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

Trei, Peter ptrei at rsasecurity.com
Wed Oct 18 14:44:22 PDT 2000



> ----------
> Declan McCullagh[SMTP:declan at 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





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