🚀 go-pugleaf

Christian Smith (csmith@gmu.edu) wrote:
: In article <59c5b4$nuv@portal.gmu.edu>, smasters@bzy.gmu.edu (Shawn C.
: Masters) wrote:

: > PAUL M. BAKER (pbaker@osf1.gmu.edu) wrote:
: > : The unveiling of the ENIAC to the public by the U.S. military in 1946 was
: > : arguably the first historical step in the development of the Internet in
: > : which public policy and private enterprise have played parallel roles. Some
: > 
: >         Yes, that does seem very arguable.  How do you define the internet
: > that you can make this statement.

: The same way we define the Aeronautics Industry in such a way as to say:

: The first man-powered flight, by the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk, N.C.,
: was arguably the first historical step in the development of the US Space
: Program in which public policy and private enterprise have played parallel
: roles.

	Actually, that's not a very good comparison.  The Wrights had a lot
of trouble getting government involvment before and after their first
flights.  The government was more interested in Langley's efforts, and then 
didn't really do much outside of the army until the formation of NACA.
	Eniac was a government driven development.  Very different.  It also
had next to no communication capabilities.  The question really is where did
the internet start in history.  Semaphore networks, or arpanet.  I don't
know, but I would say Eniac had little to do with it outside of military
interest in computing, and that can be traced back even further then Eniac
by looking at the computation of tables for use by commanders.

	73,
		Shawn
		KE4GHS