Winter/Spring 1993 Vol 5 No 1-2

"For we can't command Nature except by obeying her"

Sir Francis Bacon

Interview with Henry Spencer:

On Usenet News and C News

[Editor's Note: Henry Spencer is

one of the early participants and

pioneers of Usenet News. Henry played

a significant role in bringing Usenet

News into Canada and thus providing

access to and participation in Usenet

beyond U.S. borders. In addition,

Henry archived much of early Usenet,

thus helping preserve it. Along with

Geoff Collyer, Henry wrote C news,

the widely used Usenet News software.

Following is an interview with Henry

conducted by some of the editors of

the Amateur Computerist in Toronto,

Canada in August, 1992.]

Ronda: Some of what we would be

interested in knowing is where C news

came from, how it developed and what

your efforts are to deal with it now.

We thought it would be helpful to ask

a bit about your background with

Usenet News so that we have a sense

of how C news grew out of your

experience with Usenet News and out

of Usenet News itself. So our first

question is, can you say a bit about

when you first became involved with

Usenet News and then how that

involvement with Usenet led you to

understand the need for the C news

program?

Henry: Well, there was a USENIX

Conference 10 years or so ago. I

think it was the Delaware Summer

USENIX Conference, which was the

Summer of 1980. The folks from Duke

University made a presentation on a

bit of networking software they had

done. Version 7 UNIX, which was more

or less just out at the time, had

some facilities for using auto dial-

ing modems to pass mail and other

[continued on page 2]

The Tradition of May 1, 1848

Sir Francis Bacon

and the Shorter Hours Bill

May 1, 1848 is a special day in

the history of the industrial world.

On May 1, 1848, the first 10 hour

bill became law in Britain. This law

was the result of a tradition of

applying the methods of science to

the problems of production, both

social and technical.

To get technology to function, it

has long been observed, one must base

one's theories and plans on accurate

knowledge of the physical world. Over

300 years ago, in the 1600's, a group

of amateur scientists began meeting

in London. These scientists were part

of a tradition that stretched back

into Italy at the beginning of the

Renaissance and was perhaps best

represented by Sir Francis Bacon

[1561-1626] who explained how science

must base itself on accurate data and

observations drawn from this data and

that science must serve to benefit

the people of the society. "For we

can’t command nature, except by

[continued on page 11]

Table of Contents

Interview with Henry Spencer. . 1

Tradition of May 1, 1848. . . . 1

Social Forces Behind Usenet.. . 14

The Net and the Labor Movement. 23

Letters to Editor.. . . . . . . 25

The New Dawn. . . . . . . . . . 26

Pittsburgh Press Strike.. . . . 27

John G. Kemeny. . . . . . . . . 28

Computers for the People. . . . 32

Pascal Program. . . . . . . . . 34

Try This Program in C.. . . . . 35

May Day in History. . . . . . . 37

Charter for Newsgroup.. . . . . 37

[continued from page 1]

things from machine to machine. This

wasn't terribly well understood by

most people. But these folks had

figured it out and made it work. They

were using it as a sort of distrib-

uted bulletin board system. The soft-

ware they came up with is now known

as A news. It was actually the second

or third version they did internally,

the first one that was circulated

widely outside. Early on, Duke was

sort of the central point. The topol-

ogy of the net sort of evolved from

there in random and confused ways.

Partly, it was just a neat idea.

There was a lot of interest here in

networking in general. A lot of the

early traffic was potentially very

useful things like bug reports on

version 7 and bug fixes for version

7. There were some interesting and

potentially useful contacts available

through it, like for example, you

could send mail to Dennis Ritchie and

people like that at Bell Labs and

sometimes they'd even answer you. So

it looked useful. There was a bit of

delay in us getting things in place.

A lot of sites took a lot of time in

switching to version 7. But in the

Spring of '81 we cut over to version

7. One of the first things we did was

to establish a Usenet hookup. In the

early days, manually dialing at 300

baud was a bit of a hassle. Of

course, the traffic was a lot smaller

than it is now. But it was valuable

enough that we progressed from there.

We got a 1200 baud modem and the

capabilities just kept on scaling up,

more or less keeping pace with the

traffic. For a while, the phone bills

were kind of interesting to explain.

I'm glad we're no longer in that

business. But that's how our involve-

ment really got started.

Eventually B news came out as an

improved version of A news, better

performance, better ability to cope

with heavier loads and some other

useful features. We were eventually

bullied into adopting it. A news was

working ok for us for a long time,

but some of our neighbors eventually

bullied us into switching. There were

enough compatibility problems between

the two that it was better if every-

one ran B news. Things ran quite

satisfactorily that way for quite a

while. But the B news code was an

awful mess inside. It just got worse

over time. It had started out as a

heavily mutated A news and progressed

from there mostly downhill. So we

first got involved with it when B

news "expire" just basically stopped

working due to bugs.

Ronda: Can you say what bugs?

Henry: Probably, the way it looked

was a memory leak, dynamically allo-

cated memory that wasn't being freed

properly. This got more and more

serious as traffic grew and "expire"

had to handle more and more stuff.

Eventually, it just broke entirely.

This was a 16 bit machine, so there

wasn't a whole lot of memory avail-

able to begin with. I looked at the

code and decided that it wasn't re-

ally doing anything very complicated

and it would probably be quicker to

just rewrite it than fix it as it had

gotten to be quite a mess by that

point. I did and there are still

remnants of that code in C news "ex-

pire" as it is today. But that's how

things got started. Geoff Collyer and

I basically just progressed more and

more in that direction as B news

limitations got to be more and more

of a problem. The load on our

machines got worse and worse as the

traffic grew. The bugs grew more and

more troublesome. So we eventually

decided just to rewrite it for better

performance and better maintainabil-

ity and over time did so. All along

we had the notion of distributing it

in our minds. That's just the way we

tend to think about software develop-

ment. There's always somebody else

who could benefit from something like

this. Eventually, with some prodding

from our friends, we got everything

together and produced an actual re-

lease. It's needed some more work

since, but that's how it got started.

Ronda: So somehow from having

redone "expire" you went on to redo

the whole program? Did rewriting the

code for "expire" help you to realize

there was something more needed? How

did you go from rewriting the code

for "expire" to deciding the whole

Page 2

Netnews program would benefit from

being rewritten?

Henry: It was basically just sort

of a logical progression. Doing "ex-

pire" – something had to come first –

and this demystified the stuff, not

that it was particularly mysterious

to begin with for the most part, and

got us started in the right direc-

tion. And things progressed from

there.

Ronda: Can you say just a bit

about what "expire" does in Usenet

News?

Henry: "Expire" is just responsi-

ble for getting rid of articles off

your system. Much of the rest of C

news is devoted to getting them onto

your system from a remote site or

from local postings. "Expire's" job

is to get rid of news that's been

sitting around long enough, where the

definition of "long enough" has got-

ten shorter and shorter as volume has

grown and disks haven't grown to

match. There was a time when it was

fairly normal to keep a month of news

online. And while it's not impossi-

ble, today you have to spend a lot of

disk to do it.

Ronda: The issue of the change in

definition of "long enough" seems

important. With regard to "expire",

when you did rewrite "expire", was

that when you were able to keep one

month of news online?

Henry: I think we had about a

month online. Certainly it was of

that order. It was at least a couple

of weeks and I wouldn't be surprised

if it was a month. I haven't really

kept track. This all started quite a

long time ago and volume was pretty

low then.

Ronda: What do you mean by volume

being low? How would you define the

number of news groups at the time?

Henry: Low in just about every

way. I don't know, maybe a hundred

newsgroups, with maybe a couple hun-

dred sites I'm not sure. Just a wild

guess. The traffic at that point was

low enough that if you wanted to

spend the time, you could realisti-

cally read everything that came over.

Ronda: Were there people who read

it all?

Henry: A reasonable number of

people actually read everything. It

wasn't till the volume started to

become overwhelming that people just

had to get selective. There was al-

ways the possibility of something

interesting cropping up in an area

you didn't normally read. The possi-

bility is still there, but it's no

longer practical to do very much

about it, short of having friends

alert you to something.

Ronda: What year are we talking

about when you started to see the

problem with "expire"? Was that

around 1986?

Henry: No that would be early

1980s. The development period for

this stuff was fairly protracted. It

went through a lot of work of one

kind or another before we released

it. And even that wasn't all that

recent. Let me see here. [Calls docu-

ment up on his computer -ed] Well,

our first patches were summer 1989,

so Spring 1989 must have been the

production release. But that was a

year or more after an alpha release

and stuff had been kicking around in

embryonic form for several years

before that. We never did mount a

systematic campaign to do the whole

thing. It just grew a bit at a time

until we finally decided it was com-

plete enough to try and get something

out the door. It required a surpris-

ing amount of work to put everything

together actually in distributable

form. And it involved some surprises

in our beta testing, portability

hassles we hadn't been aware of, and

systems differing in stupid ways we

hadn't realized.

Ronda: You've said you were first

interested in Usenet because of the

bug reports for UNIX that it carried.

Can you explain a bit more about

that?

Henry: The Duke people originally

thought that the bulk of the traffic

on Usenet was going to be things like

version 7 bug reports. And that was

a noticeable fraction in the very

early days.

Ronda: Was Usenet different in the

ways it dealt with bug reports from

other BBS's?

Page 3

Michael: Did it have other methods

cause I guess a lot of companies have

various forms of support?

Henry: Well, for one thing, Usenet

predated a lot of company BBS's and

the like. It was basically a cheap

way to hear about things fast and

this was at a time when practically

every UNIX site had complete sources

and so a bug report often came with a

fix. It was a way of finding out what

people had discovered and what fixes

they'd worked out for it. Quickly and

easily. And for that matter, if you

ran into something that you couldn't

solve yourself, putting out an in-

quiry to a bunch of fairly bright

people who were fairly familiar with

the code, often got a response, "Oh

Yeah. We solved that one" or "You're

right. There is a bug. Here's how to

fix it" or sympathy even if no one

had a fix for it.

Ronda: You mentioned something

about noticing a particular bug in

the PDP-11 that was an obscure bug.

Henry: This was something that was

a problem in the long division rou-

tine in the C compiler that came with

V7 and it was obscure and difficult

to spot on the older PDP-11's. On the

newer ones it was more conspicuous.

One of our users ran into it, pointed

it out to me, and I ended up investi-

gating it and reporting it. On the

new PDP-11's, it showed up a fair bit

and you just had to fix it. Even on

the older PDP-11's, it turns out that

2 or 3 things that were known as

obscure problems in the stuff magi-

cally went away when the fix was

installed. What was happening was the

code tried using the PDP-11's divide

instruction at one point. There was a

possibility the result might overflow

because the PDP-11 instruction wasn't

up to doing the whole job of this

particular requirement. If the over-

flow occurred, the code assumed that

the registers which had held the

dividend were untouched. On older

PDP-11's, that was usually true but

DEC had never promised it. On the

newer PDP-11's, it was often false.

Any combination of operands that led

into that particular branch in the

code produced grossly wrong answers.

But it looks like some boundary

cases, even on old PDP-11's, didn't

work quite right, because there were

a couple of things mentioned as very

obscure known bugs in the division

stuff that I couldn't reproduce once

I put the fix in. So it may have been

there all along and just nobody had

analyzed it.

Ronda: What's the process of ana-

lyzing a bug? You mentioned something

about documenting it.

Henry: Oh, there were a couple of

problems noted, as known defects in

the software. There is something the

UNIX community has always been fairly

strong on, admitting things you know

just don't work about the software.

And this was mentioned in the sources

in bits of documentation accompanying

them, that there were a couple of

cases that didn't work quite right.

In this case, I had a user of mine

who had run into this. He had actu-

ally supplied a case where the answer

was just plain wrong. It was just a

matter of digging in. I think I ended

up inserting some debugging printouts

at various points in the routine, and

just finding out what was going on

where the calculation was going awry.

Once I knew where to look, the prob-

lem was pretty obvious and the fix,

in fact, was about 4 lines of code.

That was probably one of the first

things that started to make my repu-

tation on the net because a lot of

people noticed when I posted that.

Ronda: Why?

Henry: Because it was a really

obscure problem that had the poten-

tial to make a lot of trouble for

people. It was something in that it

was subtle code that was from the

originators of UNIX themselves, some-

thing they'd missed.

Ronda: That's interesting. So the

reason people respected the bug you

found was because they understood the

significance of the problem that had

been averted?

Henry: Yes, it was a subtle prob-

lem that could have caused a lot of

trouble in code, coming from people

who were normally pretty good.

Ronda: So are you saying that one

is encouraged to find what could be

problems that could cause trouble

Page 4

despite who it's coming from? And

then to suggest how to deal with it?

Henry: Yes, it's diminished some

in recent years because such a large

fraction of UNIX sites nowadays do

not have sources for the code. But in

those days, it was reasonably normal

when you hit some sort of problem to

go looking for what caused it and

produce a fix for it. Partly, this

has declined because people no longer

have sources and partly it's declined

because the community is a lot wider

and many of the people using and even

running UNIX systems don't have the

technical expertise to go hunting for

things like this. But, hey, it was

very common at the time. This was in

the days when UNIX was still treated

by the Bell system as, "Oh just some-

thing we happen to do for our inter-

nal use. You can have a copy if you

want, but if you got problems, don't

bother us." And the result was if you

wanted UNIX support, you did it your-

self or it didn't happen.

Ronda: It sounds then like people

trained themselves to deal with prob-

lems.

Henry: To a considerable extent,

yes. The people got to know how to

deal with the things and the commu-

nity. This is almost certainly one of

the things that got Usenet going in

the beginning. Having quick access to

a community of experienced people was

quite important in the days when you

couldn't just call the manufacturer

for support. If you called Bell Labs

or Western Electric, as it was then,

about it, they would hang up on you.

If you could manage to get through to

Ken Thompson or Dennis Ritchie, they

might thank you for the bug report.

But they certainly weren't going to

promise anything like support.

Ronda: Do you miss that in any

way?

