CAUTION: Oh no, more Gore. Hit the "next" button while you still can!
Hi Robert and Threaders:
Interesting article today on the Nando techserver:
techserver.com
To wit:
Web pioneers speak up for Al Gore
Copyright © 1999 Nando Media
Copyright © 1999 Scripps Howard News Service
By JAMES W. BROSNAN
WASHINGTON (March 18, 1999 12:14 a.m. EST nandotimes.com) - Some of the leading scientists who
created the Internet say Vice President Al Gore was a big help in bringing the global communications network
into the home.
Just by coining the term "Information Superhighway" in the late 1980s, Gore raised public awareness about the
Internet's potential, said Robert E. Kahn, who helped design the first computer network for the Defense
Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in 1969.
"Gore did not technically create the Internet, but without him there is a good chance it would not be where it is
today," said Dave Farber, a professor of telecommunications at the University of Pennsylvania.
Gore has been the subject of jibes from Republicans, comedians and pundits since he said last week that as a
member of Congress, "I took the initiative in creating the Internet."
Former Vice President Dan Quayle, once ridiculed for misspelling the word "potato," said, "If Gore invented the
Internet, I invented Spell-Check." Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott laid claim to the paper clip.
Gore shouldn't have made the comment, said Mike Roberts, the chief executive officer of ICANN, the
corporation that assigns Internet domain names. But he added, "His opponents have made a mountain out of a
molehill. Nobody gets the credit for the creation of what we know as the Internet. I think he (Gore) had the major
inside-the-Beltway role in turning the Internet from a research tool into something pointed squarely to education
and the economy at large."
Like many inventions, the Internet took many scientific advances and millions of dollars' worth of government
and university research before it became a commercial success.
In 1961, MIT researcher Leonard Kleinrock theorized about how to transfer large pieces of information in
"packets." In 1973, Kahn and Stanford researcher Vinton Cerf sketched out a design for the Internet. Cerf would
later design the Internet protocol Transmission Control Program (TCP).
Gore, who chaired the Senate Commerce science subcommittee, oversaw passage of the legislation that
created five super-computer centers in 1986. That in turn led the National Science Foundation to grant money
to link the centers to other universities through a dedicated network.
Doug Van Howeling, who ran that network and now heads the University Corporation for Advanced Internet
Development, said Gore tracked the advances. "He would invite a leading scientist and just spend a good part
of the day talking to him," said Van Howeling.
In 1987, the word "Internet" was added to Webster's Dictionary.
In 1990, Gore made speeches about taking the Internet beyond scientific researchers. "If we had the
information superhighways we need, a schoolchild could plug into the Library of Congress every afternoon and
explore a universe of knowledge, jumping from one subject to another, according to the curiosity of the
moment," he said.
In 1991, Gore sponsored legislation to create a high-speed National Research and Education Network, but it
took two other developments to make the Internet what it is today:
--Between 1989 and 1991, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web by standardizing the system of
uniform resource locators (URLs) and hypertext markup language (HTML).
--In 1993, Marc Andreesen, a student at the University of Illinois, helped create the Web browser "Mosaic." He
became a co-founder of Netscape Communications Corp.
James W. Brosnan is a reporter for Scripps Howard News Service. He can be reached at
BrosnanJ@shns.com.
The editor intervenes:
Robert, you said <Gore has a bunch of hype and a political agenda.>
For real hype I would recommend to you the transcript of the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. Now that was really hype, in comparison Gore is a mere schoolboy.
Agenda? Better than the diaphonous prevarication emanating from the lips of WJC. Better than the bilious brouillon of the right.
As an aside, I was very impressed to learn that the Senate majority leader is such an eminent mechanical genious. What WILL he think of next: the staple, the spoon, the scalpel? I'm searching for his other talents and, regretably, find badinage and persiflage to be not among them. Still searching.
Humbly submitted for your edificaction & amusement,
The Corresponding Secretary |
