Tom Truscott
Tom Truscott is a computer scientist best known for creating Usenet with Jim Ellis, when both were graduate students at Duke University (more information coming soon).
James Tice Ellis
James Tice Ellis (6 May 1956—28 June 2001) was a computer scientist best known as the co-creator of Usenet. Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Ellis grew up in Orlando, Florida. Before developing Usenet, Ellis attended Duke University. He later worked as an Internet security consultant for Sun Microsystems.
He was married and had three children when he died of lymphoma in 2001 in Harmony, Pennsylvania.
USA today story of Ellis' death).
Word spreads quickly...
Word of Truscott and Ellis' work quickly spread and by 1981, a graduate student at Berkeley, Mark Horton and a nearby high school student, Matt Glickman, had released a new version of Usenet software that added more features and was able to handle larger volumes of postings -- the original North Carolina program was meant for only a few articles in a newsgroup each day.
Mark (Mary Ann) Horton
Mary Ann Horton, formerly Mark R. Horton, was a Usenet pioneer. Horton co-wrote the B News server software.
In the early 1970's, Horton designed and implemented the HORTRAN compiler. He was an expert user of early networked computing systems, such as the HP 2000 minicomputer, and provided fellow students with valuable advice that led many to life-long careers in computer science and related fields that rely heavily on computing.
Horton wrote a FORTRAN implementation of John Horton Conway's Game of Life on a UNIVAC 1108 and tracked the evolution of thousands of cellular automata patterns on grid spaces up to 1000 by 1000, using magnetic tape to store intermediate results.
Horton is transgendered (bi-gendered), and until 2001 freely presented as both Mark and Mary Ann.
Mary Ann Horton's home page.
Red Ace.
Rick Adams
Rick Adams was an Internet pioneer and the founder of UUNET, which, in the mid and late 1990s, was the world's largest Internet Service Provider (ISP).
Rick Adams was responsible for the first widely available Serial Line IP (SLIP) implementation and founding UUNET, thereby making the Internet widely accessible. In 1982 Rick ran the first international UUCP email link at the machine seismo (owned by the Center for Seismic Studies in Northern Virginia), which evolved into the first (UUCP-based) UUNET. He maintained B News (at that time the most popular Usenet News transport).
Rick co-authored the O'Reilly book of Electronic Mail Addressing & Networks with his wife Donnalyn Frey. He is also co-author of RFC 1036, the Standard for Interchange of USENET Messages.
Rick also played a largely overlooked role in helping to create new business models for free and open source software. As the hostmaster of the world's best connected backbone site for email and usenet news transfer, Rick realized that the voluntary USENET was becoming unworkable, and that people would pay for reliable, well-connected access. Few people understand that the commercial ISP market that Rick jumpstarted effectively began as a Software as a Service offering for free software, and that as a result Rick should be seen as a pioneer in the commercialization of free and open source software, as well as the commercialization of the Internet.
Rick currently resides in Northern Virginia with his wife Donnalyn and their two sons.
Links
USENET Software: History and Sources
NetNews Server History.
Steven M. Bellovin .
Living Internet.
People that helped build the Internet.
What Went Wrong with the Computer Revolution - Thoughts about Education?
20 Year Usenet timeline - Google Groups.
History and Impact of Usenet - firstmonday.org.
Netizens - On the History and Impact of the Net - columbia.edu (Michael Hauben's and Ronda Hauben's on-line Netbook).
I Remember Usenet - by Brad Templeton at orillynet.com.
The geeks who saved Usenet- dir.salon.com.
An Interview with Brad Templeton.
Usenet is still a strange place - Jan Schaumann.
Common Tragedy - the end of Usenet?
Usenet FAQs - at FAQ.org
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