Visionaries and Convergences, digital original edition: A BIT of The Virtual CommunityThe “virtual community” of online networking is as real as any physical community. In this BIT, “First Citizen of the Internet” Howard Rheingold offers an account of the people who made this networked world possible—“stubborn visionaries who insisted that computers could be used by people other than specialists”—describing pioneers of citizen tool-making that range from a former radar operator who had an epiphany on the way to work in 1950 to crusading programmers, clever MIT hackers, and the creators of Usenet, MUD, and the WELL. |
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Alan Kay Archie ARPA ARPANET ARPANET went online backbone campus catalog citizens command computer center computer communities computer networks computing power Congressional District connected CONSTITUENT ELECTRONIC MAIL conversations created crusade databases desktop distribute Douglas Engelbart electronic mail ELECTRONIC MAIL SYSTEM email Engelbart files funded future Gopher graphics Gregor Mendel groups highspeed House Office Building hytelnet industry Information Service intellectual interactive computing Internet users internetworking Ivan Sutherland J. C. R. Licklider kinds of computers Knowbots laboratories Library of Congress Licklider linked manytomany Markoff menu modem multipleaccess computers Net’s network technology node NREN NSFNET Office Building Washington packets packetswitching PARC personal computer publicdomain questions Robert Kahn Science scientists screen Server speed supercomputer telecommunications telnet Thinking Machines thinking tools timesharing Unix Usenet virtual communities wanted White House worldwide