BITNET was a co-operative university computer network in the United States founded in 1981 byIra Fuchs at theCity University of New York (CUNY) and Greydon Freeman atYale University.[1] The first network link was between CUNY and Yale.
The name BITNET originally meant "Because It's There Network", but it eventually came to mean "Because It's Time Network".[2]
A college or university wishing to join BITNET was required tolease a data circuit from a site to an existing BITNETnode, buymodems for each end of the data circuit, sending one to the connecting point site, and allow other institutions to connect to its site free of charge.
In the early 1980s, theNational Science Foundation (NSF) had several initiatives running to help spread the benefits of networking. One of these efforts was calledCSNET, and it linked together several computer science departments across the country using TCP/IP. Another was a network of regional computer networks that linked up universities in different parts of the country. In 1981, universities came together to form BITNET, which allowed thousands of new users to experience innovations such as email and file transfers for the first time. All of these new networks showed the possibilities of computer networks and helped stoke demand for a robust nationwide network like NSFNET.
BITNET’s first electronic magazine, VM/COM, began as aUniversity of Maine newsletter and circulated broadly in early 1984. Two email newsletters that began as Bitnet newsletters in the fall of 1987 are known to still be transmitting. They are the Electronic Air and SCUP Email News (formerly SCUP Bitnet News).
IBM gave BITNET a $2 million grant over three years during the mid-1980s.[3] BITNET's eligibility requirements limited exchange with commercial entities, including IBM itself, which made technical assistance and bug fixes difficult. This became a particular problem when trying to communicate on heterogeneous networks with graphical workstation vendors such asSilicon Graphics.
BITNET, withRemote Spooling Communications Subsystem (RSCS) and theNetwork Job Entry (NJE)network protocol, was used for the hugeIBM internal network known asVNET. BITNET links originally ran at 9600 bit/s. The BITNETprotocols were eventually ported to non-IBMmainframeoperating systems, and became particularly widely implemented underVAX/VMS, in addition toDECnet.
BITNET featuredemail andLISTSERV software, but predated theWorld Wide Web, the common use ofFTP, andGopher.Gateways for the lists made them available onUsenet.[4] BITNET also supported interactive transmission of files and messages to other users. A gateway service calledTRICKLE enabled users to request files from Internet FTP servers in 64 KbUUencoded chunks. TheInterchat Relay Network, popularly known asBitnet Relay, was the network'sinstant messaging feature.
BITNET differed from theInternet in that it was apoint-to-point "store and forward" network. That is,email messages and files were transmitted in their entirety from one server to the next until reaching their destination. From this perspective, BITNET was more likeUUCPNET.
As of April 1988[update] BITNET connected about 400 universities and 1200 computers.[3] At its zenith around 1991, BITNET extended to almost 500 organizations and 3,000 nodes, all educational institutions. It spanned North America (in Canada it was known as NetNorth), Europe (asEARN),[5] Israel (asISRAEARN),[6] India (VIDYANET)[7] and somePersian Gulf states (as GulfNet). BITNET was also very popular in other parts of the world, especially in South America, where about 200 nodes were implemented and heavily used in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Part of the South African inter-university academic network, initially known as UNINET, and later TENET (Tertiary Education Network) was implemented using BITNET protocols in the late 1980s, with a TCP/IP gateway to the Internet viaRhodes University.[8] With the rapid growth ofTCP/IP systems and the Internet in the early 1990s, and the rapid abandonment of the base IBM mainframe platform for academic purposes, BITNET's popularity and use diminished quickly.
BITNET hosted its firstmulti-user dungeon (MUD) in 1984, the text-based MAD.[9] Players connected from the United States, Europe or Israel to a single server running in France.[citation needed]
In 1996,CREN ended their support for BITNET. The individual nodes were free to keep their phone lines up as long as they wished, but as nodes dropped out, the network splintered into parts that were inaccessible from each other. As of 2007, BITNET has essentially ceased operation. However, a successor, BITNET II, which transmits information via the Internet using BITNET protocols, still has some users.
