Bob Lucky

[Chris Zach]

> Thanks for letting us know.  I got to meet Robert Lucky when he was at
> Bellcore in the mid-1990s and visited us at U S WEST Advanced
> Technologies in Boulder, CO.  He said Bellcore spent years designing a
> public internet-like system at scale but their #1 concern was where
> content was going to come from.  They secured preliminary deals with
> some content-providers, which at the time were the newspapers and wire
> services, but the whole system was scrapped when the internet took
> off, as we know it today.  By far their biggest surprise was the
> volume of content that originated from end users (e.g. web sites);
> they didn't see that coming at all.

That sounds like AT&T connect! I remember working on it in the late 
80's, it was based on IPX/SPX, X400 mail and an X500 directory 
structure. In fact I think that was the identity system that Novell used 
for the later NDS directory system to replace the trusty rusty Bindery.

It was all supposed to run on ISDN lines to consumers and would be the 
ultimate market/info place all lovingly run and curated by AT&T. Then of 
course those meddling kids at FTP released PKTDRV......

Anyone else remember this?

CZ