Henry: To some extent, yes. To

some extent it's the community I'm

still in because we've been running

obsolete versions of UNIX for a long

time. And still are. On our Sun, our

main time sharing machine, we're

running the last stable version of

Sun OS 3.5. Sun will hang up on you

if you ask about it now. And so we're

still used to doing our own support,

handling our own problems. Unfortu-

nately, because UNIX has grown so

much and diversified so much, there's

less of a sense of community of oth-

ers lending a hand now. Too many

people with too many different ma-

chines and too many different ver-

sions.

Jay: But has the spirit and the

sense of that somehow given form to

the Usenet community, the grander

community?

Henry: It's still there to some

extent. But it's diffused consider-

ably from what it was.

Ronda: Is there any way that the

bug reports led to the other kinds of

discussions? Is there any connection

between them? Or is it just that

people were interested in other ar-

eas?

Henry: It [the bug report -ed] was

incentive to get onto the network

more than anything else. So you could

hear about things like this. People

have commented also that the USENIX

conferences are in some ways less of

a hotbed of gossip than they used to

be because the net has taken over

some of that function. You know it

used to be – back in the very early

days, when you went to a USENIX con-

ference, more often than not, you

came back with a notebook full of

notes on known bugs and what to do

about them. And new software avail-

able and so forth. The bulk of that

goes on via the net nowadays. Things

have changed, but originally getting

onto the net, the big thing was get-

ting access to the community that

knew about these things. And the rest

of it was a secondary issue origi-

nally. There was a group talking

about science fiction, for example.

But this wasn't why system adminis-

trators were hot on getting their ma-

chines connected. Well, not most

them. And then, generally, this was

a way of doing networking on the

cheap. It was a vigorous online com-

munity that you could join without

spending many dollars and jumping

through lots of bureaucratic hoops,

to join something like the ARPAnet.

With this, all you needed was an

auto-dialing modem and someone who

Page 5

was willing to be your connection

point.

Ronda: Somehow it seems that hav-

ing the other discussions is impor-

tant, also, to the technical discus-

sions. Do you agree? Is there a con-

nection between the technical and

nontechnical discussions?

Henry: They [the nontechnical

discussions -ed] helped broaden sup-

port for things. I don't think they

really had very much of an effect on

the technical end. Then, as now,

there are a lot of people who justify

the net primarily in terms of its

technical benefits. People are heard

to claim sometimes, "I like the net

for the tiny minority of technical

stuff, but all this non-technical

trash I could do without." But in

fact, it has been a standard misun-

derstanding from the early days, the

theory that there's just a little bit

of technical stuff and a lot of gar-

bage. This was as much of a miscon-

ception in the days of 30 days of

news as it is now. That there was a

little bit of technical stuff drown-

ing in garbage. The fact was even

then, the technical stuff was quite a

substantial slice of the traffic.

It's just that individual people

[only -ed] notice the little bits of

technical stuff that appeal to them.

Jay: And they call everything else

garbage.

Henry: Or they just don't think

about the fact that there was a lot

more technical stuff.

Michael: If you don't look for it

you don't see it to some extent.

Jay: But I thought Ronda's ques-

tion was slightly deeper in the sense

that she was asking: Was there some-

thing almost as profound about the

nontechnical stuff in terms of the

kinds of things people talked about

that influenced them to be better

with the technical stuff?

Henry: Maybe, in small ways. The

nontechnical stuff was the first

exposure a lot of these people had to

an online community. Bulletin board

systems were not particularly wide-

spread at the time. They did exist,

but they certainly hadn't reached the

current level of popularity. Networks

like the ARPAnet were much spoken of

by the people who belonged to them,

but weren't particularly widespread.

And there may have been some positive

effect in helping to socialize peo-

ple, so to speak.

Ronda: You have talked a little

bit about speed, a little bit about

performance. Maybe you can speak

briefly about what the limits of B

news were that you were dealing with,

and how that influenced your objec-

tives with C news.

Henry: Well, our big problem, a

contributing factor, was that B news

was messy and buggy. There were

things you couldn't do with it. There

were things that didn't work well on

it. It clearly was less and less able

to cope with the growing volume of

traffic. Even just things like memory

leaks. "Expire" wasn't the only code

that potentially had memory leaks. It

was just getting harder to deal with

the stuff. The big thing though was

that B news was very inefficient at

handling incoming traffic. It took a

long time to process incoming traf-

fic. It beat on the machine pretty

heavily, meanwhile. And there didn't

seem to be any simple way to fix

this. There were fundamental struc-

tural problems that one really could

not do anything about that limited

the ability to speed it up. We kicked

around a bunch of ideas about im-

proved ways of storing news and so

forth. Eventually, we concluded that

there wasn't any big improvement to

be had. Nothing that would be worth

the trouble of being incompatible.

The main thing we were after was just

greater performance.

Ronda: Can you say who we is? Or

if this went on online as well.

Henry: This is Geoff and me.

[Geoff Collyer -ed] I've never been

a big believer in committee design.

Our preference, me in particular, but

I think Geoff as well, our preference

is to do something and then announce

it, rather than vice versa. Partly

because we've got a higher opinion of

our own sense of good design than a

whole lot of other people.

Ronda: Can you explain what you

mean by good design?

Page 6

Henry: We're big on writing simple

clean software that does one thing

and does it well, which is not what

you get out of a committee design.

And in fact, this is one of the

things we have occasionally taken

flack for. We make our own decisions

on what does and doesn't go into C

news. So we don't particularly care

if this makes us popular or not.

We've made a few mistakes along the

way as well. But, it was our own

idea. We've modified our own ideas of

how things were going to work quite a

bit along the way and stuff evolved

to a considerable extent as we wrote

it. There were muddles that had never

adequately been cleaned up. As late

as just before our alpha release,

there were still three different

programs called "rnews" in various

places in our stuff. And when we were

packaging things up to put together a

release, I put my foot down and in-

sisted that there had to be one and

only one "rnews". And so we found

other names for a couple of things in

a hurry. But it evolved along the

way. We had ideas of where we were

going. But it didn't come full blown

as a complete design. It couldn't

really. That approach to doing things

just doesn't work in the real world.

The stuff always evolves. Once you

start building up experience with the

problem and with your tentative solu-

tions, the requirements always

evolve. So you really do have to plan

for getting something working and

having it evolve from there.

Ronda: Interesting.

Henry: We put a lot of thought

over time into the performance issues

and also into the precise definitions

for a lot of things. The B news stuff

- even its documentation - in crucial

areas, just sort of waved its hands

and said, "well, you know what we

mean." In some cases, we actually had

to put quite a bit of effort into

deciding exactly what should be done

in obscure situations. [These are -

ed] things you find out by doing it.

It was not something that really

could be predicted from specification

in advance.

Ronda: That's interesting. Do you

have a sense that the speed and the

performance have made possible the

ability of C news compared to B news

to deal with volume?

Henry: People have adopted our

stuff for a variety of reasons. Par-

ticularly, after the word started

getting out that it was generally

better. There have been a few spe-

cific features that won us a lot of

converts. Something that went into

our version of "expire" sort of mid-

way through its development process

and won us a lot of friends, was

control over expiry newsgroup by

newsgroup. The B news "expire" basi-

cally just let you set expiry rules

for all the news put together. A lot

of people, in fact, had different

opinions about the value of different

newsgroups, and wanted to keep some

things longer than others. The fact

that we could do that won us a lot of

friends very quickly. It probably

wouldn't have been that hard to add

to B news, but nobody ever thought of

it. There were things like this, but

ultimately, people switched to C news

because B news was eating their ma-

chines alive, and they wanted some

performance back. And for that mat-

ter, because they could see the hand-

writing on the wall. There were ma-

chines, including some of ours, where

towards the end, B news was running

essentially nonstop from 5:00 in the

evening till 9:00 in the morning,

turned off during the day because it

had too much of an impact on perfor-

mance when lots of people were trying

to get real work done. And it wasn't

keeping up with the incoming load.

The backlog was growing. People who

ran into that kind of situation gen-

erally decided real fast that they

needed to switch to something else.

Jay: I thought Ronda's question

had another component. Can your care-

ful attention to speed and perfor-

mance be pointed to as accounting for

the tremendous growth in Usenet that

wouldn't have been possible with

something with less performance.

Henry: The trend was very firmly

established very early. But certainly

Usenet would have had a lot of trou-

Page 7

ble coping with growth if C news

hadn't come along when it did.

Jay: What I am asking is if not as

careful a version of C news, would

that have been a limit that would

have...?

Henry: Probably, because the care

and effort we put into performance

basically accounted for a lot of the

performance. We were a little disap-

pointed, initially, in fact, that

fixing some of the basic structural

mistakes of B news didn't improve

performance more. Yes, it was consid-

erably better than B news, but it

wasn't as good as we expected. The

way you make stuff run really fast,

it turns out, is to put a lot of

attention into making it run really

fast. Avoiding basic mistakes is a

crucial prerequisite, but it's not

enough by itself. To really make the

stuff perform, you really do have to

put a lot of effort into understand-

ing what things hurt performance,

where the time is going. You have to

put a fair bit of time into thinking

about how things are being done and

how they might be done better. We got

a certain amount of performance just

by careful low level tuning, looking

for hot spots and finding ways to

speed up the code there. But we also

got an awful lot by standing back and

thinking – "What is this code doing

and is there a better way to do it?"

"Are we repeating things that we

could do just once?" "Is there infor-

mation we need that we're having to

gather laboriously that could just be

stored centrally instead?" – and

things like that, changes in stra-

tegy. Changes in strategy are what

win you the big performance improve-

ments on the whole. Not overall

strategy in the sense of the mistakes

B news made versus the ones we didn't

make. But sort of mid-level strategy

- how the code does what it does. The

way you get big performance improve-

ments is not to make a bit of code

run a little bit faster, but to take

code out entirely. To find ways of

just not doing some things and still

getting the overall job done. Reduc-

ing the amount of time needed for

something to 0 is always better than

reducing it to 10%, though the 10%

can be useful too.

Jay: But when the problems start

building up now, will the next fix

not be a software fix?

Henry: To some extent, we've had

hardware fixes coming in all along.

Faster modems, bigger disks, faster

machines. And that's certainly

helped. But it's going to be hard to

beat C news performance a lot without

drastic revisions in something funda-

mental. There are things we know of

and are doing to make it faster yet.

But huge performance improvements are

going to have to come from something

more fundamental. One thing that

turns out to be relatively expensive

is just looking up a file name in an

operating system, opening a file by

name. The name look-ups are costly,

even in versions of UNIX that have

put some attention into optimizing

them. And we know where our stuff is

doing file name look-ups and we just

don't do it any more than necessary.

Any major speed up in that area –

that is still one of the major bot-

tlenecks – is going to have to come

from major revisions to the operating

system. It's not something that can

be greased up much more at the user

level.

Ronda: You said earlier that you

used to be able to get a month of

Usenet and now you're down to, I

think you said, four days.

Henry: In our case, we're storing

4 days, and using a great deal more

disk space for it, too.

Ronda: Does that mean that in fact

the size has gotten to a point where

there is a need to figure out how to

make some change? Is it coming to

that somehow?

Henry: People have been predicting

the imminent death of the net for a

decade now, so I'm very reluctant to

do that. But certainly, it's gotten

to the point where we store 4 days

because that's basically enough to

carry you over a long weekend. If it

drops much more than that it's going

to be a serious problem for maintain-

ing continuity in a lot of discus-

sions. You can mitigate it somewhat

by getting bigger disks or by being

more selective about what you get.

Page 8

Probably, the bulk of Usenet sites

these days are somewhat selective. We

used to be a major redistribution

point within Toronto. We're still a

minor one. Because of that we try to

carry everything. But carrying every-

thing is steadily getting more expen-

sive.

Jay: But does that imply there's

going to have to be very large cen-

tral distributing points?

Henry: That's already happening to

some extent. A lot of big universi-

ties and things like that, for exam-

ple, now have central news distribu-

tion machines, just to keep the load

from spreading everywhere. And, for

example, most of the news distribu-

tion within U of T now is handled by

one of two central machines.

Jay: Yours not being one of them?

Henry: Ours not being one of them

anymore. We do some redistribution to

places outside campus. Not a lot com-

pared to what we used to do. But

that's definitely happening. UUNET in

the states is another example. Some-

one once called it Usenet's main

sewage pump.

Ronda: What is it? Can you say

what UUNET is?

Henry: It's a site which offers

mail connections and news-feeds for

money, basically. It has done wonders

for the connectivity of the net be-

cause a lot of people who couldn't do

this sort of thing on an informal

basis are happy to get a connection

to UUNET which does cost money but is

professionally maintained. They're

very much in the business of process-

ing mail and news for money. And

they're a very central point now.

Ronda: Isn't that also a little

bit in contradiction with the way

Usenet originally started with it

being available to people at a low

cost or no cost? But there's also

Freenets growing up. For example, the

Cleveland Freenet and the Youngstown

Freenet and Ottawa is supposed to be

developing a Freenet in Canada [Na-

tional Capital Freenet in Ottawa and

Victoria Freenet in Victoria are now

online -ed]. The Freenets are how I

got access. I wouldn't have been able

to pay for access and other people I

know wouldn't....

Henry: There's always people will-

ing to do a certain amount for free.

There's always going to be a consid-

erable amount of that. The point is

when you are in it for a long period

of time and the demand just seems to

be growing, sooner or later you burn

out the supply of volunteer manpower.

And somebody has got to start paying

for it.

Ronda: And some of the contradic-

tion is that it's public money.... In

fact the public is paying for it, so

to then go and put a commercial per-

son in and charge back again, what we

are already paying for in public

funds, it's thru the universities and

it's thru the NSF....

Henry: The real problem on all of

this comes when you start talking

about unlimited growth. This is the

problem Usenet has had all along, in

fact, which is, coping with continued

growth. That shows up in a number of

ways. That's just one side of it.

Eventually a university, for example,

decides that too much of its phone

bill is being spent on shipping news

around for other people and its time

to let somebody do this who is actu-

ally getting paid for the job. Be-

cause NSF in its beneficence doesn't

supply unlimited amounts of money for

such things, sooner or later the

demands get large enough that some-

body's got to put up an appropriation

specifically for it. And at that

point, universities have a tendency

to bow out if they can't get somebody

nice to give them money for it.

And Usenet has run into problems

of growth in a lot of other forms.

Like the sort of social compact that

regulates behavior to some extent on

the net. The problems of finding

information when there are thousands

of newsgroups. All kinds of things

like that. You regularly hear moans

from people about how Usenet isn't

the way it used to be. And occasion-

ally some inconsiderate old timer

will point out, "Well it never was.

You're one of these beginners who

only joined in 1986. You don't know

the way the net started out."

Page 9

Michael: The question of growth

also brings out the connections

through the Internet because that has

grown a lot more than it was ini-

tially.

Henry: Again, that's been a saving

grace to some extent because the

Internet has saved us from the pyra-

miding phone bills to a considerable

extent. The bandwidth that has been

made available in recent years for

the growth of the Internet, a notice-

able fraction of that is shipping

Usenet traffic around. I don't know

about the Internet itself, but there

was a link between Toronto and

Waterloo, the other prominent univer-

sity in Ontario. Five years ago or

more, I saw a graph of traffic growth

over time. Generally, of course, it

was upward. But there was this one

huge step more or less, in the traf-

fic, and that was when we started

shipping Usenet stuff back and forth,

that week. I expect that Usenet would

have undergone some sort of collapse

or transformation by this point if we

had to go on shipping it by phone,

because even with the modems getting

better and better, they weren't get-

ting better that fast, by that much.

Ronda: We have to end the inter-

view soon. So we just want to ask a

few final questions.

Michael: I was wondering if there

was anything – with you, with your

experiences of being on the net and

being one of the writers, one of the

programmers of C news, and just your

general knowledge – is there anything

that other people who were system

administrators or who were on the

Usenet might find useful? Any in-

sights?

Henry: Nothing very dramatic.

About all I have to say is that a lot

of this stuff is harder than it

looks. I really don't know whether

Geoff and I would have gotten in-

volved with C news if we had realized

everything that was going to be in-

volved because there was a lot more

programming than we thought and a lot

more ongoing hassle than we thought.

If you decide to get into this kind

of thing, you have to think very,

very carefully about the possible

implications.

Ronda: Have there been rewards as

well?

Henry: For me, nothing enormously

tangible. The occasional free dinner

and things like that. And Geoff is

currently working full time on News

software support.

Ronda: But what about the prin-

ciples that you clarified in the

papers that you have written? Has

that been something? For example, in

"News Need Not Be Slow," you and

Geoff wrote, "In order to know how to

get somewhere, you must know where

you are starting from." Are there

principles like that that have come

out of doing the work that have been

helpful?

Henry: There's a lot of little

things, things which can be useful to

know if you're doing something like

performance enhancement. But the one

general principle I could distill out

of it is that: If you want to write

software that's fast or portable or

well structured, despite years of

evolution, you have to care about it

and put effort into it. It's easy to

be sloppy, but it comes back to haunt

you. The only way to make something

fast is to care about performance

from the beginning and put real ef-

fort into getting it. The only way to

keep the code clean and maintainable

is to constantly put effort into that

aspect of it. Resist the temptation

to make quick fixes. Or if a quick

fix just has to be done for some

reason, make a point of going back

and doing it right. These things do

not happen automatically and they

won't happen if you don't care about

them. The main reason why a lot of

software today is bloated and compli-

cated and obscure and buggy is that

people don't care. They may care in

the sense that if you ask them they

say, "Yes, we care," but the fact is

they don't put any effort into it.

They don't care enough to work on it.

Michael: Does what you just said

help figure out how to keep Usenet

running? Everyone says it's loaded

now with users and newsgroups and

messages? Is there any way to apply

this?

Henry: Not really very directly.

It's a very different situation from

Page 10

software. I can't think of any par-

ticularly direct application other

than the very general application you

have to think about what the real

underlying problems are. And avoid

the temptation to settle for quick

fixes that don't really solve the

problem.

[Bacon continued from page 1]

obeying her," wrote Bacon. Interested

in putting into practice the scien-

tific method and principles that

Bacon had developed and in applying

their science to serve the well being

of the British people, these amateur

scientists gathered in each others

homes and then in Gresham College in

London, forming what came to be known

as the Invisible College. They gath-

ered to conduct experiments in the

different areas of production and

science.

A 22 stanza ballad which describes

the activities of these amateur sci-

entists who met at Gresham College

contains the following two stanzas:

"If to be rich, and to be learned

Be every nations chiefest glory,

How much are Englishmen concerned

Gresham to celebrate in story

Who built th' Exchange to enrich

the City

And College founded the Witty"

A second hath described at full

The Philosophy of making Cloth

Tells you, what Grass doth make

course Wooll

And what it is that breeds the Moth

Great learning is 'ith art of

Clothing

Though vulgar People think it

nothing.

(taken from "in praise of the choice

Company of Philosophers and Wits who

meet on Wednesday evening at Gresham

College," in “The Economic Writings

of Sir William Petty,” ed Charles

Henry Hull, vol II, Cambridge, 1899,

pg. 324)

In 1660, these amateur scientists

formed the Royal Society of London

for the Improving of Natural Knowl-

edge. One of those invited to join

was John Graunt, a London shopkeeper,

even though the science he pursued

was different from the physical sci-

ences that others in the Royal Soci-

ety practiced. When the British Gov-

ernment published a set of data

called the Bills of Mortality docu-

menting how and why people of London

died, Graunt studied the data and

formulated a set of observations

published as "Natural and Political

Observations... made upon the Bills

of Mortality" by Capt. John Graunt.

Graunt's observations on the data

gathered by the British government

about the social and physical condi-

tions of the people of London, was

scientific work supported and recog-

nized by the Royal Society, just as

was exploration into physical and

technical phenomena.

The data gathered by the scien-

tists of the Royal Society, and the

observations they made from their

data, led to a significant increase

in the ability of Britain industry to

increase production, a breakthrough

that made possible the industrial

revolution.

However, the new machines and

processes of production did not serve

the purpose intended. Workers in the

factories using the new machinery and

methods of production worked longer

hours and under more dangerous condi-

tions than other workers. Factory

owners commonly hired children at low

wages and threw adult workers, par-

ticularly men, out on the streets.

Instead of the new mechanization

improving the material well being of

the society, as the Royal Society

scientists had intended, the new

production made Great Britain into a

Factory Hell. Workers of all ages

were required to work 12 or more

hours a day, six or seven days a

week. The unguarded machinery re-

sulted in many deaths and injuries of

workers, often of young children who

worked the machines. The low wages of

the parents exerted pressure on them

to send their young children into the

factories to work in order to keep

the family from starving.

Scientific advances in production

in Britain were at a standstill.

These poor working conditions fet-

Page 11

tered the financial or social incen-

tive to improve the machinery or

utilize further scientific break-

throughs.

Faced with this factory hell, the

workers themselves determined that

there had to be a change. Though they

didn't have the right to vote for

representatives in Parliament, work-

ers formed short time committees and

publicized the conditions in the

factories. They found allies like

Robert Owen, a Mill owner from New

Lanark, Scotland, who had realized

that long hours and dangerous working

conditions interfered with produc-

tion.

By the early 1830s, the British

Parliament was under pressure to do

an inquiry into the conditions of the

Factory Hell. They sent out a set of

investigators to gather scientific

data of the actual conditions exist-

ing in the factories. They also were

charged with investigating how the

current laws functioned and whether

these laws were inadequate to prevent

the abuses that were occurring. As a

result of the investigation, a report

was published. (See "Factory Inquiry

Commission: First Report of... His

Majesty's Commissioners... to collect

information in the Manufacturing

Districts....", Great Britain, June

28, 1833.)

A Ten Hours Act introduced in

Parliament to limit the hours of

labor in the Mills of children and

women (and thus of men as well), met

with vigorous opposition from a group

of Factory owners and their spokesmen

in Parliament. They claimed that

British industry would be forced to

shut down if there were interference

from Parliament in the relationship

between capital and labor. Factory

workers and their allies continued

their battle for a Ten Hours Law

which would impose a statutory limi-

tation on working hours. (See, for

example, articles in "The Ten Hours

Advocate", 1846-1847 documenting the

strikes, demonstrations and support

among factory workers for the Ten

Hours Bill, the arguments in favor of

the bill, and the efforts of employ-

ers and their parliamentary spokesmen

against the bill.) As a result of the

accurate documentation of the hellish

conditions and the determined battle

against the employers wanting to

continue the status quo, the Factory

Act was passed by Parliament, limit-

ing the hours of work, and establish-

ing education requirements for chil-

dren. It went into effect on May 1,

1848.

Despite the passage of the law,

employers continued their opposition.

After a continued battle, a 10-1/2

hour law with some enforcement power

went into effect in 1850 and finally

established the principle of govern-

ment intervention in the relations

between labor and capital.

As a result of the passage of the

10-1/2 hours bill, British industry

enjoyed great health and productivity

and there was a remarkable stimulus

to the economy. Describing the re-

sults of the Shorter Hours law, a

British Factory inspector wrote, "The

great improvements made in machines

of every kind have raised their pro-

ductive power very much. Without a

doubt the shortening of the hours of

labor... gave impulse to these im-

provements. (Frankfurter Brief, pg.

763) Another commentator explained,

"There is more work done now in ten

hours and a half in the factories in

England than ever was in twelve or

fourteen." (ibid., pg. 762) This was

the first significant factory legis-

lation of the industrialized world.

The law limiting work in the factory

to 10-1/2 hours and requiring that

children have mandated hours of edu-

cation also influenced American fac-

tory legislation which was modeled on

the results of the British experi-

ence. But what is considered the most

convincing evidence of the success of

the shorter hours law is how former

opponents of the law were forced to

recant and criticize their own mis-

takes. The "Report of the New York

Bureau of Labor Statistics," in 1900,

describes how members of the Parlia-

ment, Roebuck and Graham publicly

admitted their changed positions. The

Report explains:

“It came to pass that in 1860,

when a bill was introduced to extend

the ten-hour law to other branches of

the textile industry, J. A. Roebuck,

Page 12

who had originally opposed with bit-

terness this kind of legislation,

made the following recantation:

‘I am about to speak on this ques-

tion under somewhat peculiar circum-

stances. Very early in my parliamen-

tary career Lord Ashley, now the Earl

of Shaftesbury, introduced a bill of

this description. I, being an ardent

political economist, as I am now,

opposed the measure,... and was very

much influenced in my opposition by

what the gentlemen of Lancashire [the

Mill owners -ed] said. They declared

that it was the last half-hour of the

work performed by their operatives

which made all their profits, and

that if we took away that last half-

hour we should ruin the manufactures

of England. I listened to that state-

ment and trembled for the manufactur-

ers of England [a laugh]; but Lord

Ashley persevered. Parliament passed

the bill which he brought in. From

that time down to the present, the

factories of this country have been

under State control, and I appeal to

this House whether the manufacturers

of England have suffered by this

legislation.’” (pg. 50) (Brief, pg

485-6)

A second opponent of the Ten Hours

bill added his testimony to that of

Roebuck's. Sir James Graham admitted:

"I am sorry once more to be involved

in a short-time discussion. I have,

however, a confession to make to the

House.... Experience has shown to my

satisfaction that many of the predic-

tions formerly made against the fac-

tory bill have not been verified by

the result.... By the vote I shall

give tonight, I will endeavor to make

some amends for the course I pursued

in earlier life in opposing the fac-

tory bill."(pg. 51) (Brief, pg. 486)

Describing the lesson later drawn

from this battle, the Frankfurter

Brief in favor of an 8 hour law in

Oregon, quotes from the British Lord

Morley, "Can the realities between

labor and capital be safely left to

the unfettered play of individual

competition? The answer of modern

statesmanship is, that unfettered

individual competition is not a prin-

ciple to which the regulation of

industry may be entrusted." (from

Morley's Cobden, pg. 297-298)

The Ten Hours Victory of May 1,

1848, was a demonstration that when

the principles of science are applied

to the working conditions of the

producers, there is a basis to solve

those problems. The passage of the

Factory Act of 1848 was the acknow-

ledgment of the principle that unbri-

dled competition of the market was

not a useful guide in the relations

between labor and capital. Thus in

honor of the 145th anniversary of May

1, 1848, it is helpful to remember

the tradition of the Ten Hours Advo-

cates and renew the battle for short-

er hours of labor so that the fruits

of the new technology will improve

the lives of the workers who have

made such technology possible.

The Social Forces Behind

the Development of Usenet News

by Michael Hauben

[email protected]

Right at this moment someplace in

the world, someone is being helpful

(or someone is being helped.) At the

same time, others are participating

in various discussions and debates.

A new communications medium is cur-

rently in its infancy. Over the past

two decades the global computer tele-

communications network has been de-

veloping. One element of this network

is called Usenet News (also known as

NetNews), and this news' original

carrier was called UUCPnet (or just

UUCP). The rawest principle of Usenet

News is its importance. In its sim-

plest form, Usenet News represents

democracy. The basic element of

Usenet News is a post. Each individ-

ual post consists of a unique contri-

bution from some user placed in a

subject area, called a newsgroup. In

Usenet's very beginning (and still to

some extent today) posts were trans-

ferred using UNIX's UUCP utility.

This utility allows the use of phone

lines to transmit computer data among

separate computers. The network

(UUCPnet) that Usenet News was trans-

ferred on, grew from the ground up in

a grassroots manner. Originally,

Page 13

there was no official structure. What

began as two or three sites on the

network in 1979 expanded to 15 in

1980. From 150 in 1981 to 400 in

1982. The very nature of Usenet is

communication. Usenet News greatly

facilitates inter-human communication

among a large group of users.

Inherent in most mass media is

central control of content. Many

people are influenced by the deci-

sions of a few. Television program-

ming, for example, is controlled by a

small group of people compared to the

size of the audience. In this way,

the audience has very little choice

over what is emphasized by most mass

media. However, Usenet News is con-

trolled by its audience. Usenet News

should be seen as a promising succes-

sor to other people's presses, such

as The Searchlight, The Appeal to

Reason, The Jewish Daily Forward in

the U.S. and the Penny Press tradi-

tion in England. Like these other

people's presses, most of the mate-

rial written to Usenet is by the same

people who actively read Usenet.

Thus, the audience of Usenet decides

the content and subject matter to be

thought about, presented and debated.

The ideas that exist on Usenet come

from the mass of people who partici-

pate in it. In this way, Usenet is an

uncensored forum for debate - where

many sides of an issue come into

view. Instead of being force-fed by

an uncontrollable source of informa-

tion, people set the tone and empha-

sis on Usenet. People control what

happens on Usenet. In this rare situ-

ation, issues and concerns that are

of interest and thus important to the

participants, are brought up. In the

tradition of Amateur Radio and Citi-

zen's Band Radio, Usenet News is the

product of the users' ideas and will.

Unlike Amateur Radio and CB, however,

Usenet is owned and controlled solely

by the participants. Currently the

range of connectivity is interna-

tional and quickly expanding around

the world into every nook and cranny.

This explosive expansion allows grow-

ing communication with people around

the world.

In the 1960s, the Advanced Re-

search Projects Agency (ARPA) of the

Department of Defense began research

of fundamental importance to the

development and testing of computer

communications networks. ARPA re-

search laid the ground work for the

development of other networks such as

UUCPnet. ARPA conducted an experiment

in attempting to connect incompatible

mainframe computers.

(1)

It was called

the ARPA Computer Network (ARPAnet).

ARPA's stated objectives were:

"1) To develop techniques and

obtain experience on inter-connecting

computers in such a way that a very

broad class of interactions were

possible and

2) To improve and increase com-

puter research productivity through

resource sharing."

(2)

ARPA was both conducting communi-

cations research and trying to study

how to conserve funds by avoiding

duplication of computer resources.

(3)

A Cambridge, Mass. company, Bolt

Beranek and Newman, Inc. (BBN), was

chosen to construct the network, and

AT&T was chosen to provide the commu-

nications lines. ARPAnet was needed

because it was found that a data

connection over existing telephone

voice lines was too slow and not

reliable enough in order to have a

useful connection.

(4)

Packet-switching

was developed for use as the protocol

of exchanging information over the

lines. Packet-switching is a communi-

cations process in which all messages

are broken up into equal size packets

which are transmitted interspersed

and then re-assembled. In this way,

short, medium and long messages get

transferred with minimum delay.

(5)

The ARPAnet was a success. ARPA

provided several advances to communi-

cations research. ARPAnet researchers

were surprised at the enthusiastic

adoption of electronic mail (e-mail)

as the primary source of communica-

tion early on. E-mail was a source of

major productivity increase through

the use of the ARPAnet.

(6)

By 1983,

the ARPAnet officially shifted from

using NCP (Network Control Program)

to TCP/IP (Transmission Control Pro-

tocol/Internet Protocol.) A key point

to TCP/IP's success is in its sim-

Page 14

plicity. It is very easy to implement

over various platforms, and this

simplicity has accounted for its

continued existence as a de facto

standard of the Internet up to today.

ARPAnet's lasting contribution was

demonstrating how a backbone infra-

structure can serve as a connection

between gateways. A gateway is a

computer or part of a computer pro-

grammed to receive messages from one

network and transfer them onto an-

other network.

ARPAnet grew quickly to more than

50 nodes between Hawaii and Norway.

(7)

However, it did not extend to all who

could utilize it. Computer scientists

at universities without Department of

Defense contracts noticed the advan-

tages and petitioned the National

Science Foundation (NSF) for similar

connectivity. CSnet was formed to

service computer scientists. CSnet

was initially financed by the NSF.

Very quickly the desire for intercon-

nection spread to other members of

the university community and CSnet

grew to serve more scientists than

just computer scientists at universi-

ties. CSnet became known as "Computer

'and' Science Network" rather than

just "Computer Science network."

(8)

ARPAnet was phased out by the

Department of Defense, and was re-

placed by various internal networks

(such as MILnet). The role of con-

necting university communities and

regional networks was taken over by

an NSF funded NSFnet, which origi-

nated as a connection for university

researchers to the five National

Supercomputer Centers. CSnet and

NSFnet were made possible by the

research on ARPAnet. The NSFnet be-

came the U.S. backbone for the global

network now known as the Internet.

ARPAnet research was pioneering

for communications research.

(9)

Re-

searchers discovered the link between

computer inter-connection and in-

creased productivity from human com-

munication. The sharing of resources

was proven to save money and increase

computer use and productivity. The

development of packet-switching revo-

lutionized the basic methodology of

connecting computers. The source of

these discoveries were the people

involved. The personnel involved in

the ARPAnet project were very intel-

ligent and forward-looking. They

recognized their position of develop-

ing future technologies, and thus did

not develop products that commercial

industry could (and would) develop.

Instead they understood that the

communications technologies they were

developing had to come from a not-

for-profit body. ARPA researchers had

no proprietary products to support,

and no deadlines to meet. Either

would have tainted, or made develop-

ing networks of incompatible comput-

ers impossible or limited. Current

users of international computer net-

works are in debt to the pioneers of

ARPAnet.

So ARPAnet was successful in its

attempt to connect various spatially

remote computers, and thus more im-

portantly the people who used those

computers. However, these people were

either professors at Universities

that had Department of Defense re-

search grants or employees of a lim-

ited number of Defense Industry com-

panies. Eventually other Universities

connected through CSnet, NSFnet,

BITnet and other developing connec-

tions. There were still a mass of

people who wanted a connection, but

were not in a position to gain one.

Duke University and the University of

North Carolina at Chapel Hill were

two such locations. It was in these

underprivileged fertile grounds where

the grassroots computer communica-

tions breakthrough of Usenet origi-

nated and developed.

The UNIX operating system provides

the basic tools needed to share in-

formation between computers. UNIX

(10)

was developed as "a system around

which a fellowship would form."

(11)

One of the programmers of UNIX, Den-

nis Ritchie, wrote that the intended

purpose of UNIX was to "encourage

close communication."

(12)

UNIX's gen-

eral principles thus conceptually

foreshadowed the basic tenet of

Usenet News. How else should one go

about designing communications pro-

grams, but on an operating system

which was designed with a basic prin-

ciple of encouraging communication?

The UNIX utility UUCP (UNIX-to-UNIX

Page 15

CoPy) was developed in 1976 by Mike

Lesk at Bell Labs. UUCP provided a

simple way of passing files between

any two computers running UNIX and

UUCP. UNIX's popularity also arose

from AT&T's prohibition to profit

from other than their main business,

phone services, under the terms of

the 1956 Consent Decree. UNIX was

thus available on a "no-cost" (or

very low cost) basis. The operating

system was seen as an "in-house" tool

on DEC computers and was in use

throughout Bell Labs. Many Universi-

ties used the same type of computer

and were licensed by AT&T to utilize

UNIX. It was thus easily accessible.

Schools picked it up, and computer

science students used it to learn

about operating systems, as UNIX was

a model of elegance and simplicity

compared to most operating systems of

the times. UNIX became a widely used

operating system in the academic

world. This paved the way for an

international public communications

system to form.

Usenet News was created by grad-

uate students Tom Truscott and James

Ellis of Duke University in conjunc-

tion with graduate student Steve

Bellovin of the University of North

Carolina in 1979. A 5-page leaflet

introducing Usenet News was distrib-

uted at the Winter 1980 USENIX UNIX

Users' Conference in Boulder, CO.

Later that year, at the Summer USENIX

Conference in Delaware the software

needed to participate in Usenet was

put on the Conference tape. By this

time, Stephen Daniel had rewritten

the basic programs and it was called

A-News. The software was immensely

popular.

Usenet was patterned to mean "UNIX

Users Network." The developers

thought Usenet would be used to dis-

cuss people's problems and to share

experiences about UNIX. Usenet did

provide a forum for people to solve

problems with UNIX, as AT&T provided

no support for UNIX. In an early

handout, Usenet is referred to as a

"poor man's ARPAnet."

(13)

Stephen Dan-

iel told me that people who didn't

have access to the ARPAnet were hun-

gry for similar opportunities to

communicate.

(14)

Usenet News has been full of sur-

prises from the beginning. The origi-

nators of Usenet News underestimated

the hunger of the people. As the

initial intentions were to produce an

easy method of communicating with

other users at the same site, the

writers thought people would want to

have local bulletin boards.

(15)

How-

ever, people were attracted by the

possibility of communicating with

others outside the local community.

Even today, the wide-spread communi-

cation is part of what makes Usenet

so enticing. It was also thought

NetNews would be useful as a method

of communications at individual loca-

tions, and between sites close to

each other.

(16)

Usenet grew as a

grassroots connection of people. The

people who utilized NetNews wanted to

communicate, and communicate they

did! People have a fundamental need

to communicate and Usenet News aptly

fills the bill. (See, e.g., Gregory

G. Woodbury's "Net Cultural Assump-

tions")

Early in 1980 or 1981 the gap

between ARPAnet and Usenet was

bridged.

(17)

The University of Cali-

fornia at Berkeley had connections to

both ARPAnet and Usenet News. This

allowed another pioneer, Mark Horton,

to bring discussions from ARPAnet

mailing lists into Usenet news-

groups.

(18)

This was a significant

achievement. Communities other than

ARPA sponsored researchers were fi-

nally able to see what the ARPAnet

had made possible. The gatewaying of

ARPAnet mailing lists into Usenet

attracted a wave of people. These

people became attracted to Usenet

News when two ARPAnet mailing lists

(SF-LOVERS and HUMAN-NETS) began to

appear on Usenet.

(19)

These lists

provided interesting material and

discussions. The size of the news

feed (i.e., the raw data of Usenet

News) thus became larger and provided

sponsored connections. However much

of the way individuals are connected

at home is through the phone lines

and various versions of UUCP. There

are also commercial services that

exist now for a fee that serve to

provide connections for electronic

Page 18

mail and Usenet News access, as well

as access to the Internet.

Much of the development of Usenet

News owes a big thanks to restric-

tions on commercial uses. Where else

in our society is the commercial

element so clearly separated from any

entity? Many other forums of discus-

sion and communication become clogged

and congested when advertisements use

space. On UUCPnet, people feel it

wrong to assist any commercial ven-

ture through the voluntary actions of

those who use and redistribute news

and e-mail. When people feel someone

is abusing the nature of Usenet News,

they let the offender know through e-

mail. In this manner users keep

Usenet News as a forum that is free

from the monetary benefit for any one

individual. Usenet is not allowed to

be a profit making venture for any

one individual or group. Rather,

people fight to keep it a resource

that is helpful to the society as a

whole.

On what was the ARPAnet and what

is now the NSFnet and the Internet,

there are Acceptable Use Policies

(AUP) that exist because these net-

works were initially set up, founded

and financed by public monies. On

these networks, commercial usage is

prohibited, which means it is also

discouraged on other networks that

gateway into the NSFnet. [Unfortu-

nately, the NSF is now encouraging

privatization of the NSF backbone.

See e.g. the U.S. Office of Inspector

General's Report on NSFnet, April,

1993 -ed] However, the discouragement

of commercial usage of the global

Usenet News is separate and developed

differently from the AUP.

The social network that Usenet

News represents supersedes the physi-

cal connection it rides on. The cur-

rent NetNews rides on many of the

physical networks that exist today.

However, if need would ever be,

Usenet could re-establish itself

outside of the current physically

organized networks. Usenet News'

quality is such that it will survive

because of its users will. As a peer

to peer network, Usenet draws its

importance. People who use Usenet

News wish to communicate with others.

This communal wish means that people

on Usenet find it in their own and in

the community's interest to be help-

ful. In this way, Usenet exists as a

world-wide community of resources

ready to be shared. Where else today

is there so much knowledge that is

freely available? Usenet News repre-

sents a living library. Usenet News

is only a part of the worldwide com-

puter networks that are "part of the

largest machine that man has ever

constructed - the global telecommuni-

cations network."

(27)

Usenet News began with the spirit

that still exists today. On several

newsgroups I posted a message with

the following subject: "I want to

hear from the four corners of the Net

- That means YOU!" In return I re-

ceived numerous wonderful answers.

One new pioneer was going to use

packet radio to send e-mail up to the

CIS's orbiting Mir Space Station in

the heavens. One person criticized

Japan's lack of understanding the

computer technology they supposedly

"lead". Another user from France told

me how the government charged a lot

of money to access e-mail and Usenet

News, and how there were at least two

other "unofficial" connections. Since

the government didn't recognize these

other gateways, e-mail was to be sent

via the United States in order to

reach others across the street! Cer-

tain cities (e.g., Wellington, New

Zealand and Cleveland, Ohio) have

free public connections to Usenet

News, e-mail and other network re-

sources. Others in Krakow in Poland,

Australia and the ex-USSR sent me

information about their connection.

Some told me of how they made other

connections possible. One user in

South Africa told me how he distrib-

uted news and e-mail and was trying

to gain access to a satellite in

order to set connections up with the

interior of Africa that lacks the

otherwise needed infrastructure. The

world is still in the infancy of this

communications inter-connectivity!

The very nature of Usenet News

promotes change. Usenet News was born

outside of established "networks",

and transcends any one physical net-

Page 19

work. Currently, at this time, it

exists of itself and via other net-

works. It makes possible the distri-

bution of information that might

otherwise not be heard through "offi-

cial channels." This role makes

Usenet News a herald for social

change. Because of the inherent will

to communicate, people who don't have

access to News will want access when

they become exposed to what it is,

and people who currently have access

will want News to expand its reach so

as to further even more communica-

tion. Usenet News might grow to pro-

vide a forum for people to influence

their governments. News allows for

the discussion and debate of issues

in a mode that facilitates a mass

participation. This becomes a source

of independent information. An inde-

pendent source is helpful in the

search for the truth.

Administrators and individuals who

handle the flow of information have

been predicting the "imminent death

of the net" since 1982.

(28)

The soft-

ware that handles the distribution of

NetNews has gone through several

versions to handle the ever increas-

ing amount of information. People who

receive News have either had to de-

crease 1) the number of days individ-

ual messages stay at the site, 2) the

number of newsgroups they receive; or

they have had to allocate more disk

space for the storage of News. De-

spite all the predictions and wor-

ries, people's desire for this commu-

nication have kept this social net-

work floating. Brad Templeton once

wrote, "If there is a gigabit network

with bandwidth to spare that is will-

ing to carry Usenet, it has plenty

more growth left."

