From hungary-online-owner Tue Apr 4 12:18:54 1995 Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) (fnord) by nando.yak.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) id MAA20651 for hungary-online-out31415; Tue, 4 Apr 1995 12:18:54 -0700 Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) (fnord) by nando.yak.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) id MAA20642; Tue, 4 Apr 1995 12:18:43 -0700 Received: from tbeke@hix.mit.edu () via =-=-=-=-=-= for hol@hungary.yak.net (20640) Received: from hix.mit.edu (HIX.MIