a
> :   matter of months, thus getting in on the
> :   ground floor with a non-existant product, and
> :   deterring IBM from looking elsewhere?
>
> I don't know what Gates and Co. told IBM, but MSDOS and PCDOS was
> purchased by Microsoft from a small company--the original DOS was a
> quick and dirty rip-off for the 8086/8088 of CP/M for the 8080, 8085,
> and Z80.  The original IBM PC was announced as coming with three
> operating systems:  CP/M, PCDOS, and the P-system that was used with a
> semi-compiled version of Pascal.  (I don't remember ever coming across
> the P-system and don't remember much about it.)
>
> To me the really interesting bit of history has to do with the failure
> of Digital Research's CP/M to become the standard operating system for
> the PC.  By the time the PC came out, Digital Research had MP/M, a
> multi-tasking OS that was infinitely better than the original PCDOS.
>
> If anyone knows the true story of why CP/M lost out I certainly would
> like to hear it.
>
> --
> Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law
School--Cleveland, OH
> Internet:  junger@pdj2-ra.f-remote.cwru.edu
junger@samsara.law.cwru.edu
> ______________________________________________________________________
>             Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
>                     Moderator: Community Memory
>             http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
>          A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
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> ______________________________________________________________________
>
>
>-- End of excerpt from Peter D. Junger
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 01:45:04 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
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From: "Laurence I. Press" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> SCCS Interface magazine.
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Sender: "Laurence I. Press" 
Subject: SCCS Interface


> Sender: "Kip Crosby, CHAC" 
> Subject: Tracking mags
>
> Lar Press wrote:
> >Does anyone recall "SCCS Interface?"  It was the second nationally
> >circulated magazine (between Byte and Kilobaud) but fell to gross
> >incompetence very soon.
>
> It would be interesting to define "very soon" more exactly.  The CHAC has
> the first five issues (which we got from somebody in Virginia of all places)
> but we'd like the rest of the set, except we don't know how many that was.

I have Dec 75, Jan-Oct 76, Dec 76, Jan Feb, July, Sept, 1977.  These
were slick and sold nationally.  They were preceded by a local
newsletter which was just offset or Xeroxed.  They also include two
different publishers -- Like Byte there was a big fall-apart with the
original publisher, law suits, two magazines with nearly identical
names (SCCS Interface and Interface Age) and looks.  Lots of lost time
and money and eventually everyone gone.

Larry
______________________________________________________________________
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Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 01:51:02 -0700
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Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
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From: swolff@cisco.com (Stephen Wolff)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> J.C.R. Licklider.
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Sender: swolff@cisco.com (Stephen Wolff)
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of "virtual community" and J.C.R. Licklider, 1968.

>[Moderator's Note: J.C.R. Licklider may well be the most influential, and
>least publicly recognized, person in the history of computer science.  He
>set ARPA on course towards constructing ARPANET and directed Project MAC at
>MIT; he also funded Engelbart's work on creating the mouse and windows.  If
>anyone has  recollections of Licklider, I think we would all be delighted
>to read them.]

I heard Lick at an electrical engineering conference once, and I recall him
saying he felt perfectly at home among double-Es because of his initials.
-s

Stephen Wolff                                        Business Development
ciscoSystems                                         703 397 5615(V) 5537(F)
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 01:58:56 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "Rob Slade, doting grandpa of Ryan & Trevor"@Sunnyside.COM
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Origins of Net for distance learning?
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Sender: "Rob Slade, doting grandpa of Ryan & Trevor"
Subject: RE: CM> Origins of Net for distance learning?

>Sender: "Richard J. Smith" 
>
>Out of curiosity, I'd like to know if anyone on this list
>knows of an early usage of the Internet for distance
>education.

I can only give you negative information.  In 1985, I was responsible for
setting up the telecommunications for the World Logo Conference.  So far as
I have been able to determine, this was the first fully integrated on-site/
online conference using static data files, email, and real time/chat functions
to involve offsite and onsite participants in the same sessions.  My report on
the conference, "Online from Paradise" was published in Teleconferencing V
and IPCC '87.  (All of which is by the way, because it happened on
Compu$pend.)

In reworking the paper for the more general topic of training, I did an
ERIC search on everything I could think of that potentially related to
computer mediated communications in education.  Of the 32 references I
eventually found, none were based on use of the Internet.  So, unless
someone can come up with a really hidden reference, nothing was *published*
prior to 1987.

