---------- Declan McCullagh[SMTP:declan@well.com] wrote: At 12:22 10/18/2000 -0700, jim bell wrote:

...

I ask this, what I believe would be an excellent idea for an article: Why didn't the Internet develop even faster than it actually did? 9600 bps modems existed in 1986, not all that far in performance behind 28Kbps units. By 1986, numerous clones of the IBM PC and AT existed.

Internet deployment happened at a near-doubling every year starting around

1993, coincident with the deployment of the web.

Most computers in 1986 weren't up to it. Many of us were using Apple II computers with something like 278x192 resolution (in single hi res mode). Imagine such a beast doing networking. Ick.

-Declan

Been there, done that, got the credit. I was one of the original developers of Apple Kermit (in 6502 assembler) at Columbia University. Amongst other things, I added pseudo lowercase support (Apple ]['s had only capital letters). Apple Kermit included a VT52 emulator (on a 24x40 screen :-). If you look in Frank daCruz's "The Kermit Book" you'll find my name buried in the acknowledgments. The Arpanet at 300 baud taught patience..... Actually, by 86, the Mac was out, as was the PC/AT and (I think) the Amiga. These were much more capable machines than the Apple ][. Peter Trei