DargonZine
Volume 12, Number 10 |
Distributed: 10/03/1999
Circulation: 701 |
 |
DargonZine is the publication vehicle of the
Dargon Project, a collaborative group of aspiring fantasy writers on the
Internet. We welcome new readers and writers interested in joining the
project. Please address all correspondance to
<dargon@shore.net>
or visit us on the World Wide Web at http://www.dargonzine.org/. Back
issues are available from
ftp.shore.net
in members/dargon/. Issues and public discussion are posted to newsgroup
rec.mag.dargon.
DargonZine 12-10, ISSN 1080-9910, (C) Copyright October, 1999
by the Dargon Project. Editor: Ornoth D.A. Liscomb
<ornoth@shore.net>,
Assistant Editor: Jon Evans
<godling@mnsinc.com>.
All rights reserved. All rights are reassigned to the individual
contributors. Stories and artwork appearing herein may not be reproduced
or redistributed without the explicit permission of their creators, except
in the case of freely reproducing entire issues for further distribution.
Reproduction of issues or any portions thereof for profit is forbidden.
|
Editorial
itnet. In all likelihood you've never heard of Bitnet. It kind of
sounds like the name of an ISP, doesn't it? "Become a Bitnet customer,
and get 80 free hours!"
But back in 1984, it was all the rage at universities from Iowa to
Israel. Bitnet was a network that linked computers at thousands of
universities throughout the world, allowing students and staff to
exchange email, programs, and interactive messages, and the network was
experiencing explosive growth. And in 1984, when DargonZine was founded,
Bitnet was our distribution channel.
At that time, there were several such networks in existance,
including NSFnet, UUCP, ARPAnet, Fidonet, and others. All these networks
were separate because they had been created by different organizations
and used different protocols for talking to one another. Around the time
DargonZine was born, gateways began springing up which allowed email to
pass between these disparate networks, and DargonZine became one of the
first "Internet" magazines.
Over time, one network protocol became the standard: TCP/IP, which
was originally used to link Unix machines on ARPAnet. Once TCP/IP became
widely available to the Digital VAX and IBM mainframe systems that made
up Bitnet, many of those sites began to maintain presences on both the
TCP/IP network as well as Bitnet's NJE-based network.
Over the past ten years, Bitnet sites have gradually transitioned
to TCP as their sole connection to the Internet. Many DargonZine
subscribers have changed their email addresses to TCP/IP domains. And
each time a new DargonZine issue is distributed, we learn of a handful
of sites which have let their Bitnet connections expire. The trend has
continued to the point where there are barely a half-dozen DargonZine
subscribers still using Bitnet addresses.
Today, it looks like Bitnet is living out its last days in
obscurity. Few people remember that it once was a substantial global
network of university computer centers that was one of the predecessors
of today's Internet. Even the articles and books which document the
history of the Internet often don't bother to mention the network that
had instant messaging back in 1982, that gave us the first chat machines
(which eventually were ported to the Internet in the form of IRC), that
gave us the first email list processors in the form of Listserv (which
has also been ported to the Internet), and which served as the host to
many diverse information systems and services, including DargonZine.
For those of us who grew up on Bitnet, its impending demise is like
the loss of a close friend. Those who remember Bitnet have many fond
memories to recall, and feelings of melancholy and sadness. The Internet
has lost an important part of its history, and DargonZine has lost its
childhood home.
Back in 1984, I would hardly have thought that DargonZine would
outlive Bitnet, yet here we are. Unlike Bitnet, DargonZine is more
robust than ever, and this issue is a great example.
In this issue we conclude Dafydd's second "Talisman" story. It's an
excellent series, and I hope you don't let its size intimidate you.
Dafydd is one of the best writers we've ever had, and "Talisman" is his
most ambitious work to date. We also feature the debut of a new writer,
Tim Guba; I hope you enjoy his story, which follows a retiring merchant
captain. And finally, we print the first story in five years from one of
our veterans: myself, Ornoth. New writers, old writers, and lots of
super stories; while Bitnet's glory days are past, DargonZine will
continue to thrive and bring you the best fiction we can for years to
come.
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