Remnant of Paradise Continued by ~@~
Computer History Continued
When I got out of the military, I returned to school and discovered a ??? natural talent for computers.
I ended up writing the coding/communication/control and... conversion/merger systems for the IBM 360/20.
Sprung
Present
http://www.flyingsnail.com/Sprung/sprungpresent.html
During the early days of telecommunications one dialed a number, listened for a computer modem tone, and placed the telephone handset into a modem cradle. If one did this often, it became a pita, so I did something about it.
At that time I was using an IMSAI 8080 S-100 computer,
so I built a S-100 interface card and modified a telephone to allow it to be controlled by the computer.
I wrote (what I call) a "stacking system" that would dial various BBS boards (I was involved with), download email messages, hang up, and dial the next system.
Here are some photos of the phone interface and when I find the interface card and software, I will post them. Since I do not understand what laws apply to technology today, I will not explain what is seen in the pictures, but it is fairly clear. To the best of my knowledge, this was a 'first of it's kind device' and used until Hayes came out with their first 300 baud modem, which is currently connected to one of my old S-100 machines.
Dia (CommuniTree genealogical chart)
Let's look at some of the earliest electronic virtual communities. This kinship chart shows the origins of the first computer bulletin boards (BBSs) that supported social interaction. Prior to this moment, BBSs messages were organized by alphabetical order, or by date. BBSs were metaphors for physical bulletin boards... objects for the exchange of simple messages, not conversations. Now, in 1978 a group of people in Northern California designed a BBS that used message attachment protocols that facilitated conversations. As a metaphor for this structure they used a tree, firstly because it was based on a principle of computer science called binary tree protocol, and secondly because Northern California near Silicon Valley was a land of hot tubs, Eastern mysticism, and computer hackers, and the organicity that the word "tree" suggested was important to those hackers' worldview.
The story of the life and death of the first CommuniTree tells us how and why the later virtual community systems were designed. The original CommuniTree was designed with the idea that the community it facilitated would be completely free. Anyone could enter any sort of message. In fact, censorship was completely prohibited at the level of the code, of the Tree's program. It worked this way: First, the system operator was prevented from reading messages as they arrived. Second, messages were hard to remove once they were entered. Third, anything could be entered into the system, including so-called control characters, which are not part of the standard alphanumeric set and which can be used to control the operation of the host computer. Lastly, to make sure that no system operator could tamper with the system, the code was written in language called Forth, and not documented. Now Forth is a religion unto itself, and if you know anything about Forth you recognize that this makes the system a total black box -- it's impossible to know anything about how the code works.
CommuniTree went online in 1978. The kinds of conversations they had in there were of a high intellectual and spiritual character. They talked about new philosophies and new religions for post-Enlightenment humanity, the first time such conversations had taken place online.
Now, at the same moment Apple Computer had reached an agreement with the U. S. Government that in return for a tax break, Apple put computers into primary and secondary schools in the U.S., and some of those computers had modems. This meant that quite suddenly a lot of kids could get online. At first both boys and girls had access, but the boys quickly elbowed the girls out of the way -- high tech was men's work. The boys quickly found out CommuniTree's phone number and logged on. They were clearly unimpressed with the high intellectual level of the discourse on CommuniTree, and they expressed their dissatisfaction in ways that were appropriate to their age and linguistic abilities. Now, the hardware of the Tree was the best that Apple had to offer in 1978, it had two floppy disk drives with a combined total of 300 kilobytes of storage. At the time, the folks who designed the Tree said "300K -- we can go on forever. We'll never fill this up." A common BBS today would have at least 100 megabytes of storage, many orders of magnitude greater than the Tree. So it didn't take long for the kids to fill every byte of disk space with every word they could think of that meant shitting or fucking, and then they'd add control characters on top of that, characters that could mess with the program or stop the floppy drives. The sysops couldn't see the messages arriving and couldn't remove them afterward. The Tree was doomed.
One of the participants in the Tree discourse said "Well, the barbarian hordes mowed us down." And the people who were on the Tree ran away, just like the population of a village during a sack. It was a kind of scattering of the tribes. Some of those people went off and designed BBSs of their own that had built into them the elements of control and surveillance that appeared to be necessary to ensure the BBS's survival in a real world that included roaming barbarians. That kind of surveillance and control continues to the present day, built right into the software; we don't think about it much any more. And that's how, back at the beginning of virtual time, the first virtual community left the Magic Garden and entered the "real" virtual world in which good had to find ways to coexist with evil.
http://www.eff.org/Net_culture/Gender_issues/what_vampires_know.html
CommuniTree
SYSOP Dean Gengle FAIRWITNESS Curtis
Spangler
http://www.flyingsnail.com/missingbbs/CommuniTree.html
8BBS - January/February 1981
Function: A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,K,L,N,'O,P,Q,R,S,
T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z',# (Or "?" if not known)? ,S,R
Message: What message to retrieve, 1/5962? 5808
Message number 5808 is 16 lines from Susan Thunder
To Curtis Spangler and SYSOP at 15:47:52 on 30-Jan-81.
Subject: DIAL-UP DISCONNECTION
Dear Bernard,
I'm sorry that your line was disconnected for about a half hour right around 3:15 today, but this impatient asshole known as Curtis Spangler decided to dump me off and use the system... needless to say, I had the line "removed" from service for a few minutes so that Curtis would KNOW that not all the users on this system just let getting dumped off go right past them...Eric Moyer was lucky ... he slipped in there just as I re-establishad service to this line ... If anyone reading this happens to know Curtis's phone number or address, I will tell you how to NO AMA calls all over the country via the TSPS in exchange for the information ... (free calls ... ) ... And maybe those of you who like to "dump" into this BBS will think twice about doing it ... Curtis is certainly going to remember it for awhile!!!
THUNDR@ MIT-DM, AI
Message: What message to retrieve, 1/5982? 5966
Message number 5966 is 20 lines from Curtis Spangler
To MS. THUNDER at 09:08:55 on 03-Feb-01.
Subject: Perhaps you could explain.
Dear Susan:
I thought that it was necessary to let you know that I am not sure what you are talking about. I have seen my name come up in reference to you several times, although I do not know you, or even care what you do. What seems to be the problem? I have never "bumped" you off any sys. that I can remember, nor would I have a reason too. There is something that you might consider, and that is the old ploy of divide and conquer. If you take the time to look at history in general, you will find that "we" have been controlled by 5% of the population throughout history and if you look deeper you will find that the moment people start working together to break up this 5% that the 5% will initiate some kind of tactic to separate everyone.....cause how this 5% has maintained control is thru ignorance.....and the moment that the people start to get smart and learn they get divided and conquered. I hope that this does not happen with the information that is being shared about this state of the art reality called telecommunications. Ignorance and Divide & Conquer have been around too long and I am open for change. I am sorry that you feel the way you do, but I can't think of anything that I have done that would upset you I do know that since I use my real name and no handles that someone has used my name in several areas of the country. (cont.) Message: What message to retrieve, 1/5982? 5967
Message number 5967 is 20 lines from Curtis Spangler
To MS. THUNDER at 09:31:08 on 03-Feb-81.
Subject: (cont.)
I cannot do much about this except changing my psw access. I am more into hardware & software rather than into the phone, so most of the information that you exchange is of no value to me. If you feel that I am "out to get you" forget it, cause I have made a special effort to get along with people rather than kick up s--t with them. I don't know of anything more useless than trying to make people uptight/feel bad/paranoid/etc. I will apologise to you if I have done something to offend you, and if you want my phone number that is probably ok too, except you do not have to put a reward out for me, although it makes me feel like "Billy-the-Kid", which is kinda flattering. I would be open to talk to you and find out what the difficulties are if you choose.
Susan, I don't know why this even came up, maybe you could help me to understand so why don't you leave me a private message on the CBBS at (415) 653-2152 to C. SPANGLER, or here non private.
There is another thing.....if you know the sysop of 8BBS ask him how many times I check in on this system .... I think that it amounts to maybe 4 or 5 times a month. I am not on your case, please don't put me there. As John Lennon said "IF YOU CAN'T STAND THE HEAT GET INTO THE SHADE. cas
8BBS
http://www.flyingsnail.com/missingbbs/8BBS.html
