"The Internet is a web of networks."

April 13, 2009 3:38 PM

Sunday, February 28, 1993. A new word -- Internet -- makes its first appearance in The New York Times.
posted by william_boot (44 comments total)

"The Internet is a web of networks."

And a series of tubes!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:43 PM on April 13 [4 favorites has favorites]

Many companies both small and large have found that using the Internet is good business.!
posted by R. Mutt at 3:47 PM on April 13

I was nine and a half.
posted by Caduceus at 3:47 PM on April 13

And then it started going downhill. September, 1993...

<mission_impossible_c64_intro_voice>
SEPTEMBER FOREVER
</mission_impossible_c64_intro_voice>
posted by GuyZero at 3:47 PM on April 13 [1 favorite has favorites]

for those who don't get the eternal september reference
posted by GuyZero at 3:48 PM on April 13

Quoted in the article is self-professed "electronic mail addict" Cheryl Currid.
posted by msittig at 3:49 PM on April 13

Sunday, December 29, 2002. The internet replaces the Internet.
posted by ALongDecember at 3:49 PM on April 13 [2 favorites has favorites]

>for those who don't get the eternal september reference
>posted by GuyZero at 5:48 PM on April 13 [+] [!]

me too
posted by ALongDecember at 3:50 PM on April 13 [9 favorites has favorites]

me too

I took me a few minutes to actually get that. I R OLD.
posted by GuyZero at 3:54 PM on April 13 [1 favorite has favorites]

These kinds of present tense timelines frighten me. They sound so ominous. Like the next thing is going to be

Tuesday, March 2, 1993. NYT copyeditors discover spatters of blood behind the office minifridge.

Or something.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 3:56 PM on April 13

Hey look! It's a NYT article from 16 years, 6 weeks, and 2 days ago (give or take a few leap days)!
posted by mudpuppie at 3:59 PM on April 13

Thinks this article should have been saved for February 28th of next year.
posted by bpm140 at 4:01 PM on April 13

Tell me more about this "Internet" of which you speak.
posted by Pronoiac at 4:13 PM on April 13

Sunday, December 29, 2002. The internet replaces the Internet.

A lot of my spellchecks still insist on the capital "I." I don't know if I have it on "grumpy old man who doesn't understand things" setting or what.
posted by drjimmy11 at 4:17 PM on April 13

Don't forget to BinHex the .SEA file before posting it on the Gopher server, or else the user might lose a bit from each byte.
posted by infinitewindow at 4:18 PM on April 13 [8 favorites has favorites]

You're more than four years too late: Author of Computer 'Virus' Is Son Of N.S.A. Expert on Data Security, November 5, 1988.

The program eventually affected as many as 6,000 computers, or 10 percent of the systems linked through an international group of computer communications networks, the Internet.

(According to Factiva, there's also one reference to the "Human Rights Internet" on March 16, 1981, in the article "About Washington: A Nonlyrical View of the Irish Troubles," which I can't find online, but it's clear that that's just the name of an organization and not a reference to the computer network.)
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 4:20 PM on April 13 [2 favorites has favorites]

You're more than four years too late.

Oh, not me, my friend. 'Tis John Markoff who's tardy.
posted by william_boot at 4:24 PM on April 13

I was 20. I just barely missed growing into a world without internets. *shudders*
posted by DU at 4:42 PM on April 13

Oh, not me, my friend. 'Tis John Markoff who's tardy.

Excuse me, but you're the one who said: "Sunday, February 28, 1993. A new word -- Internet -- makes its first appearance in The New York Times." Since that was far from being the first appearance, it's hard to see what the point of the post is, although it's fun to think back to February 28, 1993. (I was still married to my first wife; I spent that Sunday taping Henry Threadgill off WKCR, and we had roast goose with polenta for dinner.)
posted by languagehat at 4:44 PM on April 13 [2 favorites has favorites]

And a series of tubes!

Well, it's used to connect von Neumann computers to other von Neumann computers, so what did you expect?