(29)

Brad, and every-

one else will be happy to know that

such a network does exist! Various

research labs (including the NSF

Center for Telecommunications Re-

search at Columbia University in New

York) are close to producing usable

gigabit networks.

Usenet News is a democratic and

technological breakthrough. The com-

puter networks and Usenet News are

still developing. People need to work

towards keeping connections available

and fairly inexpensive, if not free,

so as to encourage the body of users

to grow. There are several cities and

governments across the world where

the public has access to network

services as a civic service. This

direction is to be encouraged. Exclu-

sive arrangements for access are to

be discouraged. The very nature of

Usenet News means people are going to

be working for its expansion. Others

will be working for the expansion for

their own gain, and I wouldn't doubt

that some forces will be an active

force against expansion of Usenet. I

can only ask that people attempt to

spread this document in an attempt to

popularize and encourage the use and

fight for Usenet News.

Footnotes

1. "In September 1969, the embry-

onic one-node(!) ARPAnet came to life

when the first packet-switching com-

puter was connected to the Sigma 7

computer at UCLA. Shortly thereafter

began the interconnection of many

main processors (referred to as

HOSTs) at various university, indus-

trial, and government research cen-

ters across the United States."

(Kleinrock, "On Communications and

Networks," IEEE Transactions on Com-

puters, vol. C-25 No 12, Dec 1976,

Pg. 1328)

2. F. Heart, A. McKenzie, J.

McQuillan, and D. Walden, ARPAnet

Completion Report, Washington, 1978,

pg. II-2

3. Alexander McKenzie et al,

"ARPAnet, the Defense Data Network,

and Internet" in The Froehlich/Kent

Encyclopedia of Telecommunications,

vol. 1, pg. 346

4. Lawrence G. Roberts, The ARPA-

net and Computer Networks, pg.145

5. Leonard Kleinrock, "On Communi

cations and Networks", IEEE Transac-

tions on Computers, vol C-25, No. 12,

December, 1976, pg. 1327.

6. Alexander McKenzie, pg. 357

7. F. Heart, pg. ii-25

8. Alexander McKenzie, pg. 369

9. "For many of the people in

government, at the major contractors,

and in the participating universities

Page 20

and research centers the development

of the ARPAnet has been an exciting

time which will rank as a high point

in their professional careers. In

1969 the ARPAnet project represented

a high risk, potentially high impact

research effort. The existence of the

net in practical useful form has not

only provided communications technol-

ogy to meet any short term needs, but

it represents a formidable communica-

tions technology and experience base

on which the Defense Department as

well as the entire public and private

sectors will depend for advanced

communications needs. The strong and

diverse experience base generated by

the ARPAnet project has placed this

country ahead of all others in ad-

vanced digital communications science

and technology." (ARPAnet Completion

Report, section II -109.)

10. UNIX was born in 1969, the

same year as ARPAnet.

11. D. M. Ritchie, "The UNIX Sys-

tem: The Evolution of the UNIX Time-

sharing System," Bell Systems Techni-

cal Journal, vol. 63, No. 8 (October

1984), pg. 1578.

12. ibid.

13. Stephen Daniel, James Ellis,

and Tom Truscott, "USENET - A General

Access UNIX Network," Duke Univer-

sity, Durham, NC, Summer 1980.

14. Stephen Daniel, 1992, Personal

Communications, November 1992.

15. Bellovin, Steve. M. and Mark

Horton, "USENET – A Distributed

Decentralized News System", an unpub-

lished manuscript, 1985.

16. ibid.

17. KEY POINT - The first gateway

of ARPAnet mailing lists to Usenet

was an early force to have gateways

with ARPAnet. Gateways to ARPAnet

were on the side and in all likeli-

hood not officially sanctioned. How-

ever, this provided the impetus for

future gateways into ARPAnet. This

was the first pressure on the ARPAnet

to provide service to a larger number

of people - a first step to trans-

forming of the ARPAnet to become a

part of the backbone on the Internet.

18. Comment from Steve Bellovin,

Oct. 10, 1990, Usenet History

Archive: "Correct. The original con-

cept was that most of the traffic

would be the form now known as UNIX-

wizards (or whatever it's called this

week). Growth was slow until Mark

started feeding the mailing lists in

because there was nothing to offer

prospective customers. Given a ready

source of material, people were at-

tracted."

19. Comment from Tom Truscott,

Sept 25, 1990, Usenet History

Archive: "The very first news groups

were "NET." and local groups such as

"dept". Later Horton et al. oversaw

the lower-casing of NET. Only when

ucbvax joined the net did "fa" ap-

pear. Indeed I was unaware of the

ARPAnet mailing lists such as human-

nets until ucbvax enlightened us."

20. Steve Bellovin, Oct 10, 1990 -

Usenet History Mailing List. Also -

from Lauren Weinstein, Nov. 23, 1992:

"Greetings. It's all too easy to

forget, even for those of us who were

there all along, how "small" it all

started. When I was at UCLA-ATS

(ARPAnet site 1) in the early 1970s,

even small mailing lists could cause

concern. I still distinctly remember

the concerns regarding network load-

ing from Geoff Goodfellow's NETWORK-

HACKERS mailing list (this was in the

days when "hacker" didn't have the

negative meaning it has picked up

since then) as the list passed *100*

addresses. A list about wine (WINE-

TASTERS, I believe it was called)

which was mentioned in "Datamation"

magazine caused memos to be sent out

from the powers-that-be about "offi-

cial use" of the net. There was also

a lot of hand-wringing about the 255

site limit (that is, a limit on the

number of IMPs [Interface Message

Processors -ed]) in the network to-

pology under NCP [Network Control

Program -ed]. It's quite remarkable

how much we accomplished on what by

today's standards were slow machines

with "tiny" amounts of memory, run-

ning with a 56 Kbit network back-

bone!"

21. Henry Spencer - Usenet History

Archives "history" file.

Page 21

22. From Amanda Walker, Tue, Oct.

16, 09:11 PDT, 1990, Usenet History

Archives: "Indeed. I suspect that

there are any number of examples of

this, but the most egregious in my

experience was at CWRU. The ECMP

department had a VAX 11/780 on Usenet

("cwruecmp"), and the campus computer

center had a DEC-20 in the room next

door. The machines were separated by

a grand total of about 30 feet and a

piece of wallboard, but the computer

center was not at all interested in

"catering" to "those CS types" by

stringing an RS-232 line between

them. So, it was possible to send

mail between them, but only by send-

ing via a route resembling:

crwuecmp => decvax => ucbvax (UUCP)

ucbvax => columbia (CU20A, I think)

(ARPAnet)

columbia => cmu-cs-c => cwru20

(CCnet)

Yup, that's three networks, and

two coasts just to get through a

piece of sheetrock :-). Took about a

week, too."

23. Alexander McKenzie, "Indeed,

during a typical measurement period

in June 1988, over 50% of the active

ARPAnet hosts were gateways, and they

accounted for over 80% of the traf-

fic." pg. 369

24. At AT&T, the computers "re-

search", then "allegra", then "ihnp4"

served as major mail and/or news

distribution sites. At DEC - "decvax"

gradually increased its role (e.g.,

"decvax" in New Hampshire would call

long distance to San Diego across the

country.)

25. Andrew Tabenbaum is quoted as

saying something similar to "Never

underestimate the bandwidth of a

station wagon full of 9 track tape

(or magnetic tape)."

26. "Flame Wars" (highly emotional

attacks) can become annoying. There

are ebbs and flows of interesting

posts. Even though Usenet is addict-

ing, it can also be overwhelming.

27. Ithiel de Sola Pool, Technolo-

gies Without Boundaries, Cambridge

1990, pg. 56.

28. From the Usenet History Ar-

chives.

29. From the "posthist" file from

Usenet History Archives.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Special Thanks to Bruce Jones for

establishing and archiving the Usenet

History Archives. Also thanks to the

Pioneers for getting Usenet News off

to the right start.

Usenet History Archives are acces-

sible via anonymous FTP at

weber.ucsd.edu in the directory

/pub/usenet.hist

Bellovin, Steve M. and Mark Hor-

ton, "USENET – A Distributed Decen-

tralized News System," an unpublished

manuscript, 1985.

Heart, F., A. McKenzie, J.

McQuillan, and D. Walden, ARPAnet

Completion Report, Washington, 1978,

Kleinrock, Leonard, "On Communica-

tions and Networks," in IEEE Transac-

tions on Computers, vol C-25, No. 12,

December, 1976, pg. 1326-1335.

McKenzie, Alexander and David C.

Walden, "ARPAnet, the Defense Data

Network, and Internet," in the

Froehlich/Kent Encyclopedia, vol 1,

pg. 341-376.

Ritchie, D. M., "The UNIX System:

The Evolution of the UNIX Time-shar-

ing System," Bell Systems Technical

Journal, vol. 63, No. 8 (October

1984), pg. 1577-1593.

Roberts, Lawrence G, "The Arpanet

and Computer Networks," in A History

of Personal Workstations, ed. Adele

Goldberg, N.Y., 1988.

The Net and the Labor Movement

Editorial

This issue of the Amateur

Computerist contains articles on the

victory of the Ten Hours Bill in

England in May, 1848 and on the de-

velopment of the computer network

that now spans the globe. The Amateur

Computerist has occasionally been

asked why we combine labor concerns

with articles involving the newly

developing computer technology. The

Page 22

articles in this issue, hopefully,

will help answer that question.

The current global computer net-

work is the development of work done

by scientists, engineers, programmers

and many other networking pioneers

who functioned much in a tradition

like that of the amateur scientists

who founded the Royal Society in

London in the 1660s. [See Sir Francis

Bacon and the Shorter Hours Bill.]

The ARPAnet was the network developed

to give computer scientists and other

DOD contractors a way to test their

networking theories. [See Social

Forces Behind the Net.] Based on the

actual network to help them to col-

laborate and to give them a workshop

to test their theory and make it more

attuned to the real problems of a

worldwide network, a global network

evolved which amazed even the pio-

neers themselves.

An environment like that of the

Royal Society was also created at

Bell Labs where computer programmers

involved in scientific research like

Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Doug

McIlroy, Mike Lesk and others worked

to create a computer operating system

that would make it possible for com-

puters to be utilized to the fullest

by programmers. They functioned

together, helping each other and

building on each others' inventions

and discoveries. Due to a tradition

of honestly admitting their errors

and mistaken models and their will-

ingness to make the bugs public that

they found in their programs, they

were able to create an operating

system that has spread round the

world and has made possible program-

ming achievements like C News for

Usenet News.

The traditions of openness about

errors, a scientific approach to

searching out the real problems and

simplicities and dealing with them,

and testing one's theories in prac-

tice, have made it possible for Bell

Labs research programmers to create

UNIX, for the ARPAnet computer pio-

neers to build the ARPAnet, and for

programmers like Henry Spencer and

Geoff Collyer to create C news.

In Fall, 1979, another significant

event occurred. Graduate students at

Duke and the University of North

Carolina were exploring the possibil-

ities of the UNIX operating system

Version 7 that had come out with a

remote UNIX to UNIX copy program

called uucp. They put together some

UNIX shell scripts into a program to

make it possible to connect the com-

puters at their two schools via uucp

and a homebrew autodial modem using

the telephone. They then presented

their achievement at a UNIX users'

conference and offered to set up an

electronic newsletter where UNIX

users at different locations could

help each other with problems.

The computer network they created

soon spread broadly and widely and is

now known as Usenet News, a computer

users news which reaches people

around the world. It makes it possi-

ble for users to participate in de-

termining and posting the news that

will be carried via this global net-

work. This news itself is a splendid

achievement as it involves a high

level of automation and is adminis-

trated by people around the world who

have learned to work together and to

help each other solve technological

problems of the technology. Also,

there are many who have created pro-

grams and other contributions to help

make this news possible. Most have

done so with out financial gain, but

as a contribution to the networking

community.

Via the network, the real condi-

tions of people's lives around the

world are being shared. Despite the

great promise that computer facili-

tated communication and automation

provide, the conditions of the common

people's lives are continually wors-

ening. There are people out of work,

with high unemployment in France,

Russia, the U.S., Canada, etc. to

name just a few of the countries from

which this writer has gotten first

hand reports. Students are finding it

hard to find jobs, either for the

summer to raise the money to return

to school in the fall, or when they

graduate. Some employers even fire

their workers for postings on the net

that tell the truth about shortcom-

Page 23

ings in computer industry products

(such as has recently occurred with

an employee of Digiboard being fired

for a post he made to Usenet.)

Workers who do have jobs are work-

ing long hours, with little or no

extra pay for the overtime hours.

Computer workers in the U.S., for

example, have very little legal pro-

tection against long hours of work.

Meanwhile, trade unions in the U.S.

like the UAW are oblivious to any

problems of workers and instead are

busy putting their financial and

staff resources toward promoting the

program of their political party,

while workers' problems and ever

worsening conditions are ignored.

But, what the spirit and tradition

of May, 1848 shows is that scientific

inquiry and methods must be applied

to both social and technical problems

if a society is to have the advan-

tages possible from science. Sir

Francis Bacon explains how science is

only possible if there is a progres-

sive and social purpose for that

science. Therefore, when problems are

presented, like the further expansion

of the net or how to deal with the

ever growing load of Usenet posts and

newsgroups, there is a need to sub-

ject these problems to scientific

analysis and examination.

The real problems in society which

result from the development of auto-

mation have only begun to be sub-

jected to such scientific analysis.

The 1833 Parliamentary Inquiry into

factory conditions in Great Britain

demonstrated the kind of scientific

data that needs to be gathered to

fashion legislation that deals with

these real problems. Such a scien-

tific approach to the questions of

the society and its economic problems

was pioneered in England and resulted

in stronger laws to shorten the hours

of labor of the workers in the most

mechanized factories of that time.