However, I *do* know that the husband/SO of an English instructor at SFU
was acting as "poet in non-residence" to a public school English class.
The kids were middle school level, as I recall.  (I had peripheral contact
with the project, although I was not formally involved.)  This was the
1987/88 school year.  During that term an extension course from SFU was
also announced that was to use email and fax.

======================
roberts@decus.ca         rslade@vcn.bc.ca         slade@freenet.victoria.bc.ca
link to virus, book info at http://www.freenet.victoria.bc.ca/techrev/rms.html
Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" 0-387-94663-2 (800-SPRINGER)
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 02:05:12 -0700
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Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
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From: Paul Andrews 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Vaproware & the Osborne, Kaypro.
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Sender: Paul Andrews 
Subject: Re: CM> Vaproware & the Osborne

Folks, I bought one of the first Osborne I's in Washington State. It
weighed 26 lbs. and my invoice, which I still have, was for $1795 (only
by adding an Epson MX-80 printer, paper, cable and external monitor did I
get up to $3000). Although the II was late in coming Osborne's real
problem was lack of innovation and lousy support. Kaypro came out with a
better machine on the CP/M side (before the gradual shift to IMB PC and DOS).

Paul

Andrews/Seattle Times
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 02:11:58 -0700
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From: Paul Andrews 
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Subject: CM> Vaproware & MS-DOS
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Sender: Paul Andrews 
Subject: Re: CM> Vaproware & MS-DOS

Folks, Tim Paterson(cq) is I believe still at Microsoft. Microsoft did
not lease but purchased DOS from Seattle Computer prior to its 1981
release on the IBM PC. For a detailed account of the chronology please
see my and Steve Manes' book; we tried hard to nail this stuff down with
multiple documentation, including material from the Seattle Computer
lawsuit against Microsoft.

Paul Andrews/Seattle Times
co-author, GATES: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented an Industry and Made
Himself the Richest Man in America

______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 02:18:52 -0700
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Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
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From: peter@baileynm.com (Peter da Silva)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> "Vaporware" & the P-System.
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Sender: peter@baileynm.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: CM> "Vaporware" & MS-DOS.

> The original IBM PC was announced as coming with three
> operating systems:  CP/M, PCDOS, and the P-system that was used with a
> semi-compiled version of Pascal.  (I don't remember ever coming across
> the P-system and don't remember much about it.)

Ah yes, the P-system.

"Daddy's playing Pascal. That's where you try and see how many dots you
 get before you have to say nasty words."

When it compiled a program to pcode it cleared the screen and put dots
across the top... they had something to do with the code generated, since
different programs produced different dots... but it was mostly feedback
to tell you it was stil alive.

> If anyone knows the true story of why CP/M lost out I certainly would
> like to hear it.

It cost about $30 more, and the first version had a problem where you could
corrupt a disk if you swapped it at the wrong time. I seem to recall that was
because of buffering in the driver or file system. You could force all the
buffers to flush with a ^C at the prompt level.

I've noticed that MS-DOS finally allows you to do that level of buffering
with DOS 7 (under Windows 95).
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
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Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 02:24:50 -0700
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Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
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From: "Laurence I. Press" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> First suites, Context MBA?
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Sender: "Laurence I. Press" 
Subject: suites

> 
> Subject: Suites
>
> First "suite" I ran into was something that came packaged with the Columbia
> VP-1600 I bought in 1983. The "Perfect" group included Perfect Calc
> (spreadsheet), Perfect Filer (sort of a database), and Perfect Writer.

Anyone recall Context MBA -- spreadhseet, word process, data base and
perhaps terminal emulation all in one giant program for the PC.

Larry
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 02:30:32 -0700
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From: davidsol@panix.com (David S. Bennahum)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Origins of "mirror world" idea?
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In the past six months, like a giant herd wheeling in one direction, large
companies are suddenly racing to "aggregate local content" on the Web and
make it available on a city by city basis.  Microsoft has CityScape; AT&T
has Home Town Network; AOL has Digital Cities -- whatever the name the idea
is similar: to get local newspapers, local information like movie listings,
and pull it all together in one location named after your home town (e.g.
"Digital City: Boston").  All claim their sites will be ready sometime in
1997.  I am wondering if there are earlier examples of on-line services
creating city-wide databases of this sort, and if so does anyone recall
them?  Were they successes, flops?  Is there any historical basis for this
universal consensus that this is a good metaphor based on previous online
services?

