Thursday, April 20, 2017

20 April 17

I have no special event for 20 April, so I'll recap some history to justify wearing this computer-themed tie, "because it's time" to wear it again. In the spring of 1981 -- 36 years ago now -- researchers at CUNY and Yale created BITNET, the "Because It's Time Network," to connect their computer systems via telephone. At this very early stage in networking, files and email messages traveled from one computer to another over prescribed chains of "nodes," and with inconsistent connections it could take hours or days for a single message to arrive at its destination! BITNET was the primary channel for public networking through 1991. My tie features IBM "AT" desktop computers, which were sold from 1984-1987.

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