This scientific approach to legisla-

tion, whether it be legislation to

guide the expansion of the net or

legislation in favor of shorter

hours, is needed today if the promise

of the automation revolution is to be

realized. Bacon's insight that the

goal of one's work affects whether

one's work is scientific or not,

applies to today's research in auto-

mation and computer communication.

Will the efforts and work go to bene-

fit the people of the society or a

small handful? The tradition of May

1848 shows that scientific work re-

quires that the actual conditions of

the workers involved in the produc-

tion of the society be subjected to

the same kind of scientific methods

as other problems of science and

technology. By combining the concerns

of workers with articles about com-

puters, the Amateur Computerist is

continuing the tradition of the Royal

Society and of the Factory Inquiry

into the conditions of the laborers

that were pioneered in England to

make possible industrial revolution.

Such an approach is needed today if

our society to gain the fruits of the

automation revolution.

Letters to Editor

The Net in Russia

The Amateur Computerist has corre-

sponded with computer users in Eu-

rope, Asia, North and South America,

Australia and New Zealand. We told

our correspondents that we are inter-

ested in any comments they may have

about the newsletter and in what is

happening with telecommunications

where they live. Several have com-

mented on the hard economic times and

high unemployment in their countries.

We think it is of value to share some

of this correspondence with our read-

ers. The following is one example of

these difficult living conditions

described in e-mail received from

around the world. We welcome accounts

of current conditions for publication

in future issues of the Amateur

Computerist.

We were told that in Russia there

are many networks, but all of them

are quite expensive. Still educa-

tional and scientific institutions

may have free access to e-mail. E-

mail is new for many people and there

is a lot to learn.

At one site we were told there are

some 100 alt.* newsgroups to select

from. There are some 60 groups in the

Page 24

Russian language. Of these 50% are

for commercial use - sell/buy, etc.

About 15% are FIDO echoes translated

into newsgroups - you can read and

mail to them.

A computer user wrote that his

connectivity cost $500 per month

including an IP address. He added

that e-mail payment depends on your

traffic in addition to a fixed month-

ly payment. He said he had heard

about the existence of Freenet and

Glasnet in Russia but that they only

provide e-mail.

From the news reports in the US

press it sounds like it is hard for

people to live in Russia. We asked

how conditions were in Moscow? Were

prices very high? We were told that

we were not far from reality in

thinking prices were high. The income

per month is 5000 to 20,000 rubles.

At the rate of $1 equaled 565 rubles

he translated that to the equivalent

of $10 - $40 per month. Also the

prices are quite high: a pair of

shoes cost 15,000 rubles. A user told

us that the only good thing is that

they pay very little rent for flats

but this situation is about to be

changed. When we asked if people feel

that things will improve? We were

told that people were tired of dis-

cussing all that - it has lasted

already for 8 years. The correspon-

dent went on however to agree with us

that the computer revolution is the

one bright spot that people have to

look forward to.

We ended one e-mail message: "Good

to be in contact with you." And the

Russian user replied, "Me too."

It has been valuable to get first

hand information about conditions in

other countries. We hope to continue

and expand such contact. We invite

computer users around the world to

write us about the network connec-

tions and living and working condi-

tions where they live.

About The Net in Uruguay

This is a more detailed explana-

tion about telecommunications here,

as I promised.

For getting to the Internet I'm

using the services of Chasque.

Chasque is a member of the Associa-

tion for Progressive Communications,

a non-profit organization (at least,

that's what THEY say), with other

members (networks) on other coun-

tries, like Pegasus in Australia, Web

in Canada, etc. (I don't actually

know much more about them). To use

this service for having mail on

Internet (no ftp service available),

you pay an initial fee of US$20. Then

a monthly fee of U.S. $10; you have

an hour of connect time free with

this. Additional connect time costs

U.S. $1.50/hour. Sending/receiving

mail to the outside costs about U.S.

$.15/KB. So, getting a 100KB msg

costs me U.S. $15, but my modem is

not very fast (1200 baud) so it takes

me 20 minutes of on-line time to

download it, and that means addi-

tional expense.

I joined once a newsgroup on the

Internet about the Atari ST; not

knowing the amount of text involved,

I checked my mailbox three days later

and found so much text that although

I un-joined the newsgroup immedi-

ately, my monthly bill climbed to

more than US$35. (As a guide, the

minimum wage here is fixed by law at

about US$120 monthly, and

US$250/month is a good wage for nor-

mal office work.)

Recently, Fidonet started working

here, thanks to the hard work of a

few enthusiasts. Although Fidonet is

absolutely free in many countries,

here we decided that the expensive

international phone bills and the

expensive fast modem was too high a

cost for a single person. So, a

monthly fee of US$3 is asked of all

the people using international mail

(I think this is quite reasonable).

Well, hope this clarifies the

telecomm issue. If you have further

doubts you can contact me on the

usual Internet address or also on

Fidonet at the 4:850/1 node.

Regards, Jose Luis Regueiro

Uruguay

E-mail address: Jose.Luis .Regueiro@

f1.n850.z4.fidonet.org

News and Views from the Shop Floor

The New Dawn

Page 25

by Floyd Hoke-Miller

Let's be wise and organize!

Get the Polly off our back;

Put the unions on the track

Of workers solidarity!

Educate to emancipate!

Put the parasite to work;

Let none his duty shirk

Of classless regularity!

Don't descry but glorify

The power workers hold:

Form an OBU and don't be sold

As chattels in wage slavery!

Let our toils reap the spoils

Our horny hands produce;

Not for profit but for use

And end the class of knavery!

[Editor's Note: OBU was the IWW dream

of One Big Union for all workers]

Eyewitness Account of

Pittsburgh Press Strike

by Shawn Duffy

e-mail: [email protected]

The following is a more-or-less

eyewitness account of the attempt by

the Pittsburgh Press to use replace-

ment drivers. It took place in a

Xerox warehouse that was sub-leasing

space to the Press. I don't remember

the exact dates, except that they

were in August, 1992.

Before the storm:

I had been working at the ware-

house since late July. Xerox was

moving it to Cincinnati. The workers

were represented by the United Steel-

workers. Us temporaries were brought

in to help move things out.

After about a week and a half, the

news said the Press would hire re-

placements. Brought in from Boston,

they were being paid $15/hr + room +

board. Security guards would ride

shotgun. They were in rental cars,

with easy to spot Ohio plates. All

this was on the news. Late Thursday

we were warned that they would be

distributing the news from the unused

warehouse space where we were work-

ing!

Friday: All's quiet. The natural

worries about crossing a picket line

surface. Being nonunion temporaries

puts my work crew right in the mid-

dle. All workers, permanent and tem-

porary alike are warned to not risk

life and limb coming to work.

Monday: Scab paper goes into pro-

duction. Two police cars guard the

plant gates. It is not known if the

Teamsters know about this distribu-

tion point. Scant news coverage. With

most workers, including myself, being

either former union members, or hav-

ing family union members, and being

tired of the way labor has been

treated in the city, watching help-

lessly, rental cars and Press trucks

enter and exit all morning.

Word around the warehouse is that

all hell is breaking loose at Press

headquarters in town. The story makes

short national attention. Curiously,

the Judge in charge doesn't issue the

automatic limitation of pickets.

Tuesday: The day all hell breaks

loose!

4:45 A.M. I enter the warehouse

parking lot. Since it's still dark,

and I am looking left to turn, I

don't notice the Teamsters across the

street. But many folks do. Several

police cars and local media.

6:45 A.M. It's first break, and

light out. All kinds of excitement on

the line. I cross the street to get

coffee at a little convenience store.

Security, which is already high be-

cause the warehouse is closing, is

fanned out around the parking lot.

Most temporaries do not stand with

the strikers just yet. Being young

and in college, we keep our distance

for now, what with all the tension

between temps/perm employees to begin

with. I watch the hustle and bustle

along the highway. I miss them shak-

ing a rental car and blocking traf-

fic. Talking with some security

guards, it is apparent they will not

stop anything major for the $6/hr

they are making. But the combination

of them and the 15 or so police keep

everyone on their own side of the

street.

7:00 A.M. Xerox employees trickle

back to work. Some tell the teamsters

they will be back next break. I am

Page 26

invited to stand with them next

break. Most everyone is on the

union's side. One notable exception

is a kid who is a journalism major

who says, "It's because of the union

that the reporters are laid off." Go

figure. Most everyone else is totally

with the union, though we talk of

mistakes some unions have made in the

past, suggesting they need to hire

some business majors, etc. But we

100% support them. Especially me and

friend Doug. Both our dad's worked

for the Port Authority, itself on

strike just a few months ago, and

back to work by court order, still

without a contract.

8:45 A.M. I get coffee and stand

with the teamsters. So do many oth-

ers. In fact, so many do that we seem

to outnumber the teamsters 2-1. Team-

sters are very happy about this. It

looks good for the news. The bus

drivers honk to show support (I men-

tioned their strike earlier). So do

most truckers, and many cars. Strik-

ers (and us!) yell "scab", etc.

It is obvious the replacement

drivers are under orders not to cause

any trouble, for as I cross the

street, one stops the car DEAD, and

gives me the right of way. I cross

her path as slowly as possible. Every

little bit helps! (I'm told later

that a bus driver stopped in front of

the gate and said he broke down,

tying things up for a while!).

10:45 We come out for lunch to

cheers and applause! One of the

greatest feelings you can have! More

standing to show support. The picket

leader thanks everyone. Press trucks

are videotaping the line (flipping

the bird to them) as they pass. The

union counters by taping the trucks!

More police show up.

More shouting.

They ask us to gather round for a

live shot for the noon news. A rock

was thrown at a car and someone went

to the hospital. The Union says it's

sticking to a "no violence" policy.

The picket limitation order has come

down. The Police Chief ask Teamsters

to disperse, and (with laughter)

tells us to get back to work.

One replacement driver has a

change of heart, and refuses to exit

the grounds!

One of our workers yells, "You

ought to be ashamed of yourself! as

we walk back."

1:30 P.M. Last break of the day.

Only a couple of pickets left. We go

back to work for overtime.

3:30 P.M. The day is over, and I

go home. Some houses have signs say-

ing, "stop paper until end of strike"

By the way: Many stores did too!

5:30 P.M. Local news has feature

coverage. Vivid scenes. The man with

a HUGE "No Scab Paper" sign in his

front yard. Press drivers sitting in

front of the trucks. Young paperboys

tossing papers back into the distri-

bution site. Smashed windows and

slashed tires on rental cars/Press

trucks.

The Press surrenders and returns

to negotiations!

Nightline does a story on the

strike, one of the most well balanced

ones I've ever seen. Parallels are

drawn with the Homestead strike of

100 years earlier (almost to the

month).

Rest of week: Back to normal. Scab

drivers trickle out. Turns out some

"Presses" were published in Canada.

Deep scars.

(Epilogue: Jan 18, 1993, by the

way: The Pittsburgh Press is HISTORY!

The Post Gazette bought them out. The

whole transaction shows me that the

whole dispute was a ploy by the Press

(who was making a profit to the tune

of $64 mil a year) to run the smaller

PG out of business and take over

morning distribution!)

John G. Kemeny: BASIC and DTSS:

Everyone a Programmer

by Jay Hauben

Sadly, an important pioneer of the

computer revolution has died. John G.

Kemeny, co-inventor of the computer

language BASIC and of the Dartmouth

Time Sharing System (DTSS) and advo-

cate of universal education in pro-

gramming died unexpectedly on Decem-

ber 26, 1992. He was 66 years old.

John Kemeny was born in Budapest

on May 31, 1926. His education and

intellectual development in Hungary

Page 27

must have been very impressive, but

in 1940, to escape the Nazi tide, his

family emigrated to New York City.

Kemeny entered high school knowing

virtually no English. He graduated

three years later, first in his class

and accepted at Princeton University

to study mathematics.

By the time Kemeny turned 18, he

had finished his first year at

Princeton. He was immediately drafted

and sent to Los Alamos to be a "com-

puter", one of 20 operators who used

17 IBM bookkeeping calculators to get

numerical solutions to differential

equations connected with the design

of the atom bomb. It took two or

three weeks, working three 8 hour

shifts, six days per week, to get one

result. The calculators were fed

punched cards, which were moved manu-

ally from machine to machine. Between

calculations, the plug boards had to

be rewired by hand. At the end of a

cycle, the calculation was summarized

on a printout which had to be checked

by eye for "catastrophes". If any

were found, the cycle had to be re-

peated. Years later, Kemeny was to

note that one undergraduate working

one afternoon, using a 1970 time

sharing computer could solve as many

differential equations as the whole

Los Alamos team did in a whole year.

And there could be 100 other users on

the computer at the same time.

While at Los Alamos, Kemeny heard

a lecture by fellow Hungarian born

John von Neumann who was a consultant

to the "computer operation." Von

Neumann proposed a fully electronic

computer based on a binary number

system, with internal memory for both

data and a stored program. To Kemeny

and the other "computers", von

Neumann's machine sounded like a

dream. Kemeny wondered if he would

live long enough to ever use one.

After the war, Kemeny returned to

Princeton. In 1948-49, while finish-

ing his dissertation, Kemeny served

as Albert Einstein's research assis-

tant at the Institute for Advanced

Study. Von Neumann was at the Insti-

tute also, working on the machine he

had described in his lecture two

years earlier. Einstein and Kemeny

crossed paths with von Neumann occa-

sionally and had some long conversa-

tions concerning symbol handling as

opposed to number handling computers.

Kemeny finished his Ph.D and

stayed at Princeton teaching math and

philosophy until 1953. During his

time at Princeton, his contact with

von Neumann and his computer had a

deep effect on Kemeny. Here was the

brilliant mathematician playing

around with the nuts and bolts of a

computing machine and raising pro-

found philosophical questions about

the relation between humans and ma-

chines. In a Scientific American

article, "Man Viewed as a Machine"

(vol. 192, April, 1955, pg. 58-67)

Kemeny summarized lectures von

Neumann had given just before Kemeny

left Princeton. Kemeny framed the

question of these lectures, "What

could a machine do as well or better

than a man?" The conclusion in 1955

was that computers calculate faster

than the human brain, may eventually

match the human brain in memory ca-

pacity, but have a long way to go to

exceed the compactness of the human

brain or the complexity the human

brain is capable of dealing with.

