Natural Citizen
03-20-2013, 04:42 PM
Danny Hillis registered the third domain name on the internet. You read that correctly — the third. In today’s talk (http://www.ted.com/talks/danny_hillis_the_internet_could_crash_we_need_a_pl an_b.html), given at TED2013, he shares what a different world the online community felt like at that point in time.
Danny Hillis: The Internet could crash. We need a Plan B (http://www.ted.com/talks/danny_hillis_the_internet_could_crash_we_need_a_pl an_b.html) To underscore the point, Hillis brought a book onstage with him. It’s the ARPANET Directory (http://books.google.com/books/about/ARPANET_directory.html?id=M6opAQAAIAAJ), a list of every person who had an email address in 1982.
About the size of a high school’s Parent-Teacher Association directory, Hillis says that the heft of the book makes the online community of the time seem “deceptively large.”
“There’s actually only about 20 people on each page — because we have the name, address and telephone number of each person,” says Hillis, thumbing through it. “And everyone’s listed twice because they’re there once by name and once by email address.”
He continues, “There were only two other Dannys on the internet then. I knew them both.”
http://blog.ted.com/2013/03/18/what-the-internet-looked-like-in-1982-a-closer-look-at-danny-hillis-vintage-directory-of-users/
Danny Hillis: The Internet could crash. We need a Plan B (http://www.ted.com/talks/danny_hillis_the_internet_could_crash_we_need_a_pl an_b.html) To underscore the point, Hillis brought a book onstage with him. It’s the ARPANET Directory (http://books.google.com/books/about/ARPANET_directory.html?id=M6opAQAAIAAJ), a list of every person who had an email address in 1982.
About the size of a high school’s Parent-Teacher Association directory, Hillis says that the heft of the book makes the online community of the time seem “deceptively large.”
“There’s actually only about 20 people on each page — because we have the name, address and telephone number of each person,” says Hillis, thumbing through it. “And everyone’s listed twice because they’re there once by name and once by email address.”
He continues, “There were only two other Dannys on the internet then. I knew them both.”
http://blog.ted.com/2013/03/18/what-the-internet-looked-like-in-1982-a-closer-look-at-danny-hillis-vintage-directory-of-users/