In his book "Mirror Worlds" (Oxford University Press, 1991), Yale computer
science professor David Gelernter writes of a future where we can access
minutely rendered computer-generated "mirrors" of our cities, towns, homes.
These mirrors would exist as massive databases, visually rendered, easy to
navigate and querry.  It is a fantasy that's familiar (it reminds of me of
a computer game--SimCity), and I wonder, tracing the idea back, when it
first appeared in computer science.  It seems the current CityScape, et.
al. ventures are possibly a crude permutation of this idea.

best,
db
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 01:05:29 -0700
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From: "christopher f. chiesa" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Plywood computing.
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Sender: "christopher f. chiesa" 
Subject: Re: The IBM 360/67


I for one would like to see the complete lyric to "You Can Build A
Mainframe from the Things You Find At Home"(sic).  E-mail is fine, if this
is not adjudged to be of general interest...

That also reminds me of a real book I owned for a while, called "how to
build a working digital computer" -- out of things like wood, screws,
paper clips, and light bulbs.  (There was even a memory drum made out of
an oatmeal can, I kid you not.)  I was very excited to find this book, and
had visions of constructing a clattering monstrosity that, if nothing
else, might be able to "add 2 and 3 to get 5," that sort of thing.

I've rarely been more disappointed than I was when I got around to READING
the book.  It turned out that while, yes, there was a sort of "input" unit
that let the operator turn a ten-position rotary switch to a particular
position and allowed the binary form of that number to appear on a light
bank, and an "output" unit that operated essentially the same way, there
was NO CPU -- the last section of the book, under "operation," revealed
that the HUMAN operator did all the math, logic, instruction-decoding and
-execution, and simply set the "input" and "output" banks so that the
right patterns of lights appeared on the plywood "display panel."
SHEEEEESH.  I'm sure glad I read through the entire book BEFORE spending
months constructing anything!  You had to BUILD your own rotary switches
and bulb-sockets, for crying out loud!

On the other hand, once when I was a kid, I managed to wire up a couple of
relays, two toggle switches, and two lightbulbs to make a "one-bit"
binary adder!  To me, that's more of a "computer" than the labor-intensive
project described in that doggoned BOOK!

Chris Chiesa
  lvt-cfc@cyber1.servtech.com
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 01:11:53 -0700
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From: Carl Dick 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> "The Colonel"
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Sender: Carl Dick 
Subject: THE COLONEL

Shortly after the Altair kit and Byte Magazine were established, a
flim-flam artist ran a 2 page spread in Byte.  He called himself Colonel ___
(I can't remember the surname).
        The mock-ups in the ads were not functional, and no working products
were ever developed.  I believe there was a 4 KB RAM card, a CPU card, an I/O
card, and maybe a 4th item.
        I recall chatting with a freelance reporter who covered the story.
After Colonel X was arrested, he convinced his jailer to open a mail-drop
business to sell the Colonel's software bundle; something like 100 programs
for $50.
        The programs were junk, or lifted from some other source, or simply
didn't exist.
        As I recall, he once escaped by convincing the guards that he was
some form of OSHA inspector.
        Does anyone recall more detail?

  -- Carl Dick    trimagna@primenet.com
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 01:20:01 -0700
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From: au329@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ronda Hauben)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> J.C.R. Licklider, pointers to more info.
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Sender: au329@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ronda Hauben)
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of "virtual community" and J.C.R. Licklider, 1968.

Reply to message from lpress@ISI.EDU of Tue, 23 Jul

Good to see Larry's reference to the Liclider and Taylor article
describing "communities of common interest". The article is
appeared in 1968 before the ARPANET and sets out the vision
that the ARPANET helped make possible.

[~snip~]

Our online Netizens book has several chapters referring to Licklider
and describing the vision that set the basis for the ARPANET and
then the Internet.

See especially Chapter 5 "The Vision of Interactive Computing
and the Future"
and Chapter 6 Cybernetics, Time-sharing, Human-Computer Symbiosis
and Online Communities: Creating a Supercommunity of Online
Communities
The URL for the Netizens netbook is
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/

>
>[Moderator's Note: J.C.R. Licklider may well be the most influential, and
>least publicly recognized, person in the history of computer science.  He
>set ARPA on course towards constructing ARPANET and directed Project MAC at
>MIT; he also funded Engelbart's work on creating the mouse and windows.  If
>anyone has  recollections of Licklider, I think we would all be delighted
>to read them.]

I agree that Licklider is very important and we have tried to document
some of his contribution in our Netizens netbook. It would be
good to see some discussion of his contribution here on this list
as well as hear memories of him and his work.

Ronda
au329@cleveland.freeenet.edu
rh120@columbia.edu


--
Ronda Hauben           "The Netizens: On the History and Impact of
au329@cleveland.freenet.edu      Usenet and the Internet
     http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 01:26:28 -0700
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Subject: CM> Dead ends of hardware evolution
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Sender: /S=J.WALKERLIDDELL/OU1=S26L07A/AD=ATTMAIL/C=US@mhs-fswa.attmail.com
Subject: Dead ends of hardware evolution

I've heard of some unusual and now-abandoned ways of putting together
computer hardware:  my father tells me that someone really built a
computer that used decimal memory rather than binary storage, and
another filk tune (to the tune of "Old Time Religion") refers to two
more.  "Oh the IBM 650 had a memory quite nifty on a drum revolving
swiftly and it's good enough for me", and also one I don't completely
recall:  "Oh the _______ is famous, couldn't add so who could blame
us when we called it ignoramus, ...".  What machine couldn't add?
Why did the 650 have a drum instead of a disk?  Did someone really
try decimal memory?  Curious to hear whatever people know.
                                             Jenny
/s=J.WalkerLiddell/ou1=s26l07a@mhs-fswa.attmail.com
         "...I find e-mail to be often undependable and annoying to
access..."  Clifford Stoll, _Silicon Snake Oil_
______________________________________________________________________
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From: "Laurence I. Press" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> SCCS Interface magazine.
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Sender: "Laurence I. Press" 
Subject: re SCCS Interface

> large club of computer enthusiasts. I think some dispute broke out over who
> actually owned the magazine, when it turned out to be worth owning, and they
> parted ways...Bob going off the publish Interface Age, which flourished for

With law suits all around!  For a while both mags continued, with
nearly indentical mastheads.  The word "interface" was printed very
large, and Bob's had a teeny "age" between the bars of the last "E" in
Interface.  We (SCCS) felt we were cheated -- I don't know how Bob felt.


>The leader of  SCCS was a round, balding chap (Dr. Lou...unh...Lou

Lou Fields.

Larry
______________________________________________________________________
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Subject: CM> J. C. R. Licklider, pointer to more info.
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Sender: "Laurence I. Press" 
Subject: J. C. R. Licklider


> [Moderator's Note: J.C.R. Licklider may well be the most influential, and
> least publicly recognized, person in the history of computer science.  He
> set ARPA on course towards constructing ARPANET and directed Project MAC at
> MIT; he also funded Engelbart's work on creating the mouse and windows.  If
> anyone has  recollections of Licklider, I think we would all be delighted
> to read them.]

I fully agree that Lick's contribution was immense, and he was a super
nice person to boot.  For an overview on Lick, Engelbart, and
others see http://som1.csudh.edu/fac/lpress/articles/history.htm.

Larry
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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From: "Joshua S. Hodas" 
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Subject: CM> Early On-Line Services
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Sender: "Joshua S. Hodas" 
Subject: Re: CM> Early On-Line Services

>Sender: LESPEA@muze.com (Leslie Pearson)
>Subject: Early On-Line Services
>
>
>Does anyone remember the early On-Line services such as the Source? (I
>had friends who had an account on that in 1981-1982.) I also recently
>found some documents for a service called People Link/Plink that was
>active in the mid 1980's. I still occasionally e-mail or exchange
>Christmas cards with people I met there.
>
>I briefly glanced at the old literature - the baud rate was 300 baud with
>an extra charge for 1200 baud - wow - the on-line world has come a long
>way!
>
>Leslie Pearson
>(lespea@muze.com)


I was an early subscriber to the source. My first account was one of their
first 50 or so. I don't remember the year, but I would guess 1979 or so.
My access was from my Apple II (serial #3318) via a hayes 300 baud
"micromodem".  The hayes was a two-piece job with a card in the
Apple two connected to a smoke-grey lucite box about the size of the
current supra modems which acted as a coupler. I recall that it was
quite a task explaining it to the phone company. First I had to have
them come out and install a modular jack in my room (this was, I think
just before the time of the break-up so we still had permanently wired
phones
in our house) and give them the FCC certification number and ringer
equivalence number (which basically rated the electrical load the modem
would put on the line in terms of an equivalent number of bell ringers.)
before they would approve its use.(And recall, in those days the phone
company was always checking the load on your line for signs of
ilegal self-installed phones).

