Re: fwd: iWeek 2011 registration open

Henry Watermeyer wrote:-

> As one who was there, I find myself asking what you regard as the start 
> of the Internet in SA?

IMHO, email and Internet are not the same. Email was flowing in and 
out of SA, to a greater or lesser degree, well before the 
universities as a group took any kind of formal interest. There were 
(at the least) dialup/X.25 links running uucp and fidonet protocols. 
To me, Internet means that IP packets flow, or can flow, on a 24/7 
basis. Once this can happen then immediately all of the higher level 
protocols will work, eg email, ftp, http and much more.

Interconnection between universities existed well before the 
Committee of University Principals established a networking 
subcommittee in 1985. However, those interconnections used 
proprietary protocols. As I recall, there was such an interconnection 
between Wits, Tuks, Potch, CSIR's IMB mainframe (not the CDC) and 
parts of Govnet on leased lines using IBM's protocols, and another 
between UCT and Stellenbosch using Decnet. Those two sets did not 
interconnect to each other. It was the gateway that we set up at 
Rhodes in the late 1980's that allowed email (and only email) to flow 
between those two interconnections, as well as to/from other 
university computers, eg those at UNDurban and UNPietermaritzburg, 
the HP at UCT, and more.

The first commercial Internet services started in SA towards the end 
of 1993, shortly before I took over from Vic Shaw as the Manager of 
Uninet. Vic got involved in Uninet circa 1989, when Dr Rhein Arndt, 
president of the FRD, saw that the university efforts were not 
progressing as well as they should, and he put out seed money to 
provide a vendor-independent network infrastructure. This was based 
on Case equipment, of which Vic had experience in his days as IT boss-
man at the CSIR. This network in itself provided nothing in the way 
of interconnection protocols between the networks of different 
vendors, it provided only virtual circuits. Vic's idea of email was 
that everyone (in research) should use the Genii system hosted at the 
CSIR and log into that computer to handle their email. He and I 
differed, my strong view being that email should be delivered to the 
end user wherever the end user chose to be. Vic was kind enough to go 
along with this view.

Enough rambling.

Mike

> 
> Thanks to you at Rhodes, Randy Bush and others we already had 
> international connections in 1990, if not before.  Some universities 
> were interconnected at that stage,  Rhodes and UCT, Rhodes and Potch and 
> Wits and I think a couple of others.
> 
> It had had a long gestation period as I remember discussions on 
> interconnecting Universities back in 1976 when I was at UCT.   
> Ironically at that stage most Universities could barely link up two 
> machines on campus although I had already done it, certainly there was 
> no network.
> 
> I am not sure when Vic Shaw and the FRD got involved and set up UNINET 
> but I got involved with it not long after I got to Wits in 1990.
> 
> Do you see the introduction of IP as the enabler or the start of 
> Internet Africa in Cape Town and Internet Solutions in Johannesburg as 
> being the defining moments?   Certainly the first commercial Internet 
> companies started around 1991.
> 
> Since I-Week will be on your doorstep this year, I look forward to 
> seeing you there.    Maybe a key note speech on the history?  I haven't 
> looked at the programme yet, maybe you are there.
> 
> Henry
> 
> 
> 
> On 2011/05/31 06:20 PM, Mike Lawrie wrote:
> > Bretton wrote:-
> >
> >> 2011 Commemorates a number of key milestones including iWeek´s 10th
> >> birthday, ISPA´s 15th anniversary and the 10th birthday of the Teachers´
> >> Training initiative.
> > November 2011 is also the 20th anniversary of the Internet in South
> > Africa.
> >
> > Mike
> 
> -- 
> Henry Watermeyer
> Box 89 1142 Lyndhurst, 2106, South Africa
> Phone (+27) [0] 84 800 8862
> Home and fax (+27) [0] 11-882-7251
> Skype: Henry.Watermeyer
> 
> 


-- 
Mike Lawrie.
Ph +27 12 348 0944 or +27 79 071 7417
Skype: mike_lawrie_za

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