[ih] What's special about the Internet?

[richard at bennett.com (Richard Bennett)]

I didn't bring this up to discuss terminals, of course.

On 2/18/2011 2:26 PM, William F. Maton wrote:
> 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

-- 
Richard Bennett