Celebrations to mark the 20th anniversary of the first internet connection between sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world began on an appropriately quirky note last Thursday evening.
Celebrations to mark the 20th anniversary of the first internet connection between sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world began on an appropriately quirky note last Thursday evening.
Computer science professor Pat Terry, who was also master of ceremonies for the evening, summoned the choir to take their places. A choir is not what one would usually expect to open a quiet celebration of computing achievements – but that is what happened.
About 20 people filed to the front of the Arts Major lecture theatre and gave a beautiful rendition of a song about internet connections sung to the tune of the well-known children’s song, Teddy Bears’ Picnic. The song set the tone for the rest of the evening filled with thick dollops of nostalgia, sprinkles of geek humour and a rich sauce of techno speak.
The event being commemorated took place at exactly 10.44am on 12 November 1991, when a packet of data was sent between Rhodes University’s computing centre to the home of Randy Bush in Portland, Oregon in the United States.
That was the beginning of the internet as far as South Africa was concerned, and it all began here in Grahamstown. It could be argued that the roots of the internet run even deeper in Grahamstown because Mike Lawrie, a man at the very core of the internet in South Africa, went to school at St Andrew's College, graduated from Rhodes University and led the Rhodes team that established the first internet networking system in South Africa in 1988.
He also administered the ZA domain namespace from 1994 until 2002. Lawrie treated the audience to an interesting presentation focusing strongly on the political environment that he and his team worked in during the years before the regional network connected to the outside world.
He recalled how the apartheid government of that era always tried to constrict communications with the outside world, and was particularly hostile toward the four universities, including Rhodes, that were regarded as being anti-government.
He was therefore quite surprised that the National Party government never made an effort to cut email transmissions, even when they were carrying information that was effectively banned on other media platforms.
Why were these cutting edge advances in computer networking made at Rhodes University and not at any other place? Lawrie cited several reasons in response to this question.
He said that the university was fortunate to have at that time a mainframe computer that could handle a variety of network protocols. This meant that it could connect to various other types of computers. The university also had excellent networking skills and a resolute determination not to give up. He also admitted that “we rode our luck”.
Several other speakers made presentations at the celebratory event including Randy Bush, the man who made that first connection from the United States; Alan Barrett, co-founder of the first commercial internet service provider in South Africa; and François Jacot-Guillarmod, the last member of the original team who is still working at Rhodes University as the director of the IT Division.
The final presentation of the evening was by Dr Angus Hay, head of strategic business development at Neotel. Hay entertained the audience with a fascinating timeline comparing internet milestones with other historic events over the last 20 years.
For example, in that same year that the first internet connection was made, Telkom was established – before that, it was the post-office; in 1992, the term “surfing” was applied to the internet and in South Africa, Codesa negotiations were in full swing; Google was only incorporated in 1998 and the world was having a nervous breakdown about the Y2K bug.
Hay reminded the audience that the company he represents, Neotel, was only set up in 2005 – the same year that YouTube made us all into movie makers. After all the speeches, speakers and audience members mingled and chatted at an informal cheese and wine party.
