Subject: Re: Special Issue of TIME: Welcome to Cyberspace

From: [email-masked] (Timothy C. May)
Date: Sat, 18 Mar 95 15:45:26 -0800

Article: news.misc.6573
First 20 lines:
 Philip Elmer-DeWitt ([email-masked]) wrote:
 ...
 : Whoa! Hold on! The issue is about cyberspace, remember? That's the "big
 : idea" I trace to Gibson, not computer networking or packet switching or
 : store 'n forward message passing. Geeze, I give you guys one sentence and
 : you're already off to the races.
 I got my first ArpaNet (or ARPANet) account in 1972 or '73, then went
 to Intel and didn't get another one until around 1983, about the time
 I was reading "Neuromancer."
 I credit Gibson--and Vinge, whose "True Names" came out in 1981--with
 identifying the tangible importance of cyberspace. Negroponte, too, as
 his work on the "Virtual Aspen" projects was a major inspiration for
 several folks I knew of.
 (Digression on Vinge: While not considered by most to be a
 "cyberpunk," "True Names" was and is seminal. Due to limited
 printings, I didn't get a Xerox copy until 1986.)
 Those of us using the nets, such as they were, mostly did not think in
 terms of "place" but instead thought in terms of the "process" of
 communicating. At least this is my take, having various ties to the
 Bay Area hacker community.

Original from: netcom.com --> news.misc.6573

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From: [email-masked] (Timothy C. May)
Date: Sat, 18 Mar 95 15:45:26 -0800

Article: news.misc.6574
First 20 lines:
 Bruce Baugh ([email-masked]) wrote:
 : I wonder if John Brunner might be a possible counter-example - I know that by 
 : the late '80s a bunch of the programmers I know were re/discovering works like 
 : SHOCKWAVE RIDER and finding interesting foreshadowing in them. But it doesn't 
 : seem to have been in mind in the _early_ '80s.
 I got my first ArpaNet account in 1972-3 and read "The Shockwave
 Rider" in 1975, just after I started with Intel (then a little maker
 of memory chips and funny things called microprocessors).
 Lots of us were mightily influenced by Brunner.
 I think, though, that Gibson deserves greater credit for essentially
 starting a genre (crummy as lot of cyberpunk stuff is) and for
 recognizing "cyberspace" as literal place. (Vinge did, too.)
 --Tim May
 -- 
 ..........................................................................
 Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
 [email-masked]       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
                        | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
 W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
 Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.

Original from: netcom.com --> news.misc.6574

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From: David Good <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 18 Mar 95 15:46:51 -0800

Article: news.misc.6568
First 20 lines:
 In article <[email-masked]>, Bill Bereza writes:
  
 > No, that sounds more like WWW to me. The Usenet is extremely organized
 > compared to the World Wide Web. 
 > 
 > For finding information, I've had the best results by reading appropriate
 > Usenet groups, reading the FAQ, and then using ftp.
 > 
 > For me, the current Web browser have been useless for information
 > gathering tools. WWW is like having a library where each book is
 > in someone's home, and you have to wander from one house to another
 > until you find someone who can tell you where to find what you're 
 > looking for.
 > 
 > --
 > Bill Bereza  [email-masked]  <NeXT mail> <PGP>
 > 
 > If at first you don't succeed, you probably didn't really care anyway.
 Using your analogies, the Usenet is like trying to read a huge stack of 
 magazines, where every time you finish one magazine - someone adds more pages to 

Original from: iu.net --> news.misc.6568

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From: [email-masked] (Timothy C. May)
Date: Sat, 18 Mar 95 15:46:51 -0800

Article: news.misc.6573
First 20 lines:

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From: [email-masked] (Timothy C. May)
Date: Sat, 18 Mar 95 15:46:51 -0800

Article: news.misc.6574
First 20 lines: