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Some more links on HEARN/EARN and BITNET relay (which chat and precedes IRC)

Posted by jpluimers on 2025/02/24

Edit 20260218: added archived links to the July 1988 “USERS’ DIRECTORY OF COMPUTER NETWORKS” and the direct link to the Kremvax article from Piet Beertema himself (in addition to the April Fools on the Net posts that were already there) .

Triggered by [Wayback/Archive] Hillel on Twitter: “Gen-Z programmers are always chasing the new shiny thing like Tailwind and Svelte instead of learning CS fundamentals, like React”, below some links on HEARN, EARN and BITNET Relay: conference system before IRC.

I might amend it later with more information, but for now the list is so that I do not have to re-do the search queries.

Queries:

Links:

  • Kremvax – Wikipedia
  • [Wayback/Archive] How my program passed the Turing Test
  • [Wayback/Archive] The Network Layer – The History of the EARN Network (including a huge graph: the  [Wayback/ Archive] The NJE Worldwide Network Map 1991)
  • [Wayback/Archive] BITnet Relay HomePage

    Background Information for the RELAY Historical Pages

    [Wayback/Archive] Bitnet Relay Home Page

    The EARN/Bitnet Conferencing facility

  • [Wayback/Archive] Index of /afs/athena/reference/net-directory
  • [Wayback/Archive] Index of /afs/athena/reference/net-directory/net-dir
    1. [Wayback/Archive] stuff.mit.edu/afs/athena/reference/net-directory/net-dir/net.directory.part1 (introduction)

      USERS’ DIRECTORY OF
      COMPUTER NETWORKS

      ACCESSIBLE TO
      THE TEXAS HIGHER EDUCATION NETWORK(R)
      MEMBER INSTITUTIONS

      THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS SYSTEM
      Office of Telecommunication Services

    2. [Wayback/Archive] stuff.mit.edu/afs/athena/reference/net-directory/net-dir/net.directory.part2

      SECTION 1 – ARPANET and MILNET

    3. [Wayback/Archive] stuff.mit.edu/afs/athena/reference/net-directory/net-dir/net.directory.part3

      …

      Services available on BITNET include electronic mail, file transfer, real-time terminal messages, and access to BITNET server machines which provide information retrieval services. Gateways exist from BITNET to the ARPA Internet (ARPANET, MILNET, NSFNET, CSNET X25Net), CSNET, UUCP, JANET (Great Britain’s Joint Academic Network), and more than 10 other national academic and research networks. There is also limited access to VNET, IBM’s internal communications network.

      …

    4. [Wayback/Archive] stuff.mit.edu/afs/athena/reference/net-directory/net-dir/net.directory.part4

      SECTION 4 –  ESnet, HEPnet and MFENET

      SECTION 5 – NSFNET

      SECTION 6 – Public X.25 Networks

      SECTION 7 – SPAN

      SECTION 8 – THEnet

    5. [Wayback/Archive] stuff.mit.edu/afs/athena/reference/net-directory/net-dir/net.directory.part5

      SECTION 9 – UUCP and USENET

      SECTION 10 – Domain Names

      SECTION 11 – Electronic Mail

      SECTION 12 – Organization Index

    6. [Wayback/Archive] net.directory.part6 (Bibliography; Online Biblliography) – saved in a gist as it would not display in a browser nor be archived in the Wayback Machine or Archive.is
  • [Wayback/Archive] www.mit.edu/afs.new/athena/reference/net-directory/host-tables/bitnet.links with mainly lines about the Dutch nodes and how they connect to the outside world; note which universities and other research institutions got connected back then, for instance:

    Anyway, here is the list of Dutch BITNET nodes and their links to the outside world:

    *=====================================================================* 
*======*   B I T N E T   N E T W O R K   D E F I N I T I O N   *======* 
*==================*   V E R S I O N   8 9 . 0 8   *==================* 
*                                                                       
*  Report corrections to the Bitnet Info Center (UPDATE@BITNIC).  Please
*  include the above version number in your report.                     
*                                                                       
*                                                                       
*Node Node    Connected             Remarks                  Sys   Last 
* Nr  Name      Via                                          Type Update
*___ ________ ________  ____________________________________ _____ _____
0001 CUNYVM   (root)    CUNY University Computer Ctr, US     RSCS  89180
...
2935 AMOLF    HASFOM51  AMOLF, Amsterdam, Netherlands, NL    ALIAS 89216
...
1653 CUNYVMV2 CUNYVM    CUNY University Computer Ctr, US     RSCS  89180
...
2102 DDAGSI1  DEARN     GSI Darmstadt, Germany, DE           RSCS  89216
...
0239 DEARN    CUNYVMV2  EARN Central Node, Germany, DE       RSCS  89216
...
1545 ESOC     DDAGSI1   ESOC, DE                             RSCS  89217
...
0512 FRMOP22  CUNYVMV2  CNUSC, Montpellier, France, FR       JES2  89219
...
1616 HASARA01 HASARA11  SARA Amsterdam, Netherlands, NL      NTF   89216
0916 HASARA11 HASARA5   SARA Amsterdam, Netherlands, NL      RSCS  89216
0448 HASARA5  HEARN     SARA Amsterdam, Netherlands, NL      JNET  89216
...
2934 HASFOM51 HASARA5   AMOLF, Amsterdam, Netherlands, NL    JNET  89216
...
2074 HDEDH1   HDETUD1   DH, NL                               RSCS  89216
2661 HDETNO51 HDETUD51  TNO Delft, NL                        JNET  89216
1635 HDETUD1  HEARN     TU Delft, Netherlands, NL            RSCS  89217
0534 HDETUD11 HDETUD1   TU Delft, Netherlands, NL            RSCS  89216
1634 HDETUD2  HDETUD1   TU Delft, Netherlands, NL            JES2  89216
1636 HDETUD5  HDETUD51  TU Delft, Netherlands, NL            JNET  89216
1621 HDETUD51 HDETUD1   Centr. DECnet node TU Delft, NL      JNET  89216
1622 HDETUD52 HDETUD51  TU Delft, The Netherlands, NL        JNET  89216
1626 HDETUD53 HDETUD51  TU Delft, The Netherlands, NL        JNET  89217
0449 HEARN    FRMOP22   Uni Nijmegen, Netherlands, NL        RSCS  89216
...
1177 HEIIPO5  HEITHE5   TU Eindhoven IPO, Netherlands, NL    JNET  89216
0450 HEITHE5  HEARN     TU Eindhoven CC, Netherlands, NL     JNET  89216
2197 HEITUE1  HEITHE5   TU Eindhoven CC, Netherlands, NL     RSCS  89217
2206 HEITUE5  HEITHE5   TU Eindhoven CC, Netherlands, NL     ALIAS 89216
2148 HEITUE51 HEITHE5   TU Eindhoven CC, Netherlands, NL     JNET  89216
0451 HENTHT5  HEARN     Uni Twente, Enschede, NL, NL         JNET  89216
1557 HENTHT51 HENTHT5   Uni Twente, Enschede, NL, NL         JNET  89216
2205 HENUT5   HENTHT5   Uni Twente, Enschede, NL, NL         ALIAS 89216
2203 HENUT51  HENTHT51  Uni Twente, Enschede, NL, NL         ALIAS 89216
0452 HGRRUG0  HEARN     Uni Groningen, Netherlands, NL       NJEF  89216
0453 HGRRUG5  HEARN     Uni Groningen, Netherlands, NL       JNET  89216
0614 HGRRUG51 HGRRUG5   K.V.I., Groningen, NL, NL            JNET  89216
1291 HGRRUG52 HGRRUG5   Dept. of Chem. U. Groningen, NL      JNET  89216
2510 HHEOUH50 HHEOUH51  Open Universiteit Heerlen, NL        ALIAS 89216
0858 HHEOUH51 HEARN     Open Universiteit Heerlen, NL        JNET  89216
2500 HHEOUH52 HHEOUH51  Open Universiteit Heerlen, NL        JNET  89216
2502 HHEOUH53 HHEOUH51  Open Universiteit Heerlen, NL        JNET  89216