Next, based on the work of the Eng-

lish logician Alan Turing, Kemeny

argued that a universal machine can

be designed. That universal machine

would need a simple code designed for

it that would describe any simple

machine humans could devise. Then the

universal machine could do anything

every simple machine could do by

converting the descriptions of the

simple machines into programs for its

own operation. It occurred to Kemeny

that "a normal human being is like

the universal machine. Given enough

time he can learn to do anything."

(ibid., pg. 63) Kemeny carried this

understanding with him throughout his

career of encouraging universal

teaching of computer programming.

In the summer of 1953, while a

consultant at the Rand Corporation,

Kemeny had a chance to use the

JONIAC, a copy of von Neumann's

Princeton computer. He had great fun,

he wrote, "learning to program a

computer, even though the language

used at that time was designed for

machines and not for human beings."

Page 28

(Man and The Computer, New York,

1972, p. 7)

Kemeny joined the faculty of

Dartmouth College in 1953 to teach

math and philosophy. For six years

after he got there, Dartmouth had no

computer. Kemeny could however com-

mute 135 miles each way to use the

computer at MIT in Cambridge, Massa-

chusetts. He did and therefore wit-

nessed the coming in 1957 of the

FORTRAN programming language. Kemeny

welcomed FORTRAN because it made much

more sense to him to teach a machine

a language that is easier for human

beings to learn than to force every

human to learn the machine's own

language. "All of a sudden access to

computers by thousands of users be-

came not only possible but reason-

able." (ibid, p. 8)

Dartmouth acquired its first com-

puter in 1959, a very small computer

called the LGP-30. Kemeny facilitated

the use of the LGP-30 by undergradu-

ate students. The ingenuity and cre-

ativeness of some of the students who

had been given hands-on experience

amazed the Dartmouth faculty. Kemeny

and Thomas Kurtz, also of the

Dartmouth math department, were thus

encouraged to "set in motion the then

revolutionary concept of making com-

puters as freely available to college

students as library books." (Por-

traits in Silicon, Robert Slater,

Cambridge, 1987, p.22) The aim was to

make accessible to all students the

wonderful research environment that

computers could provide.

The work of Kemeny and Kurtz in

the early 1960's took two directions.

Influenced by the work of J.C.R.

Licklider and John McCarthy at MIT,

Kemeny understood that a time sharing

system would make possible the uni-

versal access they aimed for. A team

of the two faculty members and a

group of undergraduate research as-

sistants developed a prototype sys-

tem. It allowed multiple users short

spurts of access to the central com-

puter from remote terminals in such a

way that each user enjoyed the illu-

sion that he was the sole user. This

Dartmouth Time Sharing System (DTSS)

became operational in the Fall of

1964. The value of a time sharing

system is that it ended the hardship

of batch processing which often re-

quired hours or even days of waiting

between runs of a program while it

was being developed and debugged.

Time sharing utilizes the great speed

of computers compared to humans to

greatly enhance the efficiency of

computing from the point of view of

the human users.

Today's packet switching networks

(e.g, the Internet) owe a great deal

to the development of this time shar-

ing system conceptually and techni-

cally. But earlier, DTSS almost got

derailed. Kemeny had worked closely

with General Electric during the time

DTSS was being worked on. In 1966, GE

and Dartmouth agreed to work on a

joint development of the time sharing

operating system. However GE's com-

mercial purposes conflicted with

Dartmouth's educational purposes. The

story is told that GE tried to "stop

the Dartmouth experiment" and the

development of the time sharing sys-

tem called Phase I. (See e.g., Com-

puter Lib, Ted Nelson, South Bend,

1974, p. 45). But Kemeny and Kurtz,

determined not to let DTSS disappear,

encouraged the development of DTSS

Phase II by 1969.

In addition to time sharing,

Kemeny and Kurtz realized that a new

computer language was needed that

could be easily learned and accessi-

ble to typical college students.

Kemeny noted, "We at Dartmouth envis-

aged the possibility of millions of

people writing their own computer

programs." (Man and the Computer, p.

30) They designed their language with

plain English and high school algebra

like commands and so that the lay

user could learn a very few commands

and then be able to write interesting

programs. Kemeny started to work on

a draft version in September, 1963.

The result was BASIC, Beginners All-

Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.

The first BASIC program ran on May 1,

1964 at 4:00 am. Kemeny and Kurtz

made an effort to get as many stu-

dents as possible using BASIC and

they were available to hear about

problems and bugs and to come up with

Page 29

bug fixes. Kemeny and Kurtz wanted

BASIC to be in the public domain.

Dartmouth copyrighted BASIC but made

it available without charge.

The careful work of Kemeny and

Kurtz to make an easy-to-learn but

powerful computer language bore tre-

mendous fruit. After its introduction

at Dartmouth in 1964, BASIC spread as

did DTSS to other campuses and gov-

ernment and military situations. And

BASIC made personal computers possi-

ble. Beginning in 1975 with the suc-

cess of Bill Gates and Paul Allen to

write an interpreter for a subset of

BASIC commands for the Altair com-

puter, one form or another of BASIC

spread to and accelerated the per-

sonal computer revolution. (See Ama-

teur Computerist, vol 2 no 4, pg. 9-

12)

For a while the great appeal of

personal computers and their falling

costs and general availability

eclipsed Kemeny and Kurtz's seminal

work on DTSS and the original BASIC.

By the late 1980's, 10 to 12 million

school children had learned BASIC,

more people than speak, e.g., Norwe-

gian. The personal computer helped

"distribute" computing, which Kemeny

thought was crucial to the progress

of society. But it also diminished in

importance the centralized computing

power and the inter-connectivity of

users that time-sharing made possi-

ble. Only recently, with the spread

of computer networks is the value of

both developments being realized. Now

the power of personal computer work-

stations, instead of dumb terminals,

coupled with the connectivity and

remote resource availability is mak-

ing possible the human-computer and

human-human interfacing that Kemeny

predicted.

From 1971 to 1980, Kemeny was the

thirteenth President of Dartmouth

College presiding for example over

the transition there to co-education.

He continued his efforts to support a

crucial role for computers in educa-

tion but was unable to be a major

contributor to developments like the

personal computer and the various

versions of BASIC. In 1979, Kemeny

served as the Chairman of President

Carter's Commission on the Accident

at Three Mile Island. Kemeny "very

much regretted" that the Commission

did not recommend a temporary halt on

construction permits for nuclear

reactors. The investigation had found

that the government regulators were

too lax in their regulation. The

Commission concluded, "the evidence

suggests that the NRC (Nuclear Regu-

latory Commission) has sometimes

erred on the side of the industry's

convenience rather than carrying out

its primary mission of insuring

safety" and that the industry took

inadequate safety precautions and

failed to respond to known unsafe

conditions. (The Report of The Presi-

dent's Commission on the Accident at

Three Mile Island, pp. 43, 51 and

188)

After Kemeny stopped being

President of Dartmouth and Chairman

of the Three Mile Island Accident

Commission, he took stock of the use

of computers, especially in educa-

tion. He was furious and frustrated

by the slow progress of education in

computer programming, although it is

not clear whether he was aware of the

forces like Ford Motor Company which

opposed that progress. Between 1983

and 1985, Kemeny and Kurtz went back

to work and produced a portable and

more powerful version of their origi-

nal BASIC. They called it TRUE BASIC

and it is still marketed today with

the intention of introducing "stu-

dents to the very important art of

computer programming and analytic

thinking."

Kemeny had a very broad vision of

the role computers would play in

society. He foresaw a man-machine

symbiosis that would help both to

evolve rapidly. In the early 1970s he

predicted that within 20 years there

would be a national computer network

with terminals in millions of homes,

so every home would be a mini univer-

sity. He also predicted there would

be a National Automated Reference

Library, a national personalized

computer delivered news service, and,

especially, greatly enhanced educa-

tion via time-sharing and simple

programming languages. Kemeny worked

Page 30

hard to implement his visions and

felt by the late 1980s great disap-

pointment in the slow progress. He

died just as the great computer net-

working structures that have devel-

oped in some large measure because of

his pioneering work and vision, have

begun to fulfill more of his expecta-

tions, but also just as a fight is

being waged by those who want to

commercialize these networking struc-

tures and those who want to keep them

in the public domain.

Kemeny recognized that the social

problems that have yet to be solved

are immense. He wrote, "while comput-

ers alone cannot solve the problems

of society, these problems are too

complex to be solved without highly

sophisticated use of computers."

(ibid., pg. 80) and that it is imper-

ative that computers be freely avail-

able. "Only if we manage to bring up

a computer-educated generation will

society have modern computers fully

available to solve its serious prob-

lems." (ibid.) He saw the computer

revolution as a possible asset for

society but felt "it is a major mis-

take to make plans for the solution

of social problems on the assumption

that society will in the future will

be organized in exactly the same way

as today. For the first time in human

history we have an opportunity for

significant social planning. We can

not afford to waste it." (ibid., pg.

143)

John Kemeny was part of many of

the seminal events of the computer

revolution. He made major contribu-

tions to its foundation and he

thought deeply into this revolution.

His death was untimely but he has

left the value of his work to help us

take on the challenges that confront

the progress that he contributed to.

Computers for the People:

Part V

[continued from vol 4 no 4)

In an article called "How We

Trapped the Dinosaurs," (from Cre-

ative Computing, Nov. 1984, pg. 193-

4), Lee Felsenstein describes the

early 1970s and the lessons learned

from the creation of the personal

computer by the grassroots computers

for the people movement. He writes,

"Many of us were then starting to

shed our adolescent views of techno-

logical development as we moved from

the educational system into the low-

est levels of the production system.

Many of us quickly noticed that our

noble managers knew less about the

technology with which we were working

than we knew." (ibid.) Felsenstein

continues, "We also started to see

that the business of Business was

making money, not products, and that

if they could make money with turkey

products, then we would be put to

making turkey products and doing

nothing else." (ibid.)

“And we discovered,” he explains,

“that the Big Boys of the computers

were not, after all, engaged in a

race to get the most users at the

lowest cost but were instead playing

marketing muscle games to lock the

biggest proportion of users to the

highest cost computers possible.”

(ibid.)

In the face of the commercial

world's reluctance to develop a low

cost personal computer, Felsenstein

describes how the grassroots movement

took on to prepare itself for the

task. He writes, "So we did the only

thing we could under the circum-

stances, we learned as much as we

could about our technology and kept

alive our sci-fi dreams of a future

where everyone could have a computer,

and no one could be locked out of all

the fun and fascinating things we

knew could be done with computers....

We hadn't spent all that time learn-

ing all that stuff," he explains,

"because someone had asked us to. It

had a beauty all its own which we

could understand and which we wanted

to share with everyone." (ibid.)

When the Altair 8080 computer Kit

arrived in January 1975, the Home-

brewers were ready. "Then," he re-

counts, "with the sudden ferocity of

events overtaking the dreamer, we

were in the midst of the explosion."

(ibid.) Suddenly the movement to

build the personal computer took off.

Working together, the Homebrewers

Page 31

took on to produce the needed soft-

ware and hardware, sharing their

success and failures. The partici-

pants found themselves involved "in a

kind of group sport." Felsenstein

explains: "Like Athletes, they strove

to do what had never been done, to

exceed their known limits and to

share their successes and efforts

with each other in the hopes that all

would gain." (ibid.)

"We ran ahead of the lumbering

giants," Felsenstein writes, explain-

ing how the Homebrewers did not wait

for the big corporations in the com-

puter industry to give them an af-

fordable computer. He describes how

the Homebrewers "frantically staked

out our territory. We learned," he

emphasizes, "as pioneers must, to

rely on each other." (ibid.)

Felsenstein then describes what

happened when IBM produced "the

breadbox of incompatibility" in 1978,

the 5100. IBM found they couldn't

sell it. When they produced their

next personal computer, the 5150 in

1981, IBM demonstrated that they had

learned that they had to play by the

rules established by the Homebrewers.

They had to make the architecture and

executive code as public as possible

and to encourage individuals to write

software and add-ons. Felsenstein

summarizes the victory of the Home-

brewers, "We didn't give the Corpo-

rate Establishment free rein in the

hopes that they would bless us with

innovations. We trampled all over

their organized way of doing things."

(ibid.) Thus the birth of the per-

sonal computer was the victory of the

Homebrewers' computers for the people

movement over the dinosaurs of the

corporate world.

In his article "Thinking about

Thinking Machines," (ibid. pg 253)

Tom Stonier comments on the techno-

logical advance represented by the

personal computer. He writes:

In the course of history, human

ingenuity has created many a wondrous

device, none so marvelous, however,

as the computer. In that long road of

human technology which among other

things, flaked stone; mastered fire;

developed speech; domesticated plants

and animals; forged bronze; created

those great ancient civilizations and

all the technology needed for them;

invented Francis Bacon's famous trio

– gunpowder, the compass, and the

printing press – and then moved on-

wards to fashion the steam engine,

balloons, factories, railways, steel,

electricity, telephones, horseless

carriages, airplanes, rockets, radio

and television... in that long road,

no invention will prove to be as

profound as the computer.... Thus,

the modes of production are changing

once again – this time as a result of

automation and the increasing use of

robots.... The introduction of the

computer into the productive process

is therefore at least as profound as

the Industrial Revolution. (Creative

Computing, Nov. 1984, pg. 252)

But as with the Industrial Revolu-

tion, so now, a curious phenomenon

has developed. The skilled, experi-

enced workers of the industrial

heartland are being heaved out of

their jobs and factories. The myth of

the workerless factory has exploded

in the face of General Motors. They

can't introduce the new technology

without involving workers in the

process and allowing workers to ob-

tain the technological education and

knowledge that will enable today's

workers to make the new machines

function. Instead there is the myth

that supervisors or engineers will

program the machines and get rid of

the workers. But the supervisors and

engineers are not the skilled or

unskilled workers who know how to

make the machines work. The result of

this attempt by management to inter-

fere with automation has resulted in

serious dislocations of workers and

industry. (See, for example, a letter

to the editor in the Flint Journal,

Flint, MI, April 4, 1987, "Halt Ram-

pant Mismanagement at Buick City.")

