ARPAnet was a research network that was a testbed for networking
research. It involved some dedicated communication links, use of the
IP protocol, and special communications processors. Participation in
this network was limited.
Usenet was a "grass roots" system to exchange bulletin board type
messages. It was defined not by a set of communication paths, or even
by a particular set of protocols, but by the sites that wanted to
support it. It was (and is) transmitted over everything from mag tape
to ARPAnet IP links.
ARPAnet predated Usenet. There was never any "connection" in the
sense of two networks being connected together. Instead, there was
some overlaps in that many machines on the ARPAnet were also Usenet
nodes.
If what you meant was to ask when ARPAnet DLs (discussion lists) began
to be gated into the arpa.* newsgroups, someone else will have to
expand on my answer. It was in the early 80s (maybe around 83?). As
Usenet supported the transport of news articles via e-mail, and the
standard B news package had a program to turn mail into news articles
("recnews", as I remember), many sites gated ARPA mailing lists into
local newsgroups. I remember setting up such a gateway at Georgia
Tech in the 82/83 timeframe. At some point, a few sites decided to
make those groups available to the whole Usenet. I seem to remember
in 1985, during the "Great Renaming" talking about what to do about
the "arpa.*" newsgroups...and deciding to merge the namespaces.
So, I'd say that it was between 82 and 84 that the first gateways were
set up. It wasn't until moderated newsgroups came along that
bi-directional gateways really became commonplace.
--spaf
This page last updated on: Jul 1 09:16