Re: What is "The Internet" TCP/IP or UNIX-to-UNIX ?

[Jim Mercer <jim () reptiles org>]

On Sun, Apr 04, 2010 at 09:57:12AM -0500, Jorge Amodio wrote:
> You should revise some of the history behind it. It was a descriptor
> for a very large network, it was even a TLD in the mid eighties when
> the transition to DNS was taking place, the old bang style addresses
> like mine original seismo!atina!pete transitioned for a while to
> pete () atina UUCP and later to pete () atina ar.

i don't recall .uucp making it into the actual DNS, but i remember our mail
system used it as a trigger to do a uucp-maps lookup.

> For several years until we've got a more decent telecommunications
> infrastructure UUCP was all we had in Argentina to let the academic
> and science community reach out and communicate with their colleagues
> around the world, we had an adapted version of the UUCP implementation
> for DOS (some called it UUPC) that became very popular and enabled our
> "UUCP network" to reach over 800 nodes in the early 90's when we later
> were able to get a direct (IP) connection to the rest of the world.

uucp introduced a far-flung group of hosts, academic and otherwise, to things
that were popular on the internet, namely email and USENET.

i'm sure its an open debate as to if being in the UUCP maps also meant that
you were "on the Internet", but many people seemed or seem to think this way.

i recall seeing uucp going into not only south america, but the caribbean,
south pacific and many other regions, much the same way that you describe it.

there were several organizations who were quite dedicated to using uucp over
(dialup/X.25/carrier-pigeon) in order to extend email and USENET deep into
the third world.

-- 
Jim Mercer        jim () reptiles org        +92 336 520-4504