In its simplest form a von Neumann computer has three parts: a central processing unit (or CPU), a store, and a connecting tube that can transmit a single word between the CPU and the store (and send an address to the store). - John Backus, 1978
posted by effbot at 4:54 PM on April 13

Yeah, this post strikes me as kind of pointless. At some arbitrary point in the past, a word (not a new word; nearly 20 years old at the time, in fact) appeared in the Times for what turns out not to have been the first time...

Wow?
posted by mr_roboto at 4:57 PM on April 13

At some arbitrary point in the past, a word (not a new word; nearly 20 years old at the time, in fact) appeared in the Times for what turns out not to have been the first time...

Well, it is the oldest NYT article you'll find on Google's first page if you search for "first use of Internet in New York Times", so it's safe to say that it's unusually well-researched for being an internet post...
posted by effbot at 5:06 PM on April 13

Um, what about this 1989 article?
posted by F Mackenzie at 5:24 PM on April 13

Today is, so far as I can tell, September 5704th. For those of you keeping score.

Thanks to all you noobs who killed usenet.
posted by Justinian at 5:36 PM on April 13 [1 favorite has favorites]

Also, a toast to kibo under the mountain, who shall wake and save us in our hour of greatest need.
posted by Justinian at 5:38 PM on April 13 [1 favorite has favorites]

I spent that Sunday taping Henry Threadgill off WKCR, and we had roast goose with polenta for dinner

Hmm, checking my journal from that day...I quoted Foucault, Telotte and de Certeau in a single entry. For an AOL user, I sure was a pompous ass!

and....mmmm, polenta
posted by drinkcoffee at 6:32 PM on April 13

Okay, here's my internet memories from 1993. The library I worked at had a display for a couple of months called "The Virtual Library." They had workstations set up you could do different things on. They had the laser disc of LOC's "American Memory" and a CD-Rom that had like 5 years of the New York Times in ascii style text!

There was also a computer you could browse the internet with, I believe it was some menu-driven deal, Archie or Gopher? The only things I remember seeing were the annotated lyrics to "American Pie," ascii images of Simpsons characters, and a long screed saying the Beatles were part of some Jewish homosexual plot to subvert America's young people.

Later on we got a grant from Microsoft and filled up a room with PC's and Macs that had scanners, word processing, and internet browsing with netscape. I worked the desk there some, and when people came up to reserve a computer we would say "PC or Mac?" If they gave us a blank look, we'd say "Do you just want to surf the web?" If they said yes, we'd stick them on a Mac because most people wanted the PCs for Microsoft Word.

I remember one time a website warned somebody about a "cookie." We had no idea what that was, we had to look it up in a...gasp...book!
posted by marxchivist at 7:11 PM on April 13 [1 favorite has favorites]

me too

>>for those who don't get the eternal september reference
>>posted by GuyZero at 5:48 PM on April 13 [+] [!]

>me too
>posted by ALongDecember at 5:50 PM on April 13 [5 favorites -] Favorite added! [!]
posted by dhartung at 10:14 PM on April 13

I spent that Sunday taping Henry Threadgill off WKCR
posted by languagehat

Thus reaffirming my opinion of you as someone with excellent taste in what was called "new jazz" back then. Threadgill kicks ass.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 12:54 AM on April 14

Too soon.
posted by blue_beetle at 1:01 AM on April 14 [3 favorites has favorites]

The use of the term "Internet" started in 1974 with the publication of this RFC document. Given that so many US and international institutions had been openly devoting time to this since the 50s the remarkable aspect of the story seems to be that it apparently took 15 years (citing F Mackenzie's link) for the NYT to think about running a story on it.
posted by rongorongo at 4:02 AM on April 14

the remarkable aspect of the story seems to be that it apparently took 15 years (citing F Mackenzie's link) for the NYT to think about running a story on it.

I am sure, if we spent some time on it, we'd find that references to the "Internet" within the context of networked computers and people bringing together disparate related networks under an interconnected context. But let's be serious - what is being referred to as the Internet was a very, very tiny thing in, say, 1988; the "backbone" of the net was something in the realm of a T-1 or T-3 line (it's been a while and it's too early for me to spend looking up). Connecting to the internet with a single host could be thousands of dollars a month.