2503 HHEOUH54 HHEOUH51  Open Universiteit Heerlen, NL        JNET  89216
...
0454 HLERUL2  HEARN     Uni Leiden, Netherlands, NL          JES2  89216
0455 HLERUL5  HLERUL2   Uni Leiden, Netherlands, NL          JNET  89216
2849 HLERUL5B HLERUL5   Uni Leiden, Netherlands, NL          PMDF  89216
2571 HLERUL5I HLERUL5   Uni Leiden, Netherlands, NL          PMDF  89216
0615 HLERUL51 HLERUL5   Uni Leiden, Netherlands, NL          JNET  89216
0857 HLERUL52 HLERUL5   Uni Leiden, Netherlands, NL          JNET  89216
2021 HLERUL53 HLERUL5   Uni Leiden, Netherlands, NL          JNET  89216
1104 HLERUL55 HLERUL5   Uni Leiden, The Netherlands, NL      JNET  89216
1106 HLERUL56 HLERUL5   Uni Leiden, The Netherlands, NL      JNET  89216
1918 HLERUL57 HLERUL5   Uni Leiden, Netherlands, NL          JNET  89216
2155 HLERUL58 HLERUL5   Uni Leiden, Netherlands, NL          JNET  89216
2526 HLERUL59 HLERUL5   Uni Leiden, Netherlands, NL          JNET  89216
0566 HLSDNL5  HLSDNL50  DNL Leidschendam, Netherlands, NL    JNET  89216
1767 HLSDNL50 HLERUL5   DNL Leidschendam, Netherlands, NL    JNET  89216
0506 HLSDNL51 HLERUL5   DNL Leidschendam, Netherlands, NL    JNET  89216
...
0493 HMARL5   HTIKUB5   Uni Limburg, Netherlands, NL         JNET  89216
...
1057 HNOESA10 ESOC      ESTEC, NL                            RSCS  89216
0271 HNYKUN11 HEARN     Uni Nijmegen, Netherlands, NL        RSCS  89216
0456 HNYKUN22 HNYKUN11  Uni Nijmegen, Netherlands, NL        JES2  89216
0584 HNYKUN51 HNYKUN52  Uni Nijmegen, Netherlands, NL        JNET  89216
0585 HNYKUN52 HEARN     Uni Nijmegen, Netherlands, NL        JNET  89216
0586 HNYKUN53 HNYKUN52  Uni Nijmegen, Netherlands, NL        JNET  89216
0588 HNYKUN55 HNYKUN52  Uni Nijmegen, Netherlands, NL        JNET  89216
1292 HNYMPI51 HEARN     Max Planck Inst., Nijmegen, NL, NL   JNET  89216
1488 HNYMPI52 HNYMPI51  Max Planck Inst., Nijmegen, NL, NL   JNET  89216
...
2616 HPEENR51 HNYKUN52  ENR, Petten, Netherlands, NL         JNET  89216
1108 HRDKSW5  HGRRUG5   Kapteyn Sterrenwacht, Roden, NL      JNET  89216
1683 HROEUR0M HROEUR1   Uni Rotterdam, Netherlands, NL       RSCS  89216
1328 HROEUR1  HROEUR5   Uni Rotterdam, Netherlands, NL       RSCS  89217
1082 HROEUR1A HROEUR1   Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, NL   RSCS  89218
1075 HROEUR1B HROEUR1A  Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, NL   RSCS  89218
2515 HROEUR11 HROEUR1   Uni Rotterdam, Netherlands, NL       RSCS  89216
0472 HROEUR5  HTIKUB5   Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, NL   JNET  89216
1327 HROEUR51 HROEUR5   Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, NL   JNET  89216
2117 HTIKHT5  HTIKUB5   Katholieke Uni. Brabant, NL          ALIAS 89216
2116 HTIKUB5  HEARN     Katholieke Uni. Brabant, NL          JNET  89216
...
0458 HUTRUU0  HEARN     Uni Utrecht, Netherlands, NL         HASP  89216
1112 HUTRUU51 HEARN     Uni Utrecht, Netherlands, NL         JNET  89216
2335 HUTRUU52 HUTRUU51  Uni Utrecht, Netherlands, NL         JNET  89216
2411 HUTRUU53 HUTRUU51  Uni Utrecht, Netherlands, NL         JNET  89216
1651 HUTRUU54 HUTRUU51  Uni Utr, Fac Chem, NL                JNET  89216
0196 HUTRUU59 HUTRUU51  Uni Utr Fac Lett, Netherlands, NL    JNET  89216
2306 HUTSUR51 HNYKUN52  SURFnet, Netherlands, NL             JNET  89216
...
0459 HWALHW5  HEARN     Landbouwuniv. Wageningen, NL, NL     JNET  89216
1528 HWALHW50 HWALHW5   Landbouwuniv. Wageningen, NL, NL     JNET  89216
...
1579 LUXCEP11 HEARN     CEPS, Walferdange, Luxemburg, LU     RSCS  89216
...
1001 MCVAX    HASARA5   CWI Amsterdam, NL                    UREP  89216
...

