I CAME UP WITH THE IDEA FIRST
(…even if neither Al Gore nor Nobel have ever heard about it)

With all due respect to our former Vice President, he didn’t invent the Internet…I did. I came up with the idea first, even if neither he nor Nobel have ever heard about it. The reason I’m coming forward with this tenuous presumption is because it’s been almost fifty years since it all began, so I want to set the record straight about the history of the Internet’s origins before it becomes more distorted than it is right now.

It all began way back in that pre-historic era when the word – digital- referred only to the fingers of your hand, not the Digital World we live in today. Back in those days our means for interactive communications and anything remotely resembling “social media” were limited, depending almost entirely on a technology called – TELEX – which, for its time, was as near perfect a system anyone could ask for. It was relatively inexpensive, very reliable, quite user-friendly to operate, and, damn near hacker proof because it wasn’t susceptible to interception. Anyone trying to do so not only had to have the specific frequency a particular unit was using, they also had to have a receiving unit tuned to that frequency. On top of that, its machine-gun-like rate of transmission was so rapid it was over and done before you could get a lock on it. Security of communications and privacy…you better believe it!

 Which is why it was so popular and used by…governments, diplomats, military, banks, businesses, and so on, but…stuff happens, as they say, so it seems my out -of-the-box idea to use that technology in a different application may not only have led to its demise, but also to the germ of an idea which, when computers later came along, ultimately evolved into what we know today as the – Internet -.

So here’s the real story on how all that came about.

One day, a late former boss of mine, a retired Marine Corps bird colonel, picked up his phone, and dialed my extension. Answering the call, his voice barked out at me in an irate grizzly mode saying. .. get your ass up here…like now! Well, when a Marine Corps bird colonel (even a retired one) barks at you like that and says jump, the only thing you can do is to say…yes sir…and how high, sir!. Needless to say I was up in his big top floor office and standing at rigid attention in front of his desk before he had barely hung up. All the while my brain was frantically back searching to figure out what sins of commission or omission I might have done to warrant such a stern summons. It really had to be something serious because he was normally very mild-tempered and rarely reacted in such a manner about anything with me.

Glancing up from the mounds of papers in front of him…inter-departmental memos squabbling over everything under the sun, research project reports, along with piles of other stuff, he just grinned at me saying…knock it off, Captain…we’re both civilians now…so park it and listen up (…we occasionally played military protocol games with each other as a mark of mutual appreciation and respect, and that gave us a great working relationship).

As I listened, he continued: “Now that we’re a fully staffed RD Field Unit over here, we’re drowning in paper-work. Between those department heads and their little turf wars, whiny contractors complaining about everything under the sun, and all those goddam academic and technical  consultants cluttering up the hallways, no one is coordinating with anyone. It’s like trying to herd cats! So, Mr. Director of Technical and Support Services, I’m giving you two weeks to come up with something that will make it all…go away…understood?.” Without batting an eyelash I just said;” Make it three weeks…and I’ll see what I can do.” Shaking his head, but still grinning at me he said:”Geez… what a pissant you can be sometimes. Okay, okay…you can have one month…no more!”

Nodding and smiling, I stood back up at attention, gave him a smart salute, spun on my heels, and headed for the door of his office…with his voice growling behind me…I said cut that out, wiseass!…but we were both laughing. The whole session had lasted barely ten minutes. From experience, he knew that whatever task he gave me, I rarely asked for guidelines or instructions, I just nodded and then went out and did it. He knew and trusted that my way of getting things done for him, odd-ball as some of my solutions might be, generally produced results that worked. That was just the way things worked with us.

Back down in my cell-like office, however, I began wondering if this time I had gotten myself into a real quagmire of a situation. I hadn’t a clue about how I was going to resolve it. How in the hell were we going to inter-connect three departments, each with four sub-sections, plus, our labs and workshops, and never less than a half dozen research contractors running their projects at the same time? On top of all that there were also our in-country hosts, and several contingents of allied countries’ representatives to be kept in the loop as well. Our current MIS (Management Information System) totally relied on exchanges of memos, draft outlines, reports, etc., which took a herd of clerks and secretaries just to keep it all flowing properly.

So as I sat there in gloomy thought…and getting nowhere…my assistant barged in a very excited state about something. A retired Army supply sergeant, and the master wheeling and dealing scrounger the world had ever known, he was grinning from ear to ear as he handed me a piece of paper, saying…Boss, I think I’ve found the solution to fix our communications problems with HQ. We can get a brand new telex machine, complete with tape cutter and everything, for pennies on the dollar!  Those DC REMF’s won’t ever have cause to complain again! And it just might give me a real in with that hottie secretary up in the Director’s office, because she’ll be the one I’ll have to train to use it (the sergeant was a dedicated bachelor and avid skirt chaser).