Computers are not a replacement

for people. And if knowledge of how

the computer functions and is pro-

grammed is purposely kept from work-

ers, disasters of technological inep-

titude like that which have occurred

at GM and Ford will be repeated ten-

fold.

John Kemeny, the creator of BASIC,

Page 32

explains how the business world has

gotten on the wrong track with com-

puters by trying to use them to re-

place the workforce. He explains:

"Modern computers were invented to

solve highly complex scientific prob-

lems. It was an accidental benefit,

only slowly recognized by business

that the very same computers were

incredibly efficient bookkeeping ma-

chines. Then the drive was on to

employ computers to increase produc-

tivity, to cut down costs, and to

produce greater efficiency. Companies

had great hopes that computers could

replace hundreds of employees. Need-

less to say this did not make comput-

ers popular with employees. For-

tunately it has rarely been the case

that computerization has reduced the

existing staff; it is much more com-

mon that along with computers exactly

the same staff is needed but the

staff can perform better and accom-

plish more." (Man and Computer, pg.

56-57)

Kemeny compares the change taking

place with computers to that brought

by the automobile:

"Most people grew up when no mod-

ern computers were in existence.

While the same situation applied to

automobiles in the early twentieth

century, a fairly rapid change took

place. Even if not everyone drove an

automobile, almost everyone had a

friend who owned one. Automobiles

quickly became common on our streets,

and their principles of operation

were simple and easily understood.

Unfortunately the average person does

not have the foggiest idea of just

what a computer is or how it works.

And since computers are shielded from

them by the high priests of the pro-

fession, all their acquaintance is

from a distance." (ibid. pg. 57)

Kemeny might have gone on to ex-

plain that just as in England at the

time of the industrial revolution, so

here in the U.S., there is a purpose-

ful exclusion of workers from techni-

cal knowledge. Just as in England in

the 1800s, so we see here,"two sys-

tems of education catered for differ-

ent classes and provided education

different in quality and content for

rulers and ruled." (The Computer from

Pascal to Von Neumann, Goldstine, pg.

31)

This exclusion, Goldstine ex-

plains, "was going on just at the

time when the Industrial Revolution

was making education ever more essen-

tial to all members of society. In

1823 George Birbeck (1776-1841)

founded his first Mechanics' Insti-

tute in Scotland, and similar insti-

tutes spread into England under the

patronage of Henry Brougham (1778-

1868). These brought to the working-

man the advantages of a technological

training just when it was most needed

in England.... These schools are the

place in which the... [workers -ed]

learned their business – for an an-

nual fee of one guinea. Most of these

men were not middle-class; for exam-

ple, Stephenson, the inventor of the

locomotive, was a poor boy who taught

himself to read when he was seven-

teen."(ibid.) And Goldstine could

have gone on to point out that Watt,

who invented the steam engine was a

watchmaker, Arkwright who invented

the throttle was a barber, and the

inventor of the steamship was Fulton,

a working jeweler.

(to be continued)

Try This

Pascal Program (Grade Averaging)

by Tom Smith

Program Grad (Input,Output);

Const

Maxscore = 100; (* maxium score *)

ABLine = 90; (* Dividing line

between A & B *)

BCLine = 80; (* Dividing line

between B & C *)

CDLine = 70; (* Dividing line

between C & D *)

DFLine = 60; (* Dividing line

between D & F *)

Var

Grade: Char;

Ave1, Score, Small, Large, Gp, Sum,

Count, Gpsum: Integer;

Gpa, Ave: Real;

Page 33

Honors: Boolean; (* Honor student or

not *)

Begin

Honors:= false;

Sum:= 0;

Count:= 0;

Small:= 1000;

Gpsum:= 0;

Large:= 0;

Repeat

Writeln ('To quit enter score

over 100');

Writeln ('Enter score');

Readln (score);

If Score < 101 then

Begin

If Score < Small then Small:=

Score;

If Score > Large then Large:=

Score;

Case Score div 10 of

9,10: Begin

Grade:= 'A';

Honors:= true;

Gp:= 4;

End;

8: Begin

Grade:= 'B';

Honors:= True;

Gp:= 3;

End;

7: Begin

Grade:= 'C';

Gp:= 2;

End;

6: Begin

Grade:= 'D';

Gp:= 1;

End;

0,1,2,3,4,5: Begin

Grade:= 'F';

Gp:= 0;

End;

End; (* Case *)

Sum:= Score + Sum;

Count:=Count + 1;

Gpsum:= Gpsum + Gp;

End;

Ave:= Sum / Count;

Gpa:= Gpsum / Count;

Ave1:=Trunc(Ave);

Writeln ('Your lowest score is ',

Small);

Writeln ('Your highest score is ',

Large);

Writeln ('Your average score is ',

Ave:2:2);

Writeln ('Your grade point average

is ', Gpa:2:2);

Case Ave1 Div 10 of

9,10: Begin

Honors:= true;

Writeln ('Honor Student !

A !');

End;

8: Begin

Honors:= true;

Writeln ('Honor Student !

!');

End;

7: Writeln ('Grade is ', Grade

);

6: Writeln ('Grade is ', Grade

);

0,1,2,3,4,5: Writeln ('You have

flunked! ', Grade);

End;

Until Score > Maxscore

End

Try This Program in C

for UNIX Users

FGIGO

by Scott McMahon

([email protected])

The curses library is a high level

interface to the termcap/terminfo

libraries which were originally de-

signed for the vi text editor, but

were later separated into a separate

package. Various versions of curses

and the termcap/terminfo routines

exist in just about every version of

UNIX, and they have been ported to

other computers and operating sys-

tems. Termcap/terminfo is a way to

store information on what a terminal

can do – character attributes (nor-

mal, reverse, bold, blinking text),

cursor positioning, and other things

the terminal can do. Then a user

Page 34

program can look up the terminal type

it's running on and know what it can

do and what escape codes need to be

sent to it to get it to do things.

Curses takes this one step further by

creating a high level library which

allows the user to call functions

like move() and have the library take

care of all the details of what to do

with each terminal.

Fgigo takes a file and randomly

piles up the bytes in it on your

screen. It comes from another, less

interesting program called gigo which

piled up random bytes on the screen.

The name stands for 'file-garbage in,

garbage out'.

To compile this program, save it

in a file called fgigo.c, and give

the command:

% cc -o fgigo fgigo.c -lcurses

-ltermcap

at the UNIX shell prompt. (This pro-

gram is written for BSD systems. On a

System V based system, you may need

to link it with the terminfo librar-

ies. I don't have a System V computer

available to try porting this to.)

#include <sys/types.h> /* all this

junk just to open a file! */

#include <sys/stat.h>

#include <fcntl.h>

#include <curses.h>

#define BORDER

"-------------------------\

-----------------------------------

------------------"

main(int ac, char *av[]) {

/* Variables – y is the calculated

column where the symbol will drop to

the bottom, and i is the iterations

while it is falling.

an 80x24 screen is pretty much

hard wired into this.

file is the file descriptor

byte is the byte we're reading in

int y,i, file;

char byte;

/* we've got to have 2 args – the

program name, and the name of the

file to read, anything more or less

is an error

if (ac != 2) {

printf("usage: %s

textfile\n",av[0]);

exit(1);

}

/* we need to make sure we could

open and read this file – if not,

it's an error

if ( (file = open(av[1], O_RDONLY,

0)) <= -1 ) {

printf("%s: could not open %s\n",

av[0], av[1]);

exit(1);

}

/* do all this stuff to initialize

curses */

initscr(); cbreak(); noecho();

nonl(); clear();

refresh();

/* seed random numbers – your pid

is unique & pretty random */

srand(getpid());

/* print out the border #defined

above */

move(23,0);

addstr(BORDER);

refresh();

while(1) {

y = rand() % 79;

/* we read a byte – 1 character

– at a time, and stop when read re-

turns a zero

if (!(read(file,&byte,1))) break;

/* we only want ascii, not con-

trol characters or whitespace */

if (!isprint(byte) ||

Page 35

Supplement Submissions

The Amateur Computerist is

planning to publish a second Sup-

plement on Networking and Usenet

News. We welcome submissions for

this special issue. Please send

submissions by the end of July,

1993 to: [email protected], or

[email protected] or

[email protected] or post them in

alt.amateur-comp and put a note

that they are submissions for the

Amateur Computerist.

isspace(byte)) continue;

for (i=0; i<22; i++) {

move(i+1,y);

if (inch() != ' ') continue;

addch(byte);

refresh();

move(i,y);

addch(' ');

refresh();

}

sleep(1); /* can't get a keypress

in without this delay! */

}

endwin();

}

May Day in History

May 1 from Roman Times: Celebra-

tion of spring planting and fertil-

ity.

May 1, 1848: Enactment of Ten

Hours Factory Act be English Parlia-

ment after a half century of agita-

tion and struggle for shorter hours

of work.

May 1, 1886: Over 400,000 U.S.

workers strike for an eight hour

working day. Four workers were killed

by police at the McCormick Harvester

Plant on May 3. The next day was the

Haymarket Square explosion for which

eight anarchists were framed.

May 1, 1890: Massive world wide

workers’ demonstration for the eight

hour day.

May 1, 1891 to the present: Demon-

strations in many cities around the

world to show worker solidarity and

to agitate for workers’ causes espe-

cially shorter hours of work.

May 1, 1942: Publication of the

Searchlight, uncensored local union

newspaper of UAW Local 659, Flint,

MI.

May 1, 1964: The birth of the

BASIC computing language by Kemeny

and Kurtz.

May 1, 1973: The birth of Amateur

Computerist editor, Michael Hauben.

May 1, 1992: First electronic

issue of the Amateur Computerist, vol

4, no 2/3.

Charter for Newsgroup on Usenet

[ Editor's Note: In September, 1992,

the Amateur Computerist initiated a

newsgroup on Usenet News called

alt.amateur-comp. Since then there

have been almost 1000 items and re-

sponses posted there. Some of those

posts were drafts and discussions of

articles which appear in this issue.

Following is the charter which pro-

posed the newsgroup. We welcome your

participation in alt.amateur-comp.]

The alt.amateur-comp is a confer-

ence where readers and writers can

discuss the articles and subjects

that appear in the electronic and

printed newsletter The Amateur Com-

puterist. The Amateur Computerist was

born out of the battle to continue

computer programming classes for

workers at the Ford Rouge Factory in

Dearborn, MI, after Ford and UAW

officials ended the classes in Febru-

ary 1987. In our first issue we

wrote: "There was an effort by admin-

istrators of the UAW-Ford program at

the Dearborn Engine Plant to kill

Page 36

ELECTRONIC EDITION AVAILABLE

Starting with vol 4, no 2-3, the

Amateur Computerist has become

available in electronic mail form.

To obtain a copy, send E-mail to:

[email protected]

or: [email protected]

Also, the Amateur Computerist is

now available via anonymous FTP at

wuarchive.wustl.edu

It is stored in the directory:

/doc/misc/acn

interest in computers and computer

programming. We want to keep interest

alive because computers are the fu-

ture." ("Introduction," vol I, no. 1)

The first issue of the newsletter

was published February 11, 1988 and

was dedicated to the Flint sitdown

pioneers who began the UAW. Articles

have appeared in the newsletter from

some of those pioneers who welcomed

the newsletter and the computer,

saying, "From the Great Wall to the

Great Pyramid, from the hieroglyphics

to the screen of the computer, man-

kind is still progressing." ("Dawn of

a New Era", vol I, no. 1) The sit-

downer pioneers who built the UAW

believed that the problems of automa-

tion had still to be solved by the

upcoming generation.

The newsletter is dedicated to

support for grassroots efforts and

movements like the "computers for the

people movement" that gave birth to

the personal computer in the 1970's

and 1980's. Hard efforts of many

people over hundreds of years led to

the production of a working computer

in the 1940's and then a personal

computer that people could afford in

the 1970's. This history has been

serialized in several issues of the

newsletter.

Most recently the newsletter has

begun an online edition that is

available free. We are beginning to

document the progressive impact of

democratic developments like Usenet

News and the Internet and we plan to

have a supplement dedicated to these

developments. [See Fall 1992 issue -

ed.]

The Amateur Computerist was de-

scribed by Andrew Ross and Constance

Pawley in their recent book Techno-

culture (Univ of Minnesota Press,

1991, p. 125) as follows:

"When worker education classes in

computer programming were discontin-

ued by management at the Ford Rouge

Plant in Dearborn, Michigan, United

Auto Workers members began to publish

a newsletter called the Amateur Com-

puterist to fill the gap. Among the

columnists and correspondents in the

magazine have been veterans of the

Flint sit-down strikes who see a

clear historical continuity between

the problem of labor organization in

the thirties and the problem of auto-

mation and deskilling today. Workers'

computer literacy is seen as essen-

tial not only to the demystification

of the computer and the reskilling of

workers, but also to labor's capacity

to intervene in decisions about new

technologies that might result in

shorter hours and thus in `work

efficiency' rather than worker effi-

ciency."

The newsgroup will also make

available the electronic version of

the Amateur Computerist when a new

issue is published.

One of the reasons for proposing

this group is that there is currently

no place on Usenet that we know of

where issues involving computers and

workers are dealt with.

If you wish to directly contact

the editors write to either: Ronda

Hauben at: [email protected] or ronda

@umcc.umich.edu or Michael Hauben at:

[email protected].

Page 37

EDITORIAL STAFF

Ronda Hauben

William Rohler

Norman O. Thompson

Michael Hauben

Jay Hauben

The Amateur Computerist invites

*contribution of articles,

programs etc. Send submissions

to: R. Hauben P.O. Box 4344,

Dearborn, Mi. 48126. Articles can

be submitted on paper or disk in

ASCII format, (IBM or Commodore.)

One year subscription (4 issues)

costs $5.00(US). Add $2.50 for

foreign postage. Make checks

payable to R. Hauben. Permission

is given to reprint any article

from this issue in a not for

profit publication provided

credit is given with name of

author and source of article

being cited and a copy of the

publication is sent to the

Amateur Computerist newsletter.

Page 38