The Internet before the Internet

[warellis]

We take for granted the Internet today but prior to its development, if you wanted to search something on a dumb terminal, where would that terminal connect to typically? Would they connect to localized databases or computer storage?

I ask this because I'm helping someone with a sorta scifi story and originally he was going to have the main setting, tech wise, be like a serial numbers filed-off version of the UNSC from Halo but we started talking and we discussed older scifi and eventually after discussion he decided to try something based off of sorta older science fiction in tech. Essentially Atompunk tech.

That got me thinking of the Lenin-3 worldline in GURPS Infinite Worlds where it's described as having advanced fuel cells and supersonic space planes but personal electronics are at TL6.

However I kind of assume the military of the setting may have more advanced tech, perhaps with electronics at TL7 maybe?

So my question is, what groups in such settings where tech developed similarly to that of Lenin-3's would have early computers or computer databases and dumb terminals? And where would those dumb terminals connect to?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by warellis

We take for granted the Internet today but prior to its development, if you wanted to search something on a dumb terminal, where would that terminal connect to typically? Would they connect to localized databases or computer storage?

You might want to be more specific about time period. At the most primitive, it probably involves searching through a set of tapes (or cards) looking at the labels, then when you find the appropriate tape, you load it into a tape reader and search through it (also, depending on the period, you might be forced to queue the job, rather than doing anything at all in real time). Most of this would require someone being physically at the location of the central computer to operate the tape reader. A bit later you might get an electronic index of the tapes, and a robot that can go, retrieve the appropriate tape, and load it into a reader. Being able to do much searching with only a terminal is pretty late, early 80s tech probably.

[SRoach]

Mainframes. Either hardwired to the terminal and in the same building, or connected by phone line. Room sized things with a passing resemblance to today's server rooms.

Later, minicomputers. Basically a computer as large as a filing cabinet or two.
Mini, because they took up less space than the mainframes.

In either case, think supercomputers, but with less computing power than your cell phone. Far less computing power than your cell phone.

Also, at that stage, you'd be searching for less. Memory was a scarce commodity. You'd still buy your encyclopedia set at the state fair, and use the card catalog to look up books by author, subject or title. Looking up old articles on microfiche was common.

Later, with terminal emulators, personal computer sized HDD's (in the MB range,) in personal computers, you'd be looking at Telnetting into BBS's and maybe visiting the early 'net. Particularly USENET, and EMail. Maybe ARCHIE.
BBS's were often hosted on personal computers. Microcomputers, (they fit on top of a desk.)

Searches were not as, easy, as Google has made them. Yahoo started out as more of an ad-hoc phonebook than a search engine. It was the founders list of interesting sites.

My dad bought his first 2GB hard drive around 1992. He paid $200 and was sure he'd never fill it up. The thing was about the same size as a current 3TB desktop HDD.

[warellis]

What organizations or groups were using mainframes and minicomputers and stuff typically? For example on the non-government civilian side, was it like only universities that had such computers?

As for the military, would someone like an NCO or Lance Corporal have access to such mainframes or minicomputers to search up stuff?

How would you typically search something on a computer back then? In the era of mainframes or minicomputers.

Because the setting I'm imagining of sorta 1950s-1960s in style and tech generally. It's sorta space opera but like in the way of Lenin-3 were somehow spaceships have advanced components (as in like fuel cells or power plants) but the controls stepped out of the 1960s at most or something. So what were computers like in the 1960s? At minicomputer level or more mainframe level still?

TLDR: It's essentially a retro-futuristic setting but where society's values are like those of ours today (as in racism and sexism and so on are looked down upon). If you really must know, this stuff is all just fluff since the story really is sorta PWP but I talked about it a lot with him and it got me interested in atompunk retrofuturism.

[whswhs]

When I took computer programming at UC San Diego in, I think, 1970, the way it worked was that I wrote out my code; went into the keypunch room and painstakingly typed it onto punch cards; rubber banded them together; handed them to a student assistant at a window; and came back a day later and picked them up. It was all batch processing, the thing that came before command line interfact.

And that was more advanced that the beginnings of TL7 computer programming, which involved physically rewiring the circuits for each new program. It took a while to go from machine language in binary to assembly language, in which each word of code translated automatically into a single word in machine language.

As for information storage—really, back in 1970, the computer was not in any meaningful sense a repository for information in general. The storage capacity was too small and the I/O options too clunky. If you wanted high-density information storage you relied on microfilm. Look up the Memex if you want to see an analog of hypertext dreamed up based on microfilm. There was even a filksong around 1980 whose punchline was "Oh, you need little teeny eyes for reading little teeny print like you need little teeny hooks for microfiche."

[warellis]

When you punched up stuff, was there a video computer display, something akin to those terminals found in Fallout for example? How would you see something you were typing onto the punch card? Other than writing it down yourself on a sheet of paper beforehand I mean.

[shawnhcorey]

Originally Posted by warellis

We take for granted the Internet today but prior to its development, if you wanted to search something on a dumb terminal, where would that terminal connect to typically? Would they connect to localized databases or computer storage?

...

So my question is, what groups in such settings where tech developed similarly to that of Lenin-3's would have early computers or computer databases and dumb terminals? And where would those dumb terminals connect to?

The internet before the web didn't have any online references. The best place to get answers was the newgroups. They worked much like a forum does today.

You got the newsgroup feed from another company that got it from another, and after a dozen or so hops, you get to the backbone, a large computer (and by large, I mean a few megabytes of disk) with lots of storage that held all the groups. It also provided the DNS.

The other method was the bulletin board systems that were run by hobbies out of their homes. Again, they acted very much like a forum today.

But there was no online storage of information. If nobody knew the answer, you had to rely on old fashion methods, looking them up in a library. :)

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by warellis

How would you typically search something on a computer back then? In the era of mainframes or minicomputers.

You mostly wouldn't, not the way we think of it now, anyway. A computer might have pure text files, and you could do some fairly primitive searches on the contents, returning a list of files containing your search term.

But one of the things to understand about this is that computers didn't have that much information on them. Storage and memory were expensive and networks were very slow, so if you wanted to search for information, you didn't look for it on a computer. There just wasn't enough stuff there to make it worthwhile. You might use a computer-based "card catalog" system to find the book you're looking for, but the book is over there on the shelf in the library.

[warellis]

I see.

How did most science fiction, well I guess popular science fiction, of the 1950s and 1960s deal with computers and interfacing with them for searching?

Or is it they never did?

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

You mostly wouldn't, not the way we think of it now, anyway. A computer might have pure text files, and you could do some fairly primitive searches on the contents, returning a list of files containing your search term.

But one of the things to understand about this is that computers didn't have that much information on them. Storage and memory were expensive and networks were very slow, so if you wanted to search for information, you didn't look for it on a computer. There just wasn't enough stuff there to make it worthwhile. You might use a computer-based "card catalog" system to find the book you're looking for, but the book is over there on the shelf in the library.

You mention "pure text files". Where would something like a person's name in a database be stored then back then? In an actual file (not on a computer database) somewhere?

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by whswhs

...
As for information storage—really, back in 1970, the computer was not in any meaningful sense a repository for information in general. The storage capacity was too small and the I/O options too clunky. If you wanted high-density information storage you relied on microfilm. Look up the Memex if you want to see an analog of hypertext dreamed up based on microfilm. There was even a filksong around 1980 whose punchline was "Oh, you need little teeny eyes for reading little teeny print like you need little teeny hooks for microfiche."

As a kid in the 80s, I was always too chicken to go near the microfiche machines and films. Give me a card catalogue and books I can trip over without horrifying librarians any day.