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Archive
My library was dukedom large enough.
- Prospero in Shakespeare's "The Tempest"
Cultural anthropologists can learn a lot about an ancient culture just by examining the artifacts that the
culture left behind. Likewise, we can try to understand what it was like
in the old character-mode days of BITNET and the Internet just by reading
what the people there felt was important enough to write down... er... type.
Many thanks to Ornoth D.A. Liscomb
for providing the archives of NutWorks and VM/COM.
If you have early BITNET/Internet newsletters or other interesting documents
that you feel should be added to the Archive, send
mail to chris@condon.net.
Index
The VM/COM Archives
When people start communicating using a new medium, they usually begin by
emulating a medium they already know (hence terms like "electronic mail").
VM/COM was BITNETs first electronic magazine. It started as a local University
of Maine user newsletter, and grew into an eclectic network magazine featuring
news, humor, editorials, and network tips. I wrote columns for the last
three issues of VM/COM, and it inspired me to try my hand at the electronic
magazine format with NetMonth.
- VM/COM, April 1984
- VM/COM, June 1985
- VM/COM, July 1985
- VM/COM, August 1985
- VM/COM, September 1985
- VM/COM, October 1985
- VM/COM, November 1985
- VM/COM, December 1985
- VM/COM, January - February 1986
- VM/COM, May - June 1986
- VM/COM, October - November 1986
The NetMonth
Archives
NetMonth was an online BITNET newsmagazine that I started and edited.
You can read more about how and why it came to be on the
Voices page.
These are the 38 issues of NetMonth I edited as they originally appeared.
This means that they are complete with the original typos, misspellings,
and other mistakes. They are artifacts of network history now, so I feel
that I should leave them "as is." Note that some of these are quite large
due to my fascination at the time with justified text and ASCII graphics.
- NetMonth, July 1986
- NetMonth, August 1986
- NetMonth, September 1986
- NetMonth, October 1986
- NetMonth, November 1986
- NetMonth, January 1987
- NetMonth, February 1987
- NetMonth, March 1987
- NetMonth, April 1987
- NetMonth, May 1987
- NetMonth, June 1987
- NetMonth, July 1987
- NetMonth, August 1987
- NetMonth, September 1987
- NetMonth, October 1987
- NetMonth, November 1987
- NetMonth, January 1988
- NetMonth, February 1988
- NetMonth, March 1988
- NetMonth, April 1988
- NetMonth, May 1988
- NetMonth, June 1988
- NetMonth, July 1988
- NetMonth, August 1988
- NetMonth, September 1988
- NetMonth, October 1988
- NetMonth, November 1988
- NetMonth, January 1989
- NetMonth, February 1989
- NetMonth, March 1989
- NetMonth, June 1989
- NetMonth, July-August 1989
- NetMonth, September 1989
- NetMonth, October 1989
- NetMonth, February 1990
- NetMonth, September 1990
- NetMonth, October 1990
- NetMonth, July 1991
These are the issues of NetMonth produced after Philip Baczewski took over
the NetMonth editorial duties:
The NetWeek
Archives
NetWeek was an experiment I tried in 1988 in order to send out new
BITNET information more quickly. It didn't work.
- NetWeek, 1/24/88
- NetWeek, 1/31/88
- NetWeek, 2/7/88
- NetWeek, 2/14/88
- NetWeek, 2/26/88
- NetWeek, 3/6/88
- NetWeek, 3/13/88
- NetWeek, 4/10/88
- NetWeek, 4/17/88
- NetWeek, 5/1/88
- NetWeek, 5/8/88
- NetWeek, 6/12/88
BITNET USERHELP and BITNET SERVERS
BITNET SERVERS was the successor to the original
BITLIST -- a list of BITNET servers and services.
