I think that my pre-A C-language version was running then. The
efficiency of the shell script was too low, and I'm fairly certain that
A-news wasn't quite ready yet. (In the grand tradition of computer
companies everywhere, we announced before we had a product...)
A year or two later, CSnet was announced. I remember that we commented
how this showed the true difference between grad students and faculty.
When we wanted to connect universities and research sites, we wrote
some software quickly, handed out a few simple forms, and scrounged
everything, from dialers to connectivity. When some professors wanted
to do the same thing, they got a grant from NSF, set up formal support
and monitoring stations, secured DARPA permission to connect to the
ARPANET, published a bunch of papers, etc.
--Steve Bellovin
This page last updated on: Jul 1 09:16