BITNET
4
MENTIONS
1
EPISODES
1
PODCASTS
Search complete. 4 mentions across 1 episode found for "BITNET".
Oct 9, 2026
P
Unknown podcast
Why Linux Still Runs on a 1986 Mailing List
Oct 9 · 4 Mentions
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3:44CornHOST
And to understand why any of this survived, you have to go back to the moment it almost didn't.
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3:49Herman PoppleberryHOST
Bitnet, start there.
C
3:51CornHOST
The original Bitnet Listserv ran from 1984 to 1986.
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3:56CornHOST
Built by Ira Fuchs, Daniel Oberst, and Ricky Hernandez to implement mailing lists on IBM VM mainframes on the BITnet network, which was this academic network, kind of the scholarly cousin of the early internet.
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4:08Herman PoppleberryHOST
And the crucial detail is how you subscribed.
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4:11CornHOST
You wrote to a human.
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4:12CornHOST
There was a person at an address called INFO at Bitnet, and you sent them a message asking to be added to a list, and they added you by hand.
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4:20Herman PoppleberryHOST
That's remarkable.