The Internet & our hobby

[Mouse]

> Early internet systems--I'm not sure where to draw the line between
> Usenet, ARPANet and Internet [...]

I would say that the Internet was the collection of hosts/networks
supporting (and assuming) more-or-less[%] real-time host-to-host
connectivity.

[%] RFC 1149, anyone? :-)

Thus, a host on dialup UUCP, even if the call is nailed up, doesn't
count.

Of course, I am hardly an authority in this regard.

> When I added email Internet communication, I used a package for
> Windows called UUPC, which was pretty much a UUCP clone.  Others
> simply signed up to a service, such as Compuserve.

Indeed.  And, for a significant time, I too could mostly get mail to
and from the Internet, but I would not say that any of the computers I
routinely used during that time were on the Internet.  (For those with
pathalias data from back then, mcgill-vision was my home site....)

> The Internet is not the World-Wide-Web.

_So_ true.  It really annoys me when an organization advertises
Internet connectivity and actually delivers half-assed crippled
Web-only connectivity.  (I've given serious thought to building an
IP-over-HTTP transport just to deal with them.)

> I do miss the web-less Internet in some respects.

Oh, man, so do I.  So do I.

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