Thanks for finding that picture Joi. Memories come flooding back. I remember the noise from that bathroom, and the hot, stale air.

I wonder sometimes if I can ever recapture the energy I had working with you back then....

Stop me before I start sniffling....

And the ROARING CISCO AGS+ router. It sounded like an airplane. I also remember the room in the back that you all slept. I was afraid to open the door... I also remember that you used to sleep in my bed when I was out of town and I would find drool on my pillow...

I also remember when the Sun overheated and we had to blow on it to cool it off...

I also remember when you used to know more than everyone else. ;-) (except sometimes Shimokawa)

Ah, memories... Like the corners of my mind. I remember 1993 in NYC when the only ISP's were Echo, Panix, Mindvox, and, of course, my very own net23.com. We ran it off two bridged dial-up modems and a 3-line incoming board off a serial port splitter. It wasn't until 1994 that we discovered terminal servers. I had 25 paying customers and plenty of complaints about busy phone calls. I look back upon those days and wonder when we will be there again. We were at the forefront of something quite enormous. I'm not sure any of us knew the magnitude of what the Internet could or would be, but we all knew we were standing on the precipice of something great. I don't feel that same energy today about any sector of technology -- I hope it returns soon.

It was influential for me as well. I was programming at InterCon at the time, but after talking to RS about the work of bringing the IIKK link up, I was captivated enough to go help RS and Doug start DIGEX and joined UUNET not long afterward.

I wonder whether the people pulling the first citywide electrical service might have felt some of the same emotions when looking back at their work.

I had a favorite saying while evangelizing the Internet: "People who use the telephone don't think about what went into putting it on their table. The Internet will be treated the same way."

My other prediction was that people wouldn't buy security until it was sold like Dolby noise reduction in audio equipment - a logo and a light. When the light is on, you're protected. Does ZoneAlarm count?

I have to restrain myself or I get furious when I see how the phone companies held back progress (inadvertently or otherwise).

I was a part of an "End of the NSFNET" dinner back in the mid '90s. I wonder what the next milestone like that will be?

--Bob, looking for the next frontier

P.S. You had one of the nicer apartment co-lo's I've seen - at least you had a rack eventually.

My question is this: If that was your bathroom where did you wash!!!?

Stuart (currently at DG)

Actually, we had another bath. But people didn't wash enough...

The original office for bootstrapping IIKK was an abandoned karaoke bar (complete with spinning mirror ball) on a quiet street in Myogadani, where RS arrived one rainy day in late summer 1993 with an old Sun server in his backpack (carry-on luggage, of course) and the infamous AGS+ in a crate. The space was borrowed from a friend of a guy who wanted to be a partner in the venture, and when that didn't work out, we got evicted. I called Joi. "Help! We need an address to register the company and a backroom somewhere to set up in!" We got a bathroom... and a backroom.

Joi, always a pal to fellow guerilla networkers, got us into the office condo next door to his in Tomigaya, where the folks there rented us a tiny smoky conference room for the official "office", with shared use of the copier, the other toilet (with a high-tech seat -- butt heater, bidet, and a mind-boggling control panel), and looked the other way while the wild gaijin techie set up a bunch of gear in the shower in the other bathroom. RS astounded people by working non-stop for days at a time, falling off the chair to sleep on the floor for hours, then climbing back up for another marathon of configuration interspersed with multiple conversations in email and various newsgroups.

I recall that the Internet connection for Joi and crew was delivered through a wire that ran out the window and back into their place next door. So while the link to the Internet beyond may only have been a whopping 128K, Joi probably had the first 10M local loop in Japan -- and no stinkin' telco involved.

RS also raised some hackles when he registered "inter.net" as the domain for the new venture. The domain still lives on with Inter.Net, a multi-country ISP created from the consumer ISP services caught in the PSINet acquisition binge of 1998-1999 and spun out in time to avoid being sucked into the vortex of the sinking of the parent. The first (paying) customer of IIKK was TWICS, a progressive online service of the 80s that became one of the first dialup ISPs in Japan in the 90s. (Joi also played a crucial role in the founding and building of TWICS in the early 80s, but that is a whole 'nother tale.) TWICS was eventually acquired by PSINet as well, and the remnants spun back out as part of Inter.Net Japan. So the legacy somehow lives on amidst the tangled trails of Internet emergence, boom and bust, and whatever comes next.

I played some role along the way in TWICS and IIKK and PSINet in Japan and a bunch of other countries. It has been a wild ride so far, and somehow I cannot help but believe we are still in the early days of something far bigger than most can imagine.

Thanks for posting that old picture, Joi. It always makes me smile.

--jeffrey

someway I have Jeffrey's biz card, possibly exchanged at somewhere else in Tokyo. then I signed to TWICS and still using it. I've heard from Tim that Jeffrey worked on important roles. it was interesting time.

thanks anyway.
gt

Always glad to hear from a TWICSter, Takama-san. It was an interesting time, indeed.

Islands in the (data)stream... And then we had intersystem email and "ported" conferences... And then we had the Internet... And we can only imagine what comes next.

One thing for sure, where we had acoustic couplers taped and wire into phone handsets, and POPs in the shower, there will be some bold folks on a shoe-string budget who hack together some crazy stuff to get it all started.

--jefu

"This is Tomigaya. You are a connection. We are one."

An archive of the Tomigaya page from six years ago.

This is pretty nostalgic. But... I wish we had an archive of the original 1993 page...

WOW! Now that picture brings back a lot of memories! What fun times those were.

Best,
David
former GM, PSINet Japan, KK

WOW!

Servers in a bathroom! This is really the first time I see such a thing... even on picture:)

Must've been great times :-D

Good luck! :)