The paper he handed me was the monthly notice about the upcoming surplus government property disposal at public auction, and giving the deadline for all interested units in the area to submit their selection of items they could use, if they wanted these withdrawn from the auction process. It was a practical way to re-cycle equipment and materiel, and get some returns for the Treasury besides. As I looked it over something caught my eye. The property disposal people weren’t just talking about one or two of those machines, but about several dozens of them, complete with all their accessories.

The glimmer of an idea then began forming in my head…what if…we could wire up all those machines into one single network throughout our facility? Everyone could exchange information and ideas with everyone else, and because of the way those machines worked,  everyone would have a copy of what they needed to have, without the need to re-type another paper…they could just add their comments to the original source document.

Turning to the sergeant I said: ”Sarge, what kind of a deal do you think you can get for us, if we said we wanted all of those machines, and all of the gear and paper rolls that come with them?” Shaking his head, he looked at me as if I had gone nuts and replied:”You want us to get all of those things? What the hell would we do with them?” By now I had worked out most of the outlines of the idea in my head, so, grinning with a wild gleam in my eye said… never mind about that, call Bob, up in the Com-Center and tell him to get his butt down here…fast… and get me a couple of our hotshot interns from the AIT (Asia Institute of Technology) too…we’ve no time to waste!”

Within minutes Bob from the Com-Center, our interns, and the sergeant and I were in a heavy brainstorming session, kicking a lot of technical details around. Finally, after a couple of hours, we had worked things out to our satisfaction. Bob, had outlined what and how each machine would have to be “modified” to make it believe it was “transmitting” instead of just being connected to a telephone wire. Our interns had used their slide rules, and calculated how much and what kind of cabling would be required, using complicated formulas dealing with resistance, ohms, and other esoteric factors only they could understand. By now we were all charged up with this wild scheme of mine. It appeared it might actually work! Needing a break from all that, I called for a recess, warning everyone to consider this a highly “classified” project and to keep their mouths shut…or else. Meanwhile, as we headed for the main cafeteria, I told them…lunch was on me.

 Later, after the sergeant and I came back to my office I asked him:”Okay, now that’s all been worked out…what do you think it will cost us? I’d like to get away with something less than $100 per machine, with all the gear included, and all the paper roll stock they have on hand as well… think you can con them into saying yes at that price?” The sergeant just shook his head, saying:” Boss, you’re one wild ass mother…for sure. Luckily, since we have our own petty cash fund, and can write our own purchase orders against it.

We have about ten grand left in it right now. I’ll do what I can, but we may have to offer more than what you want…how high can we go? We still have a couple of months before we get a refill for it, so we need to think long and hard about that.” Staring grimly back at him I said:” One…Hundred… bucks… not a penny more, sergeant…not a penny more!” Grumbling, and growling to himself he went to his desk, typed up a purchase order form, leaving the amount blank, and brought it back for my signature.  Handing it back, I said:”I have every confidence in you sergeant. Just keep in mind this is the biggest and boldest wheeling and dealing mission you’ll probably ever have. If you succeed…we’ll both be heroes…especially with you-know-who upstairs!” With a wave of his hand he headed out the door. All I could do now was to sit…and wait.

Well, the sergeant succeeded beyond our wildest expectations, coming back with two truck loads. One for some thirty machines and all their gear, and, one for a dozen or so large crates full of telex paper rolls…all for the price of…$1950! He was grinning like a Cheshire Cat! His grin became even wider when I handed him a box of his favorite Cuban cigars (not illegal overseas) as a reward for his successful deal.

The rest as they say…became history. Within that one month deadline, those interns had every office in that building that needed to inter-connected, each with a machine set up in its own cubicle space, and wired into the rest of the network. Since the entire staff knew how to type, all they had to be trained for was how to set up the tape punching units, and how to thread the tape back into it to send something out. Since each machine had also been given a “network number”, multiple addressees were a simple matter. Soon, we were all set to see if this wild idea would work… or not.

The day the system was to be activated, I went up to the colonel’s office to show him how it would work. The look on his face when those first “communications” began pouring into his machine was complete yet admiring disbelief.  To say he was pleased was putting it mildly (he promptly put me in for a merit promotion).Before long all that previous load of interoffice memos, and other paperwork, had been replaced, by file copies of yellow telex sheets, complete with related comments, interrogatories, notes, and so on. Arguments about who had said what, when, almost totally disappeared (you can’t very well argue with a date/time stamp). From now on we had complete coordination…on everything.

And that, my friends, is how this –Internet- idea really got started. Al Gore had nothing to do with it. Anyway, that’s my story about how the idea for what ultimately became the -Internet- came about…and I’m sticking to it.

CENTURION