subject: Usenet - Off And Running [print this page] In the late 1970s, communication was comparatively limited. Face-to-face conversations were geographically restrictive or required time consuming travel. The postal service took days. Telephones and ham radio were limited to voice, and the telegraph machines were quickly becoming museum artifacts. At the time, there was nothing to suggest it was possible to improve upon the situation.
ARPANET had made a splash, but it was too big and expensive to ever be accessible to large numbers of people. Then, Usenet was conceived by academics. They believed they could take advantage of what ARPANET started and create a network that could be used by the masses to communicate and share ideason a global scale almost instantaneously.
It is unlikely anyone understood its potential or what the future would bring. Realizing that text messages could be sent through the new medium was revolutionary. At the time,it was the definition of disruptive technology. Usenet, as it became known, changed communication and filled a great need.
Text discussion was the foundation of Usenet. Communication speed was measured in bauds, and the difference between 300 baud and 1200 baud was astronomical. Acoustic couplers were used to connect computers. The headset from a telephone would be placed on a special cradle so signals could be sent and received. The speed at which screens were filled was agonizingly slow but incredibly fast when the alternative was considered. In a matter of minutes, a message could be sent and received. It was nothing short of a miracle.
The people who developed Usenet as a new approach to communication were pioneers. The electronic frontier was every bit the uncharted challenge that the land from sea to shining sea had been. Of course, there were no Indians, wild animals, and devastating weather to face, but it was still uncharted territory. These people knew no bounds and no boundaries. They explored, and they discovered. What they found was a whole new world. It was an exciting time, and there were very few people who understood the magnitude of what they were doing. What they were doing was changing the planet. In the little more than three decades that have passed since its inception, everything has changed.
In the beginning, traffic was restricted to those connected to academic institutions and the government. However, it didnt take long for other people to see promise in Usenet as a technology to reach the masses. Little by little, it began to be obvious, even to the casual observer, that the goose that laid golden eggs had been discovered. In just a few years, the number of users exploded. The possibilities seemed endless.
It is no accident that, despite the ubiquity of the World Wide Web, Usenet still occupies an important place in the global network. Today, the planet has been redefined by the technologies, like Usenet and the WWW, that take advantage of the Internet highway. What the future brings is limitless, and it belongs to everyone.
