"First Internet message" and ... A WHOLE LOT OF UNRELATED STUFF.

Fred Cisin cisin at xenosoft.com
Sun Nov 24 16:59:45 CST 2019


On Sun, 24 Nov 2019, Murray McCullough via cctalk wrote:
> The first Internet message was sent 60 yrs. ago on Nov. 21 between SRI and
> UCLA. It was one-to-many, or more accurate one-to-one, but the world today
> is many-to-many though cctalk runs through a moderator. The Internet
> democratizes and gives a certain freedom to us all but it can lead to
> mis-information  from "one" or mis-interpretation by the "many".
> Computerization of society as seen through cctalk tells this story well
> mainly through the hardware side.

Is that message about
1) history of internet?  (THANK YOU for specifying "internet", otherwise 
"computer to computer" involves much older history.  Definition and 
history of the WORD "internet" is also critical, the October 29, 
1969 ARPANET message is a more arguable contender.)
BTW, do you know of any actual use of the word/name "internet" prior to 
the December 1974 RFC about TCP?
Therefore, those messages were sent on PRECURSORS to the internet, NOT on 
the internet.
(MOST other messages about "first" anything are arguable due to ignored 
prior history  (cf. Columbus, Osborne Portable, etc.)

2) one-to-one V one-to-many V many-to-many?  (are you saying that it was 
one-to-many?)

3) "though cctalk runs through a moderator"   CCTALK moderation?   (what 
is the connection?)

4) internet "democratization"/"freedon"?  (or is that a "contrast" 
lead-in for discussing misinformation?)

5) misinformation/unreliability of what you read?

6) computerization of society?

7) cctalk as a view of computerization of society?   REALLY?
(a significant resource, ceretainly; telling the story? doubtful)

8) cctalk as being hardware side?

If it is about ALL of those, please break it up into eight paragraphs, 
or maybe even eight separate posts, instead of four disjointed sentences, 
and flesh it out to make your points about each.  You've got some good 
points to make, but this salad of concepts doesn't do them justice.
For example, moderation of cctalk might be interpreted as being about a 
bottleneck of one/many-to-many, OR as being related to misinformation.
Being thrown into an unrelated sentence takes away meaning.


The October 29, 1969 ARPANET message was "LO".  It was claimed to be 
"LOGIN", interrupted by system crash.  Sometimes misinterpreted as being 
slang for "HELLO", or even LOL.
https://thisdayintechhistory.com/10/29/first-message-on-the-internet/
Notice also that they had the sense not to rely on computers for 
maintaining the logs!  Or maybe handwriting was more economical than 
computer resources (cf. "The Feeling Of Power" by Asimov 1958)



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