posted on May 8, 2001 09:45:44 AM
Subject: Re: THE TRUE STORY OF THE INVENTOR OF THE INTERNET!!!!
An old, bearded shepherd with a crooked staff walked
up to a stone pulpit and said, "And lo, it came to pass
that the trader by the name of Abraham Com did take
unto himself a young wife by the name of Dot.
And Dot Com was a comely woman, broad of shoulder
and long of leg. Indeed, she had been called
Amazon Dot Com. And she said unto Abraham, her
husband, "Why doth thou travel far, from town to
town, with thy goods when thou can trade without ever
leaving thy tent?"
And Abraham did look at her as though she were
several saddle bags short of a camel load, but simply
said, "How, Dear?"
And Dot replied, "I will place drums in all the towns and
drums in between to send messages saying what you
have for sale and they will reply telling you which hath
the best price. And the sale can be made on the drums
and delivery made by Uriah's Pony Stable (UPS)."
Abraham thought long and decided he would let Dot
have her way with the drums. And the drums rang out
and were an immediate success. Abraham sold all
the goods he had, at the top price, without ever moving
from his tent. But this success did arouse envy.
A man named Maccabia did secret himself inside
Abraham's drum and was accused of insider trading.
And the young man did take to Dot Com's trading as
doth the greedy horsefly take to camel dung. They were
called Nomadic Ecclesiastical Rich Dominican Siderites,
or NERDS for short.
And lo, the land was so feverish with joy at the new
riches and the deafening sound of drums, that no one
noticed that the real riches were going to the drum maker,
one Brother William of Gates, who bought up every drum
company in the land. And indeed did insist on making
drums that would work only if you bought Brother Gates'
drumsticks.
And Dot did say, "Oh, Abraham, what we have started
is being taken over by others."
And as Abraham looked out over the Bay of Ezekiel, or
as it came to be known "eBay," he said, "we need a
name that reflects what we are," and Dot replied,
"Young Ambitious Hebrew Owner Operators."
"Whoopee!", said Abraham.
"No, YAHOO!" said Dot Com.. .and that is how it all
began.
posted on May 8, 2001 11:57:59 AM"It wasn't Al Gore after all."
In 1993, the Internet (AARPA-NET) was not avvailable to the public, there was no World Wide Web, no graphics - just e-mail and file transfers. The idea was to take this MILLITARY project and open it up into the private sector. For that, they needed someone to back them and to lead the necessary legislation in Congress. Al Gore was that politician who believed in what they were trying to do by making it available to everyone and cut through the red tape, passed the legislation, provided the funds, etc. If it were not for Al Gore and his efforts, we likely would not have the Internet available to the public still.
posted on May 8, 2001 12:12:06 PM
I used the net back when it was all line command crap and no commercial use was allowed. It was difficult and limited and the stock quotes were the only "commercial" thing I could access. The library of congress had their own search commands that took a good week to start to understand enough to find anything at all and to get a high speed line in from the phone company cost anywhere from $400 to $1,000 dollars a month!!!
posted on May 10, 2001 08:30:34 PM
When I took my first computer class, in 1978, my instructor showed us his "portable" computer. He could send data via phone. He had to put the phone receiver into a special cradle and type in his message... (001110001010001...blah, blah, blah) the message was sent over the phone line to the other person that had his computer set up to accept the message.
At that time I thought, "Yeah right, like this is high tech?!"
Just imagine if I had stuck with it...
makes me sick...
