Usenet backbone

Gene Spafford (spaf@cs.purdue.edu)
Wed, 17 Oct 90 16:04:11 EST

There were two "backbones" -- the physical backbone, and the
"political" backbone. Mark was indeed the ancestor of the physical
backbone, and I was the originator of the "political" (i.e.,
decision-making) backbone. I guess my earlier mail didn't make that
distinction clear.

Enclosed are some machine-readable maps I got from either Mark or
Steve Bellovin. Once, when my life was considerably simpler than it
is now, I volunteered to help write a definitive history paper on the
Usenet. Mark & Steve had both started this paper, but had other
things come up. I started revisions, lost them in a machine crash,
redid some of them, then had the tide of events sweep away whatever
free time I had available to work on it. I may get back to it
someday, but not this week. :-)

Anyhow:

This is labelled as April 5, 1981

reed phs
\ / \
decvax---duke----unc
| / \
| mhtsa--research mh135a
ucbopt---+ | | \ |
| | | eagle ihnss vax135
ucbcory--\ | | | / /
>----ucbvax------+-------+-------------\
ucbarpa--/ | | | \
| sdcarl sdcsvax menlo70--hao ucsfcgl
ucbonyx--+ \ / |
phonlab sytek

This is labelled as April 15, 1981:

pdp
|
decvax sii reed phs--unc--grumpy duke34
| | | | | | |
| +--+----+-----+-+--+-------------+
| |
| duke
| |
| +------+---+----------------+------+-------+
| | | | | |
ucbopt | mhtsa research mh135a hocsr chico---harpo
| | | | |
ucbcory | | eagle ihnss vax135 (Bell Labs Sites)
| | | | | |
ucbvax---+----------+--+--+-----+--+------+--------+
| | | |
ucbarpa sdcsvax | menlo70--hao
| sdcattb-----+ | |
ucbonyx +-----ucsfcgl sytek
phonlab-----+
sdcarl

And this labelled as June 1, 1981

!- Uucp links
: Berknet links
@ Arpanet links

pdp
(Misc) ! (NC) (Misc)
decvax sii reed phs--unc--grumpy duke34 utzoo cincy teklabs
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
! +--+----+-----+-+--+-------------+-------+------+ !
! ! !
! duke !
! ! !
! +------+---+-----------------------+--------+ !
! ! ! ! ! !
ucbopt ! hocsr--mhtsa----research mh135a harpo-----chico
: ! ! ! !
ucbcory ! ! eagle ihnss vax135 (Bell Labs)
(UCB) : ! ! ! ! !
ucbvax--++----------+--+--+-----+--+------+--------+
: @ ! ! ! (Silicon Valley)
ucbarpa @ (UCSD) sdcsvax ! menlo70--hao
: @ sdcattb-----+ ! ! !
ucbonyx @ +-----ucsfcgl sytek sri-unix
@ phonlab-----+
cca-unix sdcarl

This page last updated on: Jul 1 09:16