First
Polish IP LAN
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DONOSY
- the first Polish electronic bulletin
In 1987
a group of high energy physicists from the
Physics Faculty of the Warsaw University realized
that their research at DESY (Hamburg) and CERN
(Geneva) cannot be successfully continued without
the computer network connectivity with Western
Europe. They started to dial-up to western
European research centers and exchange e-mails
with their collaborators. As a by-product, the
first Polish electronic bulletin "DONOSY", an informal
newsletter has been created in August 1989 and
appears daily up to now.
"DONOSY" has been an important source
of information for Poles scattered all over the
word. To allow wider circles of Polish diaspora
to read the "DONOSY" an english
version has been distributed in
1993-1997. Presently, there are more than 10000
subscribers. First
Polish IP LAN and IP international connectivity
Starting
from 1988 scientists from Warsaw University wrote
a series of formal applications to the
EARN/BITNET network, which due to the COCOM
restrictions have been declined. The political
changes in Poland in 1989, the tedious lobbying
in Washington and the petition sent to president
Bush caused that in February 1990 Poland, as a
first CEE country, has been accepted to EARN and
connected to world's computer network.
The
Physics Faculty, where students and scientists
from all the Warsaw scientific community have
always been welcomed, created a very friendly
atmosphere for all those who wanted to access the
information world-wide and were interested in
emerging TCP/IP technology. In particular the IP
based LAN and a computer farm, named COCOS, have
been created at Physics Faculty campus in 1990.
The experience gained during the creation of
COCOS and the friendly relations to the world's
network community lead to the creation of first
Polish international IP based link.
On
August 17, 1991, using the PC-based ka9q
'router', the IP 9600 bps link has been
established between the Physics Faculty of the
Warsaw University and the UNI-C, a Computer
Center of the Copenhagen University. The staff of
the Physics Faculty shared their knowledge of the
TCP/IP technology with the rest of the scientific
community in Poland and run DNS for .pl domain.
Physicists from Warsaw University played a major
role in creation of Polish Research and
Academic Computer Network (NASK), which starting
from 1991, in a relatively short time connected
nearly all Polish universities and research
institutes.
Public
services - first Polish Usenet News and WWW
servers
With
NASK rapidly connecting universities, the number
of Internet users within the scientific community
started to grow exponentially. In early '90s, the
Physics Faculty being a major Polish source of
information on frontiers of TCP/IP technology,
could not cope with the growing demand for
information. This has lead to the creation in
1992 of the first Polish Usenet News server. In
August 1993, the first Polish WWW server started its
operation. For many years this server hosted the
National Home Page of Poland, which contained a
large repository of Internet related information
and the data base of other emerging WWW servers.
One has to stress that all those pro publico bono
services were run on purely voluntary basis.
Physics Faculty welcomed also the formation of the Internet related organizations. In 1995 it hosted the first General Assembly of the "Polish Community of Internet", an organization of Polish Internauts. Several meetings of the Central and Eastern European Networking Association (CEENet) and numerous public lectures, workshops and seminars have been held at its premises. Jacek Gajewski |