Bang Paths, Usenet, and vi: Open Source Before the Web
November 20, 16:40Escenario verde
Long before GitHub, Stack Overflow, or high-speed fiber optics, open-source software and developer communities were actively shaping the digital world. In the late 1970s and 1980s, collaboration moved over 1200-baud mode…
Long before GitHub, Stack Overflow, or high-speed fiber optics, open-source software and developer communities were actively shaping the digital world. In the late 1970s and 1980s, collaboration moved over 1200-baud modems, physical magnetic tapes, paper teletypes, and a patchwork of UUCP, Berknet, and ARPANET links.
In this talk, early tech pioneer Mary Ann Horton takes you on a firsthand journey through the birthplace of foundational developer tooling and networking. From the origins of the vi editor, early Unix at Berkeley, bang-path email routing (host!host!user), to the birth of sendmail and the mapping of Usenet, discover how a global community of engineers solved complex routing, editor design, and distribution challenges with limited bandwidth and raw ingenuity.
Join us for a look at the open-source spirit that predated the modern Web, and see how the architecture, tools, and lessons from the Unix era continue to underpin the infrastructure and developer workflows we rely on today. Sobre Mary Ann Horton: Contribuyó al desarrollo de BSD UNIX, impulsó el crecimiento de Usenet y creó uuencode, una de las primeras herramientas para enviar archivos adjuntos por correo electrónico. Trabajó durante dos décadas en Bell Labs y fue una de las impulsoras de políticas de inclusión de personas trans en grandes empresas tecnológicas.