BITNET USERHELP was a document I wrote to give
new BITNET users a quick tutorial on how to use the network. It was updated
several times, and was reprinted by many universities as part of their
official BITNET documentation
for students and faculty. (I recall that University of Dayton mailed me the
issues of the newsletters in which they reprinted it). I think the biggest
treat I got was when Yoshinori Hayakawa mailed me his translation of the
document into Japanese for Tohoku University in Japan. As an inside joke,
I sprinkled references to my nieces and nephews throughout USERHELP (look for
Daniel, Rebecca, and Kristen). No, I didn't forget Matthew and Ben...
they weren't born yet!
FSFNET and DargonZine
DargonZine (originally known as FSFNet) was first published in 1985. Between FSFnet
and DargonZine, it is the longest-running electronic magazine on the Internet.
DargonZine prints original medieval fantasy stories written by aspiring Internet writers. It
is the publication vehicle of the Dargon Project, a collaborative writing group where authors write in a common milieu, sharing settings
and characters. The project was founded to allow aspiring writers on the Internet to meet and become better writers through mutual
contact and collaboration. DargonZine only prints stories which take place in this setting.
The Nutworks
Archives
NutWorks was a humor magazine edited by Brent C.J. Britton of the University
of Maine and Leonard M. Friedman of City University of New York. It's a great
example of how people on the 'net would come together for a common
cause -- in this case, to bust a gut.
- NutWorks, January 1985
- NutWorks, February 1985
- NutWorks, March 1985
- NutWorks, April 1985
- NutWorks, September 1985
- NutWorks, October 1985
- NutWorks, November 1985
- NutWorks, December 1985
- NutWorks, February 1986
- NutWorks, March 1986
- NutWorks, April 1986
- NutWorks, May 1986
- NutWorks, October 1986
- NutWorks, December 1986
- NutWorks, January 1987
- NutWorks, February 1987
- NutWorks, April 1987
- NutWorks, May 1987
- NutWorks, July 1987
- NutWorks, October 1987
- NutWorks, January 1988
- NutWorks, February 1988
- NutWorks, May 1988
- NutWorks, July 1988
- NutWorks, July 1989
The BITNET Network
BITNET was started in 1981 with a link between Yale University and the
City University of New York. While BITNET users can send and receive
Internet mail, it is not part of the Internet itself (although many BITNET
sites are on both networks). Internet users are probably most familiar with
BITNET through LISTSERV, the mailing list server that originated in BITNET
and is now used widely on the Internet.
A BITNET overview provided by the BITNET Network
Information Center.
The BITNET Charter was written in 1986.
The Chats and the Relay Conferencing System
The Chats were conferencing systems where an individual could send an
real-time interactive message to a userid on a remote system, which would
rebroadcast those messages to other users who were signed on.
(See BITNET USERHELP
for a better explanation). They were similar in usage to the CB Simulator
on CompuServe (and the later America Online People Connection and the
Internet's Internet Relay Chat). Because interactive messages in BITNET
took precedence over mail or file traffic, these servers had a tendency to
slow down the network. This caused a great deal of controversy over how the
network should be used, and how this traffic could be controlled.
Chat Politics - The original letter by Henry
Nussbacher that started the Chat controversy, and some responses. This all
happened when I first became interested in BITNET. I didn't understand all
of the issues involved and I send Henry a rather angry note (to which he
replied -- and set me straight). Thankfully, that note has long
since been deleted.
Chat Analysis - Henry Nussbacher wrote Chat
Analysis to illustrate how the early conference machines were bringing
BITNET to its knees. His analysis inspired others to write a more efficient
linked conference machine system known as Relay.
Relay History - A great
article by Jeff Kell from 1987 about how and why Relay was developed.
The Gliding Byte Archives
The Gliding Byte was the second in a series of serial novels-a-clef that
blossomed on BITNET during the 1980s. For the story
behind it, see Barry D. Gates' Behind The Gliding Byte in
the Voices section.
