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

Tim May tcmay at got.net
Wed Oct 18 20:05:28 PDT 2000


At 10:45 PM -0400 10/18/00, David Honig wrote:
>At 03:29 PM 10/18/00 -0400, 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.
>
>Its quite simple.  In 1995 MS released a version of Windoze which
>included a TCP/IP stack by default.  Previously you had to acquire
>one and figure out how to install it.  While fortunes were made
>on this, the collection of routers known as the Net was unavailable
>to Joe Sixpack until then.

I don't buy this at all. Maybe there is some subtlety I am missing completely.

As a Mac user, PPP and similar protocols were bundled early on. In 
1993-4 the first talk of Mosaic was appearing. In 1994-5, Mosaic and 
its successor were readily available.

Which caused which, a default TCP/IP stack in Windows 95 or Netscape 1.0?

(By the way, friends of mine are happily surfing with Windows 3.1 and 
whatever MS- or aftermarket-based TCP/IP tools are needed. Most of 
them don't even know what a "TCP/IP stack" is...they simply download 
what the ISP tells them is needed, or they insert the CD-ROM and 
click to start.)

As a Mac user, it was the availability of Mosaic and Netscape which 
altered the landscape. The TCP/IP stack junk was just behind the 
scenes machinery which various vendors were then racing to provide.

Saying the modern Net age started when Microsoft provided a TCP/IP 
stack seems overly wonkish.

--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.






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