Subject: Re: Stalin is not a cool name ( was: High performance Lisp implementations?) From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 1998/11/28 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3121237725160758@naggum.no> * hjstein@bfr.co.il (Harvey J. Stein) | Except that development and operations were largely funded by the DoD, | AKA The Department of Defense, whose budget in those days was hugely | bloated by cold war concerns. since the U.S. doesn't really have public funding of research, ARPA, now DARPA, has had a seminal role in the development of "public" research in the U.S. all the stuff coming | We have from | http://www.oreilly.com/reference/dictionary/terms/A/Advanced_Research_Projects_Agency_Network.htm: O'Reilly does many fine things for the computer community, but they are _not_ historians, and they make all kinds of simple mistakes that real historians unlearn in their early years, such as believing hearsay and tertiary sources without confirmation from primary sources. go see the RFCs, instead. (sorry, I don't have time to guide you right now, but the Index is a good start. the central repository is ftp.isi.edu:/in-notes.) in particular, the "survive nuclear attack" part is a _commentary_ on the success of the project, not a stated goal at any time in its history. that O'Reilly repeats it as such is just an examle of what I'm talking about. another example of their confusion is "DARPAnet" -- it was never called that, even when the ARPA changed name to "DARPA". consult historic documents or historians for the history, or you yourself contribute to the dilution of facts in the history that others will read. #:Erik -- The Microsoft Dating Program -- where do you want to crash tonight?