CDR: Re: I created the "Al Gore created the Internet" story

[Tim May]

At 5:12 PM -0400 10/18/00, Declan McCullagh 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.

To Bell's point, by 1986 many people _were_ on the Internet. Modems 
were typically 1200. 2400-baud modems were available. 9600s may have 
existed (Racal-Vadic, others), but they were too expensive for casual 
use.

My first ISP was (according to him) the first ISP to offer accounts 
to "civilians" (non-academic, non-company-paid, non-governmental). 
This was Portal Communications, out of Cupertino, CA. I got my 
account in '88 or so. A Mac Plus with a 1200 baud modem, replaced a 
year later with a Mac IIci and a 2400 baud modem. And so on.

BTW, my little Mac Plus had more than adequate screen resolution to 
handle my mail program (pine), newsreader (tin), and misc. word 
processors, outline processors, and suchlike.

(As a side note, John Little shut down his ISP service in the early 
90s, due to obvious competition from Netcom and others. He re-started 
the company as a billing company...and his stake in Portal Software 
is into the billions of dollars, modulo the recent fall in prices of 
stocks. PRSF is the symbol.)

Usenet and mailing lists were usable by the cognoscenti from the 
mid-80s up to the "modern age." Using gopher and Archie and anonymous 
ftp was for the cognoscenti only, though. Not much fun for ordinary 
folks.

This obviously all changed around 1994, with Mosaic/Netscape. "Point 
and click" cleared the way. The illusion of "going to" a site (URLs) 
did the trick.

Faster computers weren't important, in my view. Better screens were 
only slightly important. Modem speeds were more important.

Ironically, I was using a 28.8K modem by around 1992. A big 
improvement over my 9600 modem. I say "ironically" because 28.8K is 
what I am now connecting at! Though I have a 56K modem, I cannot 
reliably connect at much better than 28.8, sometimes 33.3. (I live in 
a rural area. Can't get a cable modem because I don't have, or want, 
cable. Can't get DSL because I'm too far from the CO. This may change 
in a year or so. Don't want to spend $700/mo for a Tachyon rig. 
Satellite systems may be coming (Gideon, DirecTV), but are not here 
yet.)

Friends of mine have DSL, cable modems, even their own T1s. Is there 
output any higher than mine? Mostly they just get pages loading in an 
instant, instead of the seconds or so it takes me to load a page. For 
actual reading of what's on a page, they have no speed advantages. 
28.8 is still faster than people can read, typically.

This is where I've been, mostly happily, for several years. My output 
on mailing lists and to newsgroups has not been insignificant. And I 
happily use Google, Deja, IMDB, and a hundred other sites. I even 
send and receive images. About all I cannot plausibly do is download 
movies, or hundreds of Napster songs, or host Web pages locally. No 
skin off my nose.

The point: I get along fine at 28.8. The modern Web *experience* is 
what has changed dramatically, not modem speeds and screen 
resolutions.
The very growth of the Web is what fed it. Prior to browsers and 
URLs, the Net just wasn't as interesting, and it was limited to the 
aforementioned cognoscenti.

--Tim May

-- 
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon"             | black markets, collapse of governments.