[OT] The internet is 40 years old today!

[Duncan MacGregor]

> Personally, I feel that there was no single beginning 

Actually the beginning was surely the first demonstration of a standard network interchange between the systems of different vendors. It was driven by a customer, (DOD) not a vendor to avoid vendor lock-in. 

Each vendor, (IBM, CDC, Honeywell, Burroughs, etc.) had developed their own incompatible network.  Often vendor networks could not  even talk to all their own products, let alone their competitor's machines.

The marketing perspective was that a locked-in customer would *have* to buy more product, because they could not leave. This was a 'milk-the-base' strategy among mainframe vendors, and is echoed still in the PC world  
for decades as seen with Appletalk, and Microsoft's SMB. Anyone who has had to get Apple gear working with Microsoft PCs sees this still. There is still a need for the 'Dave' product, after all these years.

There is *still* a need for Samba.


Duncan


On October 29, 2009 07:45:44 pm D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
> | From: Chris F.A. Johnson <chris-E7bvbYbpR6jSUeElwK9/Pw at public.gmane.org>
> 
> |     The internet is 40 years old today!
. . . 
> I've heard so many media sources say that this was the beginning of
> the internet.  The Globe and Mail article headline said that it was
> the beginning of the web!
> 
> Personally, I feel that there was no single beginning and that many
> different creations and inventions fed into what we now call the
> internet.


-- 
Duncan MacGregor  -- Toronto --
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