What is "The Internet" TCP/IP or UNIX-to-UNIX ?

Barry Shein bzs at world.std.com
Mon Apr 5 00:20:29 UTC 2010


I remember around 1987 when Helsinki (Univ I believe) hooked up
Talinn, Estonia via uucp (including usenet), who then hooked up MSU
(Moscow State Univ) and the traffic began flowing.

You could just about see the wide-eyed disbelief by some as they saw
for example alt.politics, you people just say almost *anything!*, with
your real name and location attached, and NOTHING HAPPENS???

I still believe that had as much to do with the collapse of the Soviet
Union as the million other politicians who wish to take credit.

It's arguable that UUCP (and Usenet, email, etc that it carried) was
one of the most powerful forces for change in modern history. All you
needed was some freely available software, a very modest computer, a
modem, a phone line, and like so many things in life, a friend.

And then once you "got it", you looked towards connecting to the
"real" internet, you knew just what you were after.


-- 
        -Barry Shein

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