[ih] What's special about the Internet?

[wmaton at ottix.net (William F. Maton)]

On Fri, 18 Feb 2011, Richard Bennett wrote:

> It occurs to me that the thing that makes the Internet (and ARPANET, 
> CYCLADES, and OSI) special as a historical artifact is that the "terminals" 
> for Internet use existed before the network itself. In the case of all

True in a sense.  Another way to look at the telephone system analogy is 
to treat the human as the terminal that wanted to communicate a-far, so 
the equipment needed (including the technological end terminal) enabled 
the 'human terminal' inter-communicate.

But you're right, the computer terminals came first, then the realisation 
to transfer data between (hence the network was born) came next.

Is a discussion on terminals within 'ih' list's scope?


wfms