- The Gliding Byte Cast List
- The Gliding Byte, Episode 0
- The Gliding Byte, Episode 1
- The Gliding Byte, Episode 2
- The Gliding Byte, Episode 3
- The Gliding Byte, Episode 4
- The Gliding Byte, Episode 5
- The Gliding Byte, Episode 6
- The Gliding Byte, Episode 7
- The Gliding Byte, Episode 8
- The Gliding Byte, Episode 9
- The Gliding Byte, Episode 10
- The Gliding Byte, Lost Episode 1
- The Gliding Byte, Episode 11
- The Gliding Byte, Episode 12
- The Gliding Byte, Lost Episode 2
- The Gliding Byte, Episode 13
- The Gliding Byte, Episode 14
- The Gliding Byte, Episode 15
- The Gliding Byte, Episode 16
- The Gliding Byte, Episode 17
- The Gliding Byte, Episode 18
- The Gliding Byte, Lost Episode 3
- The Gliding Byte, Episode 19
- The Gliding Byte, Lost Episode 4
- The Gliding Byte, Episode 20
- The Gliding Byte Title Page
The Environment Account Archives
The Environment Account is another of the serial novels-a-clef from BITNET in the
the 1980s.
- The Environment Account, Episode 1
- The Environment Account, Episode 2
- The Environment Account, Episode 3
- The Environment Account, Episode 4
- The Environment Account, Episode 5
- The Environment Account, Episode 6
- The Environment Account, Episode 7
- The Environment Account, Episode 8
- The Environment Account, Episode 9
- The Environment Account, Episode 10
- The Environment Account, Episode 11
- The Environment Account, Episode 12
- The Environment Account, Episode 13
- The Environment Account, Episode 14
- The Environment Account, Episode 15
- The Environment Account, Episode 16
- The Environment Account, Episode 17
- The Environment Account, Episode ?
- The Environment Account, Episode 20
The BITLIST Archives
BITLIST is where it all began for me in BITNET. File this one under "falling into it." I
was eager to find out about what servers and services were available in BITNET, but there
was no single source of information. In July of 1985 I put together a list of the servers
of which I knew and sent it out to some network friends, with a request to let me know
of anything which should be added to it.
The rest, as they say, is history. More and more people subscribed. BITLIST became the official list of servers and servers,
if only because it was the only list. After a while I began adding comments or editorials
to the bottom of BITLIST. Fifty-seven weekly issues later, I split the list of servers
and editorials into the monthly NetMonth
and BITNET SERVERS publications.
- BITLIST, Issue 1
- BITLIST, Issue 2
- BITLIST, Issue 3
- BITLIST, Issue 4
- BITLIST, Issue 5
- BITLIST, Issue 6
- BITLIST, Issue 7
- BITLIST, Issue 8
- BITLIST, Issue 9
- BITLIST, Issue 10
- BITLIST, Issue 11
- BITLIST, Issue 12
- BITLIST, Issue 13
- BITLIST, Issue 14
- BITLIST, Issue 15
- BITLIST, Issue 16
- BITLIST, Issue 17
- BITLIST, Issue 18
- BITLIST, Issue 19
- BITLIST, Issue 20
- BITLIST, Issue 21
- BITLIST, Issue 22
- BITLIST, Issue 23
- BITLIST, Issue 24
- BITLIST, Issue 25
- BITLIST, Issue 26
- BITLIST, Issue 27
- BITLIST, Issue 28
- BITLIST, Issue 29
- BITLIST, Issue 30
- BITLIST, Issue 31
- BITLIST, Issue 32
- BITLIST, Issue 33
- BITLIST, Issue 34
- BITLIST, Issue 35
- BITLIST, Issue 36
- BITLIST, Issue 37
- BITLIST, Issue 38
- BITLIST, Issue 39
- BITLIST, Issue 40
- BITLIST, Issue 41
- BITLIST, Issue 42
- BITLIST, Issue 43
- BITLIST, Issue 44
- BITLIST, Issue 45
- BITLIST, Issue 46
- BITLIST, Issue 47
- BITLIST, Issue 48
- BITLIST, Issue 49
- BITLIST, Issue 50
- BITLIST, Issue 51
- BITLIST, Issue 52
- BITLIST, Issue 53
- BITLIST, Issue 54
- BITLIST, Issue 55
- BITLIST, Issue 56
- BITLIST, Issue 57
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