A history of the Internet

A history of the Internet - as seen by me:

First there was the Arpanet .  But that was before home computers, so I didn't know about it.

Then, in the late 1980s, we were talking about buying one of the first Apple home computers.  However, my husband's brother gave us a Commodore 64 for Christmas.  So we used that.

We still used our typewriter for hardcopy papers for homework assignments for the kids and newspaper articles (me) and magazine articles (my husband who was Tech Editor for the New England MG 'T' Register, LTD).
But soon my husband discovered computer bulletin boards and began downloading packets and having conversations with people all over the world.  On it he discovered a group of writers and set the machine up so I could download and talk to that group.
It was called - FidoNet:
FidoNet was a bulletin board system where certain people promised to keep their computers on constantly to assist in the transfer of packets of information that literally went around the world. I was talking to people in Australia!
Once a day we subscribers would contact our local computer and download the packet we wanted. I downloaded the Writing packet. My husband downloaded an MG packet, plus a computer packet, and other subject packets.
After I had read my packet, I'd respond to a variety of messages in one message and upload it to the waiting computer. (located in a friend's house not far from us) and it would join all the other packets when they were sent on.

Also - I wrote my first books on this Commodore 64.  (and the newsletters for my Girl Scout troop)
Remember Dot-Matrix printers?  How thrilling it was to be able to compose on the computer, make revisions and correction and then print them off?  Print them onto continuous sheets of paper that had holes on each side so that the printer could grip the paper and move it along line by line? With perforations every 11 inches so we could then tear them apart into normal sized typing paper.  Oh those holes along the side - they were in thin strips of paper that also could be torn off.  At first it was really rough, but then paper companies developed very fine perforations that resulted in very nice looking sheets of paper.

FidoNet disbanded when the Internet began to have public access in the early 1990s.
So, I was talked into joining GEnie by a science fiction writer/ editor friend of mine. (Since I was active in the local Baltimore SF community and hung out with her at CONs) At this point, the huge business computers were only used during the daytime. They rented out computer time to ordinary people at night. Thus - GE rented computer time to GEnie groups. I joined the Children's Book Writer's group, the SF Writer's group and the Moody Blues group, and I think the Buffy the Vampire Killer group, and also mostly silently read several personal group areas such as Bruce Coville's and Jane Yolen's and other writers I admired.

When our Commodore 64 died we bought an Apple IIe.  So much easier to use than the Commodore. So much more memory.  However, I could no longer access GEnie

Friends on GEnie pointed out that AOL had a writer's group, so I moved over there.
I began to be published in the mid 1990s.
Some years later, various internet groups formed for published writers, some of which I still belong to and still interact and get messages from.

And then came laser printers.  WOW!  Instead of taking three minutes to print a page - it could print three a minute!

By this time I was a published writer and giving talks to local writing groups.  At one Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators meeting, several new writers complained about the expense of laser printers.  Why couldn't they stick with the Dot-Matrix?  Well, I replied, the quality of what is produced is so much better, so much easier for editors to read.  So, you just have to write it up as a business expense - the cost of doing your business of writing.

There was a lot of discussion among writers about the differences between Apple products and PC products - Apples being much easier to use while producing the same end product.  Nowadays, most writers and illustrators are using Apple computers and the publishers, who had begun with PCs, have had to adjust.

And now we're mostly on FaceBook.

A History of Writers on the Internet

Okay -- here's one writer's view of the history of the Internet.

Being a writer is a lonely job. You sit all day staring at a blank piece of paper or a computer screen and try to capture in words the scenes playing out in your head. So that others can read it and imagine the same scenes -- the same stories. To keep sane, writers talk to other writers -- for advice and support.

In the 1980s, I worked part time, and met with a critique group of people who wrote for children. I wrote newspaper articles on our electric typewriter. And then on our first computer, a Comodore 64.

When I returned to work full time (kids going to college), I could no longer attend the critique group - it was 45 minutes away. Another one was an hour away. But my husband discovered the FIDOnet computer bulletin board where he could talk antique cars to a car group and hooked me up with a writer's group. Mostly Science Fiction writers, a few storytellers, a musician, and several artists. Every evening a new packet of messages arrived at the local computer bulletin board. The next day we would telephone his computer, download the part of the messages we wanted to read, respond to them and upload our responses to the computer bulletin board. Believe it or not, those message packets traveled all around the world, from computer to computer overnight and back to the computer bulletin board in Maryland. Yes, there even were writers from Austrailia.

When FIDOnet died, I was invited by some Science Fiction writers to join GEnie. GEnie had been created by a group of Science Fiction writers who had negotiated the use of General Electric's computer system during the nighttime while GE was closed -- computer down time. Hurrah! One of the writer's groups on it was children's book writers. At this time we were still using dial-up to the computer, but instead of downloading packets of information, like FIDOnet, we wrote on an online bulletin board at the GEnie site.

Two years ago, I finally met Patricia Wrede in person -- a writer I'd been conversing with online since GEnie. She was so funny. She gave me a hug, but kept announcing to the people around us (mostly librarians) that she'd never met this person before. But that she has known me for over 15 years.

When GEnie died (GE decided they needed to use their computers 24 hours a day), one of the GEnie writers, who happened to be the local SCBWI RA, invited me to switch to the AOL writer's boards. She and the other local RA became co-authors with me of the Busy books. (over to your right, here) We mushed our names together to come up with the pen name of C.W. Bowie.

Then writers kept disappearing from the AOL boards and I discovered online Internet writer's groups, including a wonderful YAHOO Nonfiction Writer's group.

There you go -- the history of the Internet, as seen by one of its users.
-- wendieO