The explosion of connected hosted into the net doesn't really kick in until the mid 1990s; not to the level that people now think of as normal (multiple houses in a neighborhood having internet to their homes, for example).

Just because the Internet became important later doesn't mean people were running around going "ROFL" in 1981.
posted by jscott at 4:42 AM on April 14

I dunno, jscott - weren't lollerskates popular in the 80s?
posted by Pronoiac at 5:03 AM on April 14

In my opinion, the eternal September has almost ended. At least in terms of basic net use, the pool of total noobs is shrinking, and dying, while the pool of expert internet users (aka leet 14 year old trolls) is growing rapidly. Compare the levels of ignorance about basic net tropes and usage 5 or 6 years ago with now--nowadays its even hard to convince someone you're a girl in a webforum, whereas in 1999 all you needed was a vaguely feminine handle.

PS I am a pretty girl.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:48 AM on April 14

>me too

furrfu.
posted by eriko at 5:55 AM on April 14 [1 favorite has favorites]

When was the first appearance of the word "pointless" in the Times?
posted by Glarg at 7:44 AM on April 14

Um, what about this 1989 article?

Hey, thanks for that—I hadn't realized people used to talk about "Internet" as though it were a secret organization or nation-state:

Officials of Internet, the computer network that ties together hundreds of academic, government and corporate networks...
posted by languagehat at 8:54 AM on April 14

When was the first appearance of the word "pointless" in the Times?

October 30, 1851, in an article called "Affairs at Washington--Sir Henry Bulwen Retirement--Col. Benton's Book, &c.": "Judge Douglas received a missive ... very long, very illegible and very pointless. He concluded the writer was a fool or an impostor..."
posted by languagehat at 9:00 AM on April 14

PS I am a pretty girl.

LOL A/S/L Potmatic ;o)
posted by shakespeherian at 9:03 AM on April 14

Thanks languagehat- that was the one I found too. Just think, it took them nearly a month to find something pointless... and I woke up and found this post instantly!

Techmology!
posted by Glarg at 10:12 AM on April 14

Monday, August 30, 1852. A new word-- toad-poison -- makes its first appearance in the London Times.

Popular tradition has from time immemorial attached a poisonous influence to the toad, but enlightened opinion presumed that the idea was an ignorant prejudice. All doubts, however, as to the poisonous nature of the contents of the skin-pustules of the toad and salamander lizard are set at rest by the recent experiments of two French philosophers, MM. Gratiolet and S. Cloez, who by inoculating various animals with the cutaneous poison of toads and salamanders, have demonstrated that the substances in question are endowed with well marked and exceedingly dangerous qualities. The first experiment of these gentlemen was prosecuted on a little African tortoise, which was inoculated with some of the toad-poison in one of its hinder feet; paralysis of the limb supervened, and still existed at the expiration of eight months, thus demonstrating the possibility of local poisoning by the agent. In order to determine whether the poisonous material spoiled by keeping, the two gentlemen procured about 29 grains of the poison, on the 25th of April, 1851, arid having placed it aside until the 16th of March, 1852, they inoculated a goldfinch with a little of this material. The bird almost immediately died.

posted by shii at 6:28 PM on April 14

Three days earlier Marc Andreessen invented the img tag. Well... proposed it.

On or about February 1993, the character of the internet changed.
posted by Kattullus at 8:43 AM on April 15

Here's a picture of an elephant pooping!

the character of the internet changed

In an odd confluence, this was well before the wide-spread availability of digital photos. It was actually pretty hard to get a picture online back then. So the earliest images were almost universally logos. Branding, even if it was just branding of academic labs, was what the web was all about back then.

And archives of alt.fan.joel-furr posts.
posted by GuyZero at 10:11 AM on April 15

Come to find out that the 10,000th favorite I've given out was for this thread. Seem appropriate, in retrospect.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:28 PM on April 16