BITNET

BITNET (Because It's Time Network) starts as cooperative network at CUNY. Provides email and listserve to distribute info and to transfer files. BITNET adopted the IBM RSCS protocol suite and featured direct leased line connections between participating sites. Most of the original BITNET connections linked IBM mainframes in university data centers. This rapidly changed as protocol implementations became available for other machines. From the beginning, BITNET has been multi-disciplinary in nature with users in all academic areas. It has also provided a number of unique services to its users (e.g., LISTSERV). Today, BITNET and its parallel networks in other parts of the world (e.g., EARN in Europe) have several thousand participating sites. In recent years, BITNET has established a backbone which uses the TCP/IP protocols with RSCS-based applications running above TCP.

Year: 
1981