Turning Points in Computer Education - History of Computing: Learning from the Past - page 165

historically significant event was the creation of ARPANET at the end of 1969 or the
first email application in 1972 or the transition to TCP/IP on January 1, 1983 [7]. Our
measure of significance is the point at which the Internet became readily available to
our two boys.
The Australian first found telecommunications useful for completing a graduate di-
ploma in computing by external studies. Using an acoustic coupler and Kermit soft-
ware on his Apple II the degree was completed late at night from this office in 1982.
USENET had been a fascination since completing a postgraduate education degree in
1978, where the thesis was written on a DEC10 using the QEDIT program written by
Queensland University. The facilities showed him the potential of the global network,
but it was only when a microcomputer was available at home, with email and USE-
NET, that it became a daily tool for communication. Finally the modern era of asyn-
chronous communications with everyone in the world was ushered in as he took a
leading role in the first Pan Pacific computing conference in 1985. This involved aca-
demics and others from around the world communicating exclusively by email.
For the American, widespread use of the Internet and World Wide Web started dur-
ing his final year of graduate school (1995) and intensified during his subsequent uni-
versity appointment. His early exposure involved protocols like telnet, Kermit, and
Gopher, and search tools like Veronica. After graduating he started using Mosaic to
access the World Wide Web, but quickly switched to the “new” browser, Netscape
Navigator. His first e-mail client was Pine, but he switched to Eudora. Because of his
ongoing affiliation with educational institutions he generally had free Internet access
and never had to use any of the online services like CompuServe or America Online.
At that time the popular search engines included Yahoo!, Infoseek, Excite, and Hotbot.
His first capitulation to using the Windows operating system came with the advent of
Windows for Workgroups. He developed his first commercial web site in 1998.

8 A Timeline (Results)

The twin narratives can be summarised by the headings we have used here, but a
broader picture is obtained by comparing the individual histories with recognised
events during the timeframe. In Table 1 below “recognised” historical events have
been selected from the Computer History Museum timeline [8]. These show that
events early in the history of computing did not always enter the consciousness of the
ordinary person, but later events occurred only a short time before impacting the lives
of the two subjects.

Table 1. Selected highlights from the narrative compared with highlights from the Computer
History Museum

Year Selected highlights Aussie and American Highlights

1941 Z3 built built by Konrad Zuse

1944 Harvard Mark 1 and Colossus