I don't remember when the phrase as coined, but to me it expressed
exactly what was going on. We (or at least I) had little idea
of what was really going on on the Arpanet, but we knew we were
excluded. Even if we had been allowed to join, there was no way
of comming up with the money. It was commonly accepted at the
time that to join the Arpanet took political connections and
$100,000. I don't know if that assumption was true, but we were
so far from having either connections or $$ that we didn't even try.
The "Poor man's Arpanet" was our way of joining the CS community,
and we made a deliberate attempt to extend it to other not-well-endowed
members of the community. It is hard to believe in retrospect,
but we were initially disappointed at how few people joined us.
We attributed this lack more to the cost of autodialers than lack of desire.
>
> I found in Human-Nets a discussion of the problems of compuserve -
> it seems that compuserve was OPEN - but it's cost limited what
> people could afford to contribute to it.
>
> Whereas Arpanet was a "playground" for those who had access
> because they weren't paying for any time on it - and could
> explore its possibilities and help to develop them.
>
>
> It seemed that somehow this was some of the achievement of
> Usenet - that poor unix users had a way to have access.
>
> > it is not even politically correct.
>
> It may not be so called "politically correct" but it does me no
> good to have high prices for netnews even if it is open to women.
>
>
> So somehow the
> > "Open Arpanet", that has a nice ring to it :-)
>
> But you didn't say "Open" Arpanet back then - and it's a bit
> disappointing to hear so little support for the Poor Man's Arpanet
> tradition that Usenet does represent :(
Here is my two bits of support....
>
>
> I was surprised to find that the term hasn't gotten more of
> a supportative response on this list.
>
> Doesn't anyone have any sense of what led to the term being
> used at the time - of the spirit that it represented.
>
>
> >
> > As for CSnet, it didn't exist when Usenet started
> > (I don't know which was thought up first however).
> > Also, CSnet was not bulletin-board oriented.
> > I am not sure if CSnet had mailing lists anything like ARPAnet.
> >
> > The big deal with Usenet/Arpanet was that Arpanet mailing lists
> > were poured into Usenet. At first it was a one way.
> > It had a big effect on Usenet volume, if nothing else!
> > (My history of this is weak, perhaps Bruce Jones archives have good stuff.)
> >
> But the term Poor Man's Arpanet was used before the mailing lists
> were poured into Usenet.
Yes, and adding the Arpanet lists to Usenet initially contributed to
the sense of being poor cousins. It was initially very hard to
contribute to those lists, and when you did you were more likely
to get a response to your return address than to the content of your
letter. It definitely felt second class to be in read-only mode
on human-nets and sf-lovers. There was also a growing philosophical
difference. Usenet was organized around netnews, where the receiver
controls what is received. The Arpanet lists were organized around
mailing lists, where there is a central control for each list that
potentially controls who receives the material and what material can
be transmitted. I still strongly prefer the reader-centered view.
>
> I wondered what folks who were involved with usenet in the early days
> knew about the ARPANET. Was it common knowledge what it was doing
> and what was available on it?
Not to me, nor I think to most users.
>
> > Technically, Usenet probably has more in common with FidoNet.
> >
>
> But the Delaware invite wasn't an invitation to a poor man's fidonet :(
Stephen Daniel
daniel@dg-rtp.dg.com
but in the old days:
duke!swd
This page last updated on: Jul 1 09:16