Real and Virtual Party |  |  |
Really hosted by Andrew Hodges.
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| http://www.turing.org.uk The rest of this page is for amusement only. Now, with reliable servers and faster global Internet connections, there is little purpose in having mirrors. But I have kept this page as a record of the early development of the Web, when this sort of generous inter-continental co-operation was an inspiring aspect of the new medium. I have occasionally re-edited the 1996 text to remove outdated links and update the design. Much else has also changed. In 1996 my Turing website was hosted by the WWW server at Wadham College, Oxford University. Not long afterwards, it was moved to its own domain name at at a single location: http://www.turing.org.uk hosted by the Big Oxford Computer Company. In 1996 my book on Alan Turing was unavailable in the United States, which prompted some of the comments below, but in 2000 it was republished. |
The Mirror
The story began with an email from a man I had never met:Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 00:14:24 -0800He invited me to dinner in San Francisco! And after flattering remarks about my book and my website, ended:
To: andrew.hodges@wadham.oxford.ac.uk
From: mark@mrh.slip.netcom.com (Mark Holmes)
Subject: Gratuitous Kudos
PS -- I'd be honored to mirror your site if you wish -- Oxford connections are a bit sluggish from here in California.
I accepted. Being mirrored, that is. Mark Holmes, an email expert, set up a brilliant system for transmitting updates. With very little trouble the San Francisco Mirror of the Alan Turing website was tested and ready to go.
We agreed the moment at which to change the Oxford pages to announce the mirror:
Sunday 18 February 1996: 2000 in Oxford, 1200 in San Francisco.
The Party
A dozen guests in my house graced us with their Real Presence.
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Here are Mark Hall and
Colin Watson from the Big Oxford Computer Company.... and |
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Matthew Westby, Webmaster of Wadham College and now Web Page designer. |
I had to be very careful with real professionals around...
Pet Shop Boys playing...Ronnie did the food. Californian wine.
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At 1959 I telephoned Mark Holmes, meanwhile activating my FETCH application. At 2000 I clicked the mouse to upload the new Turing.html into Plato, the Wadham College computer... thereby revealing to the world the Mirror URL. Being an amateur, I first loaded the wrong file... but still I was only a few seconds late. |
Immediately after the switch-on, emails came in.
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 1996 13:59:12 -0600 (CST)Music to my ears! Almost as good as the Pets. I often need a pick-me-up during the day. Or at any other time, come to that.
From: Drouilhet Sidney <galois@mhd1.moorhead.msus.edu>
To: Andrew Hodges <andrew.hodges@wadham.oxford.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: New! Mirror of Alan Turing WebsiteCongratulations on your expansion! Thanks for maintaining such a terrific web site. If a guy needs an intellectual pick-me-up during the day, he is assured that by clicking on your site he can find something new and interesting to stimulate his thought. I found that copies of "Alan Turing: The Enigma" make great Christmas gifts, but in the future it will be easier to use them as such if you can get it republished it in the US. Jim Drouilhet.
Next I uploaded my new personal pages with their text explaining my compliance with the Communications Decency Amendment, which had just been signed into American law ten days before.
Some of these lads were a bit surprised at what they saw on the screen! My maths tutorials had not prepared them for this.
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But soon the controls were in the safe hands of Matt Ascroft and Matt Westby. |
Another email came in, showing that you don't have to be a guy to get the pick-me-up:
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 96 13:29:31 -0700And Jennifer browsed...
Sender: jkl@fsl.noaa.gov
From: Jennifer Longstaff <jkl@fsl.noaa.gov>
To: webmaster-list@mrh.slip.netcom.com
Subject: Inaugural Party
Hey - I'm sitting here all alone in Colorado wishing I was at the inaugural party. What's happening in partyland?
I just connected to the mirror site just fine, and have now included its URL on my home page. Thanks!
- Jennifer Longstaff
(I have the same birthday as Alan Turing)
Just visited "2nd home page number 3" and saw the CDA stuff. Very good - cute comic approach with the "Americans don't look at this" page, but also very sobering comparison with Turing's charge of "Indecency" which like the CDA wasn't very well thought-out.Thanks, Jennifer! Pass on the message!
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Tarani and Richard arrived and joined the party. Messages came in from Fiji, from Toulouse — and Loughborough. |
In San Francisco, Mark transferred the emails to a growing WWW page on his site, soon joined by pictures of the party participants.
| Mirror, mirror on the wall... Matt Ascroft found himself staring at... ...and starring on the screen. Not just because he is so photogenic! Vivid comments passed across the globe by WWW, email and voicemail, which of course complied in every respect with the Communications Decency Amendment. |
And then an innocent visitor hit the Site by chance
(as if we were in Colin and Mark's
Rocky Horror Show party...)
From: Brendan Kitts <bj@acs.bu.edu>
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 96 17:49:04 -0500
Sender: bj@acs.bu.edu
To: andrew.hodges@wadham.oxford.ac.uk
Subject: Turing on the web
Hi there,Just wanted to let you know that I enjoyed reading your pages immensely. I'm a Computer Science PhD student out here in the US (formerly from Oz) and have really been inspired by Turing's wonderfully lucid writings. A good reminder that science and life is an adventure.
Anyway, my (er, not quite as exciting) web page is: http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~brendy
Cheerio!
Brendan
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We looked up Brendan's homepage — no picture of him! Only his girlfriend. Never mind, we welcome everyone. |
Meanwhile Brendan too had found my new personal pages reacting to the CDA...
That's okay - glad to be a part of it!
Keep on mooning those internet censorship laws !Cheers!
-B.
Cheers, Brendan! Science and life is an adventure.
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My Yucca plant was supposed to lend some Californian atmosphere to our bleak February. Ronnie (right) was pleased because everyone enjoyed the food. Joel (left) was just in my Polaroid flash. Please note: everything stayed as clean as an American kitchen! |
Total Corruption
Within 24 hours, Plato the Wadham College computer went down.Soon I had an email from the Computer Scholar:—
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 1996 02:15:04 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: Re: PlatoWe had the severest system crash ever. Total shut down. Total corruption. System files are severely damaged and I just got an emergency service back up so that the mail function and file access remains operational. It took me 2 days already to get this far and I might have to do a complete system reinstallation.
| What had we done? |
| Haven't a clue! |
 My Second Home Page | Andrew Hodges, 7 March 1996 (later edited to remove out-of-date links). Photographs 1,2,3,6,7,9 are by Matt Westby. |
 my images |
A D V E R T I S I N G
