Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site topaz.RUTGERS.EDU Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!qantel!dual!lll-crg!seismo!columbia!topaz!ringwld!jmturn From: jmturn@ringwld.UUCP Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: THe good old days of SF-L Message-ID: <3900@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> Date: Thu, 3-Oct-85 18:29:14 EDT Article-I.D.: topaz.3900 Posted: Thu Oct 3 18:29:14 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 6-Oct-85 05:37:48 EDT Sender: daemon@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 81 From: ringwld!jmturn@cca-unix A short history of SF-L, as I recall it: SFL started as a direct distibution list in the late seventies. The original maintainer (Ed somebody?) soon went on to greener pastures, and dumped the thing in Roger Duffey's lap. I met Roger in 1980, when he pulled my butt out of a political fire I had started at the AI lab. I got to know him, and helped him out a little with the SFL and HumanNets distribution in the early 80's. By 1980, SFL reached something like 2000 addresses directly. It (and HNets) were a sufficient load on the MIT-MC mailer that he had hung a bag onto the side of the COMSAT mailer called PULSAR, which spread the distribution over 3 machines and 4 hours. His constant complaint was that SFL was taking so much time away from his thesis that he would never graduate. The total archives as of early '81 were something like 8 megabytes, and were never kept online except when necesary. I once read through the entire pile (about three linear feet of output). One of his main worries was keeping SFL quiet. Our persistant nightmare was DARPA or Proxmire taking a close look at SFL, and Fleecifiying it to death. A number of times, queries as to the eligibility of SFL for fanzine Hugos were quickly smothered. At one point, Roger, Chris Stacy, and I were neverously sitting in the Sheraton Boston during a Boskone, contemplating the potential damage a panel entitled "Computers and Fanzines" could do to us. While we joked about standing up and yelling FIRE if anyone mentioned SFL, Roger mumbled about emergency plane tickets to Russia. At one point, I mentioned Roger's name loudly, and a man came over. He said "Are you Roger Duffey? I'm running the panel the afternoon, and I was looking for you." It turned out that not only were all the panelists SFL readers, but that they had all agreed to keep clear of SFL in the discussion. (As a footnote, at the Boskone in 1984, things had improved enough so that we actually had a panel where Saul Jaffe, Chip Hitchcock, and I were all participating, and SFL was the main topic). The Noreascon II SFL party was much like the current parties, with the following exceptions. 1) There were more pros (notably Pournelle, who was still reading SFL at the time (and maybe Niven?)). 2) The party was held in a suite, donated for the evening by Robert Forward. He graced the room for the entire night with his neon plaid vest. 3) There were less people. There might have been 20 people in and out of the room all night, as compared to about 40 at the LA party. Given that Saul estimated 20,000 readers of SFL at last count, this isn't surprising. As a final note, much of the digest protocol seen today (headers, local redistribution, compactifying and elimination of duplicate messages) is directly connected to Roger's work with SFL and Human Nets. He did a remarkable amount of pioneering work, especially when you consider that the digests were a hobby to him. Save Your Vertical Blanking Intervals for Big Cash Prizes! James Turner (The Ringworld Engineer) --------------------------------------------------- | ARPA | ringwld!jmturn@CCA-UNIX.ARPA | --------------------------------------------------- | | decvax \ | | | sri-unix \ | | UUCP | !cca!ringwld!jmturn | | | ima / | | | linus / | --------------------------------------------------- | MAIL | 329 Ward Street; Newton, MA 02159 | --------------------------------------------------- Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com