As to the source itself I don't remember a whole lot. I dialed in through
local Telenet and Tymenet (do they still exist) point-of-presence. You
would first get a prompt from the POP and then type a command to connect
to the source (which was in Maclean, Virginia).

Then it was a pretty simple text based interface. They had
email (self-contained of course), bulletin-boards, and chat. I don't
remember
if their was multi-person chat rooms or not. I don't think there was
much source-provided content.

The only real bit of histor I remeber was a time when some guy started
a joke campaign on the bulletin-boards that he called "Americans United to
Beat the Dutch". I have no idea what motivated it, but it seemed to hang on

for some time.  I also recall a period of controversy over the sysops
censoring (or at least reading) personal mail, and an agreement that it
would stop.

At some point in the early 80's the source was bought out and shut down by
compuserve and everyone got a compuserve account. This was soon after
I left for college, and I remember that when I asked for them to change the

billing info from my parents to me, they said this would require closing
the
old account and opening a new one, which I did (only to close the
compuserve
account a few months later since I didn't like it). Last year I was at my
Dad's
apartment and noticed a compuserve magazine. I asked him when he got
an account and he said he had been getting those magazines for years and
just threw them away. It turns out they had never closed the old account
and had been billing his credit card the base charge every month for more
than
ten years. Since his secretary pays the bils and he never looks at them
they had
just been paid. In the end I think compuserve agreed to refund about
$50-$100!


Josh Hodas

------------

Dr. Joshua S. Hodas                     hodas@cs.hmc.edu
Department of Computer Science  (909) 621-8650
Harvey Mudd College                     (909) 621-8465 (fax)
1250 North Dartmout Ave
Claremont, CA 91711                     http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~hodas
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 01:42:17 -0700
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From: deyoung@rpcp.mit.edu (Tice DeYoung)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Early memory of "networking."
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Sender: deyoung@rpcp.mit.edu (Tice DeYoung)
Subject: DATA TRANSMISSION BETWEEN INCOMPATABLE SYSTEMS

Back in the late seventies to early eighties we had a data transmission
problem.  We had two PCs, one had an 8" floppy drive and the other had a
5.25" floppy drive.  Of course we had the need to have similar data on both
systems (I forget why).  Luckily we were running CP/M.  We would put the
data into memory on one system using DDT and check the starting and ending
places for the data.  We had two routines running in the upper parts of the
memory, one to send and the other to receive data.  We took twisted pair
and connected the two systems together.  We told one system to send a
certain number of bytes, starting at the right location.  We then had a
compatriot standing at the other end of the hall who simultaneously started
the receive program, this time receiving a certain number of bytes to be
stored starting at the same location.  It usually took several tries to get
the timing of send and receive correctly, but it worked.  This was my first
introduction to "networking".

Tice DeYoung
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 01:45:53 -0700
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From: rab@well.com
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Ted Nelson, Xanadu, pointers to more info.
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Sender: rab@well.com
Subject: Re:  CPSR-HISTORY digest 34


Someone wrote:
>There was a very well done article about Ted Nelson in WIRED Magazine a
>year ago or more ago which claimed that his XANADU software project was
>the longest standing and most expensive vaporware project ever.

Actually, I would call that WIRED article one of the most disgusting
examples of yellow journalism, biased reporting, and shoddy research that
has ever seen print.  The author did not get any significant facts right
beyond those dates and events which had already been widely published, and
even those he managed to creatively reinterpret in the worst possible way.
If you read the article, I suggest you also read Ted's response to it,
available on the Web at    http://www.well.com/user/rab/lemonade.html
Also see Ted's pages at    http://www.xanadu.net/the.project/

Adding up all the money spent over the years on Xanadu would be tricky
at best, but I'm quote confident in asserting that the total is at least
an order of magnitude, and maybe two, *smaller* than what the typical large
computer industry vaporware vendor spends on marketing non-existent products
in just one year.  As for the number of years it's been pending, well, there
it's clearly the hands-down winner.    ;-)

--
  Robert Bickford           rab@well.com
     Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary
______________________________________________________________________
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 01:49:34 -0700
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From: "Peter D. Junger" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Origins of NEXIS?
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Sender: "Peter D. Junger" 
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of NEXIS?


