50 yrs. ago today

[Fred Cisin]

>> The first "internet" packet was certainly a significant event.

On Tue, 29 Oct 2019, Paul Koning wrote:
> Indeed.  So "remote communication between heterogeneous computers" would 
> probably be a good description.

not so sure, . . . I think that there had been others.  BUT, first with 
the IP protocol, . . .

> I'm not sure it's "bogus" but you have to understand the qualifiers. 
> Columbus is a good example, because it's well known that other Europeans 
> traveled to America quite some time before he did.  However, those 
> earlier visits made no lasting impression on history, while the one 
> Columbus made did.

so, . . .
"first" means earliest that WE are aware of, . . . 
"first" means the one that our schoolbooks talk about, . . . 
Being in the history books may mean "most important", but not "first"; the 
textbooks in the schools are astonishingly inaccurate.  And, yes, some of 
them are going to say that Steve Jobs invented computers.

> But it was first in the same sense that the Vikings were first to 
> America.

There were some Asians? quite a bit earlier.  The residents did not evolve 
here.