The WWW is a latecomer. Medline, a research database for the National Library of Medicine, connected 150 medical libraries in a network in 1972.
nlm.nih.gov
I started using it in 1986, when they went to Grateful Med.
nlm.nih.gov
I was using Westlaw via dialup in 1983, via Tymnet, using Unix commands.
Law and medicine, two very deep pockets.
But I knew people who worked for the government who were using Darpanet in the late 1960's, early 1970's.
One very weird guy who invented a subroutine that would pop up and write "I am the uncatchable Oz," or something like that, then do something destructive, and disappear. And another guy who invented a subroutine that would pop up and demand a cookie, and not go away until you typed "cookie."
I know these are urban legends, but one of my philosophy profs, who graduated from Oxford, actually knew one of these guys, and I actually met him. I think at the time he was working for the NSA or CIA, but it's been such a long time. |
