.UK is 25 years old

[Gwylan]

Missed this at the weekend but .uk was 25 years old on Saturday.

Nominet - Latest News

It's weird to think how little news impact that would have had in 1985, it wouldn't even have merited a sentence in the papers. We'd still be feeling the aftershock of Live Aid and beginning to notice that the new Soviet leader, Gorbachev, was a bit dfifferent. I'd started in IT journalism by then and I don't recall that item making news anywhere. I wonder how many people in the UK had heard of the Internet then, no more than 500/600 I reckon.

And now, with 8.5 million registrations, it's the fourth largest domain registry in the world - how quickly things change.

 

[Tricky Dicky]

Interesting. I tend to associate '95 with the internet, as being the time when it started to become useful in everyday life.

 

[Colossal Squid]

Top find.

I work in internets and hadn't heard this.

My office full of geeks will LAP IT UP

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Ahhh ... happy days.

When the world was recorded as having started on 1 January 1980. And would come to an end on 31 December 1999.

How did they get it sooooo wrong?

 

[Gwylan]

Interesting. I tend to associate '95 with the internet, as being the time when it started to become useful in everyday life.

It's hard to imagine it now but there was a time when the Internet couldn't be used for commercial purposes, a ban that was lifted in 1991.

I first came across the Internet in 1989 when I interviewed someone who used it. I first used it myself in 1992 before browsers were widely available. It's just amazing how everything has changed so quickly.

 

[Arthur]

Ahhh ... happy days.

When the world was recorded as having started on 1 January 1980. And would come to an end on 31 December 1999.

How did they get it sooooo wrong?

1970 wasn't it? That is certainly when the unix epoch starts anyway.

 

[Brovion]

Interesting. I tend to associate '95 with the internet, as being the time when it started to become useful in everyday life.

Don't confuse the Internet with the World Wide Web. I didn't start using the Web until about 1996, but I was using the early 'internet' back in the 1980s. The Good Old Days of X25 and Telnet and streaming bytes into UARTS and taking them out again.

It took SKILL to be a comms programmer in those days, not like today when people just plug stuff in and expect it to work *chunter chunter chunter*.

 

[Tricky Dicky]

Don't confuse the Internet with the World Wide Web. I didn't start using the Web until about 1996, but I was using the early 'internet' back in the 1980s. The Good Old Days of X25 and Telnet and streaming bytes into UARTS and taking them out again.

It took SKILL to be a comms programmer in those days, not like today when people just plug stuff in and expect it to work *chunter chunter chunter*.

I'm not confused.

X25 - I have rather unpleasant memories of that.

 

[Gwylan]

Don't confuse the Internet with the World Wide Web. I didn't start using the Web until about 1996, but I was using the early 'internet' back in the 1980s. The Good Old Days of X25 and Telnet and streaming bytes into UARTS and taking them out again.

It took SKILL to be a comms programmer in those days, not like today when people just plug stuff in and expect it to work *chunter chunter chunter*.

Remember when it took hours to get a modem working - well that's what it took me.

Remember when 9.6Kbit/s was fast?

 

[bathseagull]

Read about this bloke this morning - quite interesting...

 

[Tricky Dicky]

Remember when it took hours to get a modem working - well that's what it took me.

Remember when 9.6Kbit/s was fast?

This is not a game I want to get in to. On my first day of work I had to take punched cards out of a reader - fortunately that was the one and only time I ever did that. We did use 8" floppies for ages though.

I worked on Flight simulators for over 5 years in the early 80s, costing something like £5m a pop at the time. There is probably more computing power in my mobile now than those machines.

 

[Marc]

I remember owning a .uk address once, for about a year! Oh and playing Red Alert on a 14.4k modem and begging mother to buy me a 28.8k

 

[deletebeepbeepbeep]

Stupid question but I've never just a plain .uk domain name, only .co.uk or .org.uk or .gov.uk can you not have just '.uk'?

I read an interesting article in the Independent about the .tv domain name which is orignally intended for use by Tuvalu a really tiny group of islands with high deprivation levels mainly due to the fact that their soils aren't suitable for farming and they have no natural resources. It is clearly a desirable name and in 1990 Tuvalu leased the name for 50m over a 12 year period to Verisign.

Tuvalu now believe that they underestimated the value of the .tv domain and have tried to renegotiate the lease, but verisign have said that this will not be possible until 2016.

Global Gold: Tuvalu attempts to renegotiate .tv lease terms

Talk about biting off the hand that feeds you.

 

[Tricky Dicky]

Stupid question but I've never just a plain .uk domain name, only .co.uk or .org.uk or .gov.uk can you not have just '.uk'?

I read an interesting article in the Independent about the .tv domain name which is orignally intended for use by Tuvalu a really tiny group of islands with high deprivation levels mainly due to the fact that their soils aren't suitable for farming and they have no natural resources. It is clearly a desirable name and in 1990 Tuvalu leased the name for 50m over a 12 year period to Verisign.

Tuvalu now believe that they underestimated the value of the .tv domain and have tried to renegotiate the lease, but verisign have said that this will not be possible until 2016.

Global Gold: Tuvalu attempts to renegotiate .tv lease terms

Talk about biting off the hand that feeds you.

I have a feeling they are also one of the first areas due for disappearment when climate change happens.

 

[deletebeepbeepbeep]

I have a feeling they are also one of the first areas due for disappearment when climate change happens.

According to Wikipedia, 4.5m above sea level at its highest point . That's approximately the height of an average bungalow.

 

[Tricky Dicky]

According to Wikipedia, 4.5m above sea level at its highest point . That's approximately the height of an average bungalow.

Let's hope everyone in tv lives upstairs then !

 

[Rowdey]

This is not a game I want to get in to. On my first day of work I had to take punched cards out of a reader - fortunately that was the one and only time I ever did that. We did use 8" floppies for ages though.

I worked on Flight simulators for over 5 years in the early 80s, costing something like £5m a pop at the time. There is probably more computing power in my mobile now than those machines.

Bit O/T, but was that with Link Miles in Lancing ?

 

[Tricky Dicky]

Bit O/T, but was that with Link Miles in Lancing ?

Twas indeed - many, many years ago. As a complete coincidence I mailed one of my ex-LM colleagues yesterday whom I have not spoken to since I left.

 

[Rowdey]

My dad worked there for years from early days in Shoreham in a coverted WW2 hut on the river, to Lancing and then onto Redifusion in Crawley - Worked all over the place Seattle, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, UAE, Sweden, Nigeria..
The 'open days' at LM were great as a kid - 'flew' a Nimrod, Tornado, Jaguar, drove tanks etc..

Anyway..back to your topic..

 

[Tricky Dicky]

My dad worked there for years from early days in Shoreham in a coverted WW2 hut on the river, to Lancing and then onto Redifusion in Crawley - Worked all over the place Seattle, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, UAE, Sweden, Nigeria..
The 'open days' at LM were great as a kid - 'flew' a Nimrod, Tornado, Jaguar, drove tanks etc..

Anyway..back to your topic..

Hey, it wasn't my topic, and it's already been hijacked. I just worked in Lancing, and left just before the merge with Redifon/Thompson, or whatever happened.

I had some good trips out of it too, a few months working in Dallas, a while working for the US Air Force with the Top Gunners at an AF base in Arizona. A Long stint in Amsterdam and a long 5* luxury trip around Germany on a roadshow. Not bad for a first job.

Just remembered, I got to drive a bran new Airbus out of the hanger at Schipol Airpiort too .... oo, oo and drive some tanks with the Dutch Army. It's all coming back now.