The related tweets:

  1. [Wayback/Archive] Jeroen Wiert Pluimers on Twitter: “@hillelogram @Felienne I laughed way too hard. Cheers, The hipster that fell in love with the internet in the late 1980s sending emails over electronic networks whereas snail mail was way more reliable and surfed using gopher before the world-wide web became cool.”
  2. [Wayback/Archive] Joe on Twitter: “@jpluimers @hillelogram @Felienne The coolest kind of programmers!”
  3. [Wayback/Archive] Jeroen Wiert Pluimers on Twitter: “@ffs_joseph @hillelogram @Felienne (: I remember me telling people that the internet was great, but way too difficult to use for mere mortals and envisioned it would never really take off with the public at large. Boy, was I wrong!”
  4. [Wayback/Archive] Joe on Twitter: “@jpluimers @hillelogram @Felienne Hehe, the growth must have been insane. I wonder how it was like for you as one of the few wizards that understood the internet back then.”
  5. [Wayback/Archive] Jeroen Wiert Pluimers on Twitter: “@ffs_joseph @hillelogram @Felienne The thing is: I never saw (or see) myself as wizard. I always followed my compassion and learned by doing and still do. It still feels amazing when I see that people have learned from what I did or do, just as I am amazed at what I learned and keep learning from others every day.”
  6. [Wayback/Archive] Jeroen Wiert Pluimers on Twitter: “@ffs_joseph @hillelogram @Felienne Life keeps feeling like fumbling around every day trying to learn from the mistakes along the way. There are so many people I learned from, and I wish I could contact people from the BITNET Relay Chat past like mOrPhInUM. Oh, the memories: “
  7. [Wayback/Archive] Jeroen Wiert Pluimers on Twitter: “@ffs_joseph @hillelogram @Felienne This BTW was a great reminder to get in touch with @FredMelssen again: https://t.co/u9luA5mNI9 I’ve not looked at the state of how much on HEARN/EARN has been documented in the mean time, but given the people from that era usually older than me, it’s surely time to figure out.”
  8. [Wayback/Archive] Jeroen Wiert Pluimers on Twitter: “@ffs_joseph @hillelogram @Felienne @FredMelssen An example on how Gopher sites looked like: gopher.quux.org:70“
    • [Wayback/Archive] Gopher (gopher.quux.org:70)
       Welcome to gopher at quux.org!
       
       This server has a lot of information of historic interest,
       funny, or just plain entertaining -- all presented in Gopher.
       There are many mirrors here of rare or valuable files with the
       aim to preserve them in case their host disappears. PLEASE READ
       "About This Server" FOR IMPORTANT NOTES AND LEGAL INFORMATION.

Odd Google result

[Wayback/Archive] “pluimers” “kremvax” – Recherche Google got me [Wayback/Archive] https://programsolve.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/file.txt that has both my name, kremvax and many (all?) of the above BITNET nodes.

It is referenced from [Wayback/Archive] Python To Generate Random Word From List With Full Source Code For Beginners | Program Solve.

Related blog post

I mentioned this 2016 blog post in the tweets: xyzzy, Relay Conferencing before IRC even existed

A while ago, I remembered xyzzy by David Bolen: a VAX/VMS program for the BITNET Relay conference system on BITNET/EARN. Yes, relay chat before IRC. Even ELIZA did operate as a chatbot on BITNET Relay.

…

--jeroen

The July 1988 “USERS’ DIRECTORY OF COMPUTER NETWORKS” is in the gist [Wayback/Archive] https://stuff.mit.edu/afs/athena/reference/net-directory/net-dir/net.directory.part* (as https://stuff.mit.edu/afs/athena/reference/net-directory/net-dir/net.directory.part6 could not be archived in the Wayback Machine nor Archive.is) · GitHub as the original could not be archived in the Wayback Machine or Archive Today.

Individual parts 1 through 6 of it are archived here:

  1. [Wayback/Archive] net.directory.part1
  2. [Wayback/Archive] net.directory.part2
  3. [Wayback/Archive] net.directory.part3 (Archive Today cannot save this file)
  4. [Wayback/Archive] net.directory.part4
  5. [Wayback/Archive] net.directory.part5
  6. [Wayback/Archive] net.directory.part6

https://gist.github.com/jpluimers/344fd51672653883a2445b7bd6a0c1e7

This entry was posted on 2025/02/24 at 12:00 and is filed under About, BITNET Relay, Chat, History, Personal, SocialMedia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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