The Internet Turns 40, For a Second Time 152
sean_nestor writes with this excerpt from The Register: "Some date the dawn of the net to September 12, 1969, when a team of engineers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) connected the first two machines on the first node of ARPAnet, the US Department of Defense-funded network that eventually morphed into the modern interwebs. But others — including Professor Leonard Kleinrock, who led that engineering team — peg the birthday to October 29, when the first message was sent between the remote nodes. 'That's the day,' Kleinrock tells The Reg, 'the internet uttered its first words.' ...A 50kbps AT&T pipe connected the UCLA and SRI nodes, and the first message sent was the word 'log' — or at least that was the idea. UCLA would send the 'log' and SRI would respond with 'in.' But after UCLA typed the 'l' and the 'o,' the 'g' caused a memory overflow on the SRI IMP. ... 'So the first message was "Lo," as in "Lo and Behold,"' Kleinrock says. 'We couldn't have asked for a better message — and we didn't plan it.'"
7 Weeks Gestation (Score:5, Interesting)
Some date the dawn of the net to September 12, 1969, when a team of engineers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) connected the first two machines on the first node of ARPAnet... others peg the birthday to October 29, when the first message was sent between the remote nodes.
That's not such a difficult metaphor to construct. The net was *conceived* when the two nodes came together, just as you and I were *conceived* when two nodes, um, er, yeah. And just like then, nobody knew what the result of coupling of the first Internet nodes would be, if anything.
It was *born* when someone slapped it on the bottom and it did something seen by the people gathered around. You probably went "WAAAA!". The Internet went "LO". Of course "G" caused a fault, because the next letter was supposed to be "L".
So I think it would be fair to say that the world would want to celebrate the "birthday" of the Internet today, October 29, just as the world (or your corner of it) celebrate your birthday on the day you made your emergence into the world.
Celebrating the day the Internet was *conceived*... well, that seems a bit weird.
Re:surprising first message (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:7 Weeks Gestation (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:40 years of 40th birthdays (Score:4, Interesting)
If i remember my computing history class correctly (Score:3, Interesting)
First Packet? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Ping Time? (Score:3, Interesting)
>>>thought the Arpanet was there so I could play Zork
ZORK online: Unfortunately this doesn't "fee" right; it should be light blue text on a dark blue background the way I remember. Or pale green on a dark green CRT. (shrug). http://thcnet.net/zork/ [thcnet.net]
You are in an open field west of a big white house with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.
> open mailbox
Opening the mailbox reveals:
A leaflet.
> read leaflet
Welcome to Zork! Zork is a game of adventure, danger, and low cunning. In it you will explore some of the most amazing territory ever seen by mortal man. Hardened adventurers have run screaming from the terrors contained within.
No computer should be without one!
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Interesting)
ATDT5601750
(dialtone)..... dee-doo-bee-boop-da-ba-dee-bee.... skeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee skrooooooo....
CONNECT 1200
.
.
.
Welcome to Slash Dot BBS!
login: commodor
pass: $$$$
command (H for help): E
Welcome to Email. Command (H for help): N
TO: Mobile /end
SUBJ: Huh?
BODY: Hello. Your last message did not come through. All I received was "lo". Was that LOL? Or "lo here come the sheep"? hahahahahahahahahahahahaha. L8r.
command (H for help): S
Message sent. Command (H for help): +++
ATH
.
.
.
*#$!@^(!%!$(&
NO CARRIER
Re:Drinking Straw (Score:1, Interesting)
Actually I was thinking the opposite - 50kbps seems pretty fast for 1969.
I wasn't around in the 80's, but wasn't 300bit/s the norm even then? My first modem was 9600 and that was in the 90's!
Maybe they mean 50bit/s ... ?
Re:Oh great... (Score:3, Interesting)
> Nice...where do I send the Guiness?
It'll probably get stolen on its way to Malaysia... ;)
> But the question remains, were you elite enough to simply listen to the tones, or did you hold it up to a VoIP phone and look at the Asterisk console output?
Neither :).
I uploaded the relevant bit to: http://www.dialabc.com/sound/detect/ [dialabc.com]
There's also this: http://www.zeebar.com/tkddt/ [zeebar.com] (but didn't work so well on the sample).
I could probably learn it, but I'm just too lazy to sit down and practice deciphering DTMF tones.