Discussion Questions
The readings for this session introduce a powerful theme: the idea of
cyberspace, a vague term which basically means thinking about the computer
networks as places, with their own geographies, laws and communities.
- The Abbate chapter follows on from our previous reading, and looks at how
the early ARPANet was used in practice. What limited the general use made of
the network for resource sharing? How was this related to existing social
patterns and physical geography.
- Email became the killer application for the internet. Why? (The biggest
initial advantage is a subtle and surprising one -- read carefully?) What made
email a more successful application than resource sharing? What was special
about ARPANet and its design that made it possible for users to introduce new
applications?
- For more than twenty years, experts have been predicting that telework
will replace a substantial fraction of corporate office buildings and commuter
journeys. What practical and technological factors limited its importance
during the 1980s?
- Is telecommuting now technologically possible? How much do you think
happens in practice? What factors continue to limit its success?
- William Gibson invented the term cyberspace, in a novel called Neuromancer
he published two years after the story you read here. His work has been
enormously popular, particularly among researchers in virtual reality. How
does he present the computer networking experience of the future? What is the
relationship of his characters to the technology?
- What familiar ideas and stories does Gibson draw on to present this world?
Would you saw that he was very familiar with the computer and network
technologies of 1982? Does it matter?
Resources
 |
Another popular history of the internet, this one written by journalists, is
Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon, When Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the
Internet, Touchstone, 1998. This book is more focused on people and less focused
on institutions (such as ARPA and universities) than the Abbate book. Its
chapter
on email is available on-line.
|
|
We finished up talking about Lynx and Mosaic, the first widely used web
clients. For comments on the history of Lynx by one of its authors,
see here. Development
on Mosaic stopped back in January of 1997, but they have kept the
homepage up.
They also have a little
history
section, where you can download version 1.0 from the glory days of late
1993.
|
|
Telecommuting isn't a phrase that you hear quite as often these days, even
though more people may actually be doing it. Find out the latest with the
International Telework Association and
Council.
|
|
Gibson has also been very popular with comparative literature types who want
to feel on the cutting edge of postmodern technology. As a result, there are a
number of academically oriented sites concerning his work (especially
Neuromancer) as well as regular fan sites. For a pretty extensive list of Gibson
resources see this site.
|
|
