CDR: Re: I created the "Al Gore created the Internet" story
Tim May
tcmay at got.net
Wed Oct 18 14:55:43 PDT 2000
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.
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