Born Into The Graph Part I: Preface

So I have been pondering writing a "born into the graph" post for a while...a sort of wandering pondering of what its like to be part of the first generation to grow up with and in the internet starting with child "early adopters" who chatted and emailed on Prodigy and played around CompuServe's global village...

I tweeted this morning about the idea and computer hall of famer Ed Yourdon responded with some amazing info! I am thrilled first to hear from him, and it will also provide some background for this piece which may very well turn into a researched social history of internet usage...we'll see...

So this is part I: the Tidbits from Twitter

(If you're unfamiliar with Twitter's usage, when placing and "@" before someone's username, it is like addressing them directly and shows up as a "reply" to the user)..the following are Ed's responses to me:


yourdon @alisamleo re "born into the graph": does carrying on a relationship via email, circa 1968, count? (Yes, we did have email back then ...)

yourdon @alisamleo MIT had email when I graduated in '65, as did DEC. My wife & I worked @ Comshare in '68, emailing from 2 different datacenters...

yourdon @alisamleo Wife&I provided UNIX email to employees when we started our consulting firm in '74. Employees unable to explain to their friends