Our Moderator writes:

: [Moderator's Note: LEXIS-NEXIS may be one of the oldest, and most robust,
: examples of an online database accessible from myriad points across the
: globe.  If anyone worked on implementing LEXIS-NEXIS, or has stories of its
: creation, please send them to the list.  There's also a story here of how
: newspapers signed away electronic rights to this service long before
: understanding that one day they'd want them back.]

LEXIS, which is an online database of law cases, statutes, and related
matters started out in life as a project of the Ohio Bar Association
and was originally known as OBAR.  It started up in 1970 or 1971, I
believe.  That was the first academic year that I taught at Case Western
Reserve University Law School which was the first Law School in the
country to have an OBAR terminal.

The terminals were large dedicated boxes connected by a 300 baud modem
and dialup telephone lines (at least I don't think that they were
dedicated) to a central mainframe that held the database.  The
terminals were connected to a printer.  (I think--though today it is
hard to believe--that the printer was one of those that used that
slippery and nearly unreadable heat sensitive paper.)

The initial data base consisted of the full text of many--perhaps
most--Ohio cases and nothing else.  The cases were all in upper case
as if they had all been entered into the system by Archie the
cockroach on the day that the capital key was locked on.

One could search through the cases using boolean operators; the
present Lexis system still uses a superset of those operators.  It
was, and remains, an excellent system for finding cases dealing with
the subject that one was interested in.  But I doubt if anyone
originally dreamed of using it as the source of cases--between the
slow speed and the solid capitals it would have been useless for that
purpose and, even if that were not true, the output from the system
went only to the terminal and the printer.  (I remember that several
years later after it was taken over by Mead Data and renamed Lexis, I
tried to figure out some way to supstitute and Apple // or an Osborne
luggable for the printer.  Not being a hardware type I never did
figure out a way to do it.  I also remember staring at it, trying to
determine whether it would be possible to get into the data base and
erase the word ``not'' in some critical court decision.)

--
Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
Internet:  junger@pdj2-ra.f-remote.cwru.edu    junger@samsara.law.cwru.edu
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 01:53:38 -0700
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Subject: CM> Early On-Line Services
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Sender: "J.D. Abolins" 
Subject: Re: CM> Early On-Line Services

On Wed, 24 Jul 1996, Leslie Pearson wrote:

> Does anyone remember the early On-Line services such as the Source? (I
> had friends who had an account on that in 1981-1982.) I also recently
> found some documents for a service called People Link/Plink that was
> active in the mid 1980's. I still occasionally e-mail or exchange
> Christmas cards with people I met there.

I was also on People Link (let me see, I think it was a part of the
American Home Network company).  It was the first online service I was
on.  Back about 1986 or so, I saw a little article in some newsletter or
another than mentioned a Jewish Activist Network upon People Link.  THis
was of interest to me and I signed up.  Yes, it was a simple 300-1200 baud
system.


J.D. Abolins
Meyda BBS (Ewing, NJ) 609-883-8124  "Meyda means 'Information.'"
WWW Home Page:  http://pluto.njcc.com/~jda-ir/
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 01:57:15 -0700
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To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Early On-Line Services
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Sender: jgro@netcom.com (Jeremy Grodberg)
Subject: Re: CM> Early On-Line Services

Leslie Pearson wrote:
>
>Does anyone remember the early On-Line services such as the Source?

The only one I remember was Portal, which seemed like a really good
deal.  I remember planning to sign up for it, except no one else I
knew had email and I was not that interested in reading Usenet to be
worth the money.

--
Jeremy Grodberg
jgro@netcom.com
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 02:01:23 -0700
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From:  (Peter Capek)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Pointer to article on origins of "vaporware."
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Date: 24 Jul 1996 10:22:43 EDT
From:  (Peter Capek)
Subject: Origin of "vaporware"

According to

     http://www.byte.com/art/9509/sec7/art26.htm

the term "vaporware" was coined to describe OVATION, a product announced in
1983 and never shipped.

              Peter Capek
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 01:07:10 -0700
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Subject: CM> Origins of Net for distance learning, PLATO.
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Sender: "Peter H. Salus" 
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of Net for distance learning?


I think that distance learning on the Net precedes the
Internet as we know it by many years.  The first real
system was PLATO, developed at U.Illinois in the
late '60s and marketed by Control Data for ``computer-
aided instruction.''  In 1976 this was priced at
$5 million for the software + $6K per terminal.  Essick
and Kolstad elaborated the Illinois software to produce
``notes,'' announced at the Santa Monica USENIX in
January 1983.

See Hiltz & Turoff (1978, 1993); H.J. Peters in Computer Decisions
8 (1976); J.S. Quarterman, The Matrix (1990; and P.H. Salus,
Casting the Net (1995).
-----------------------------------------------------------
Peter H. Salus  #3303  4 Longfellow Place  Boston, MA 02114
        peter@pedant.com         +1 617 723 3092
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______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 01:14:13 -0700
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From: davidsol@panix.com (David S. Bennahum)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Was,  Why DOS won out, Is: Myths of personal computing?
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Sender: Bryan Pfaffenberger 
Subject: Was,  Why DOS won out, Is: Myths of personal computing?


I recall reading an interview with Gary Kildall (can't remember where,
sorry) that he strenously denies what he calls the "myth" that he gave IBM
the cold shoulder, and was not "flying his plane" when IBM came to call.
Rather, as I recall, he said the non-disclosure that IBM proposed would
have limited DR's then-current business (in some way, sorry don't
remember), and he needed time to figure out the implications of the
agreement. This wasn't fast enough for IBM's taste, apparently. Anyone else
recall this interview?

Bryan Pfaffenberger
Div. of Technology, Culture, and Communication
School of Engineering/University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22936 USA 804 924-6098
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 01:24:35 -0700
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From: "keith reid-green" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Earliest interactive computer game
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Sender: "keith reid-green" 
Subject: re: Earliest interactive computer game

Yesterday, somebody asked about the earliest interactive computer game.
There was a tic-tac-toe game on the IBM 704 where I worked in 1957.  The
player played against the computer, using two of six sense switches to
denote the row and column to play in.  The computer then made its play, and
results were displayed on a CRT (cathode-ray tube).

The tennis game referred to in yesterday's note probably was the one played
on an analog computer at Brookhaven Labs in 1958.  This is according to
David Ahl's essay on computer games in Encyclopedia of Computer Science,
3rd. ed., C 1993, Van Nostrand Reinhold, NY.

Keith S. Reid-Green
Educational Testing Service
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 01:34:56 -0700
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From: bill@atd.co.za (William Bowles)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> History of E-Publishing on the Net
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Sender: bill@atd.co.za (William Bowles)
Subject: History of E-Publishing on the Net

I don't know if you're developing Community Memory in some kind of
chronological order but I've been involved with the Internet since around
1979 when I was living in New York and set up the New York On-Line (NYOL)
BBS, probably the first BBS dedicated to the networking of non-corporate
news and information over the Internet (and FidoNet).

Essentially NYOL started as a 'best of' Peacenet. I would download around
180 newsgroups per day and extract the best stories, journalism, press
releases etc and re-network them using FidoNet feeds. The idea was that
PeaceNet would offer them as a 'value-added' service to PN subscribers,
whereby users could get the essential info on around 25 subjects without
having to go through the tedious process of searching through 100s of
Newsgroups (though this never happened).

But it was from this that developed I think probably the first electronic
journal produced outside the corporate world, "SouthScan - A Bulletin of
Southern African Affairs". SouthScan is a weekly print publication based in
London that probably offers the most authoritative analysis of South Africa
and the southern African region available. It targetted policy makers in
govt and business, and in the US its subscribers included the CIA, the
State Dept as well as universities and libraries and of course the UN and
relevant NGOs.

I met the publisher of SouthScan in London in 1986 where we decided to
produce an electronic edition for US readers. This was in the days before
cheap leased lines and 28.8 modems, let alone Web sites!

A Chronology of the creation of the Electronic and Print Editions of SouthScan

Wednesday PM or Thursday AM:
1. The stories in ASCII format would be sent (x-modem) from London to
PeaceNet in California. This was the most hazardous part of the process as
x-modem transfers were liable to crap out and often involved sending the
files many times before they made it through intact.

Preparing the Print Edition
2. I would dump the stories into a Pagemaker template, format the layout
and produce camera-ready artwork on my laser printer.

3. A highspeed copier-binder would be used to create the edition and around
4 hours after laying out the pages, the edition would be in the post box on
its way to our subscribers.

Preparing the Electronic Editions
4. I would then prepare 3 different electronic editions;
   a. for the NYOL BBS (this could be searched rapidly)
   b. for PeaceNet
   c. for Newsnet (this had to contain special format commands so that it
could be
      searched, headlines called up etc.

By the end of the day, a print and three electronic editions were created.
Considering that the entire process was done by one person (me), it was a
pretty advanced development for the time. And aside from glitches, the
entire process was completed in about 4 hours (not including the writing of
the stories of course!).

The US edition was done this way with changes, for nearly four years. As
communications reliability improved, instead of receiving ASCII files from
London, I would get PageMaker files which cut down on the production time
for the print edition but increased production time for electronic
editions.

Today of course, such things are commonplace but in 1986 the idea of using
the Net for this kind of product was virtually unknown.

Bill

+----------------------------------------------------+
+ All Things Digital (Pty) Ltd - Internet Architects +
+   158 Jan Smuts Av, Rosebank 2196 South Africa     +
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______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 01:43:37 -0700
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From: kateley@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU (Julian Kateley)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> J.C.R. Licklider
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Sender: kateley@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU (Julian Kateley)
Subject: Re: CM> J.C.R. Licklider

He also made major contributions to the 1966 EDUCOM Task Force on
Information Networks "Summer Study" held in Boulder, Colorado. These
contributions are documented in the book
"EDUNET - Report of the Summer Study on Information Networks". I have a
vivid recollection of him at that month-long meeting and very much enjoyed
his participation.

[Moderator's Note: Could you share with us some specifics as to how he
participated, what he recommended?]

-- Julian Kateley, kateley@colostate.edu, (970) 491-5778
-- ACNS, Colorado State University, Fort Collins CO 80523-2028
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 01:50:28 -0700
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From:  (Peter Capek)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> City-oriented on-line services, Minitel.
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Sender:  (Peter Capek)
Subject: City-oriented on-line services

David Bennahum wrote:

>        I am wondering if there are earlier examples of on-line services
> creating city-wide databases of this sort, and if so does anyone recall
> them?  Were they successes, flops?  Is there any historical basis for this
> universal consensus that this is a good metaphor based on previous online
> services?

I recall a service advertised in New York Magazine (I probably tore
out the ad, and will look for it) about 3 years ago which was based on
the use of the French Minitel terminal and for a relatively small
monthly fee offered a service such as you describe.  My vague
recollection is that it offered some yellow-pages-type information,
movie and other entertainment schedules and information and so on.
Aside from the ad, I never saw it mentioned anywhere else.

               Peter Capek
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 01:57:15 -0700
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From: Paul Ceruzzi 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Licklider, Timesharing, and Popular History
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Sender: Paul Ceruzzi 
Subject: Licklider, Timesharing, and Popular History

In an aside to a posting about J.C.R. Licklider, Les Earnest lamented
the tendency of popular histories, esp. recent PBS documentaries, to
credit interactive computing too much to the PC and not enough to
timesharing.

As one of the consultants and narrators of the PBS/BBC series "The
Machine that Changed the World," I plead guilty to this error. However I
offer as an apology my belief that the mental model of a "computer
utility," which early time-sharing advocates had, impeded progress. That
is, they thought of one or a few central computers (one even proposed
siting it in Kansas City), accessed through a jack in the wall just like
you get electric power. For a variety of technical reasons (so far!) it
is not practical to have individual electric power plants in everyone's
home, car, briefcase, etc. But it _is_ not only practical but preferable
to have computing power so distributed (with a few exceotions). That was
what I was trying to point out in the series. If I/we seemed to have
slighted the time-sharing pioneers, I apologize.
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 02:04:49 -0700
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From: au329@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ronda Hauben)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> J.C.R. Licklider
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Sender: au329@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ronda Hauben)
Subject: Re: CM> J.C.R. Licklider

Reply to message from les@Steam.Stanford.EDU of Thu, 25 Jul
>
>
>Sender: Les Earnest 
>Subject: CM> J.C.R. Licklider
>
>The Moderator writes:
>   J.C.R. Licklider may well be the most influential, and
>   least publicly recognized, person in the history of computer science.  He
>   set ARPA on course towards constructing ARPANET and directed Project MAC at
>   MIT; he also funded Engelbart's work on creating the mouse and windows.  If
>   anyone has  recollections of Licklider, I think we would all be delighted
>   to read them.
>
>Licklider was a great guy and an inspiration to work with.  He was

Les, why do you say Licklider was an inspiration to work with?

>indeed very influential, mostly through his recognition and support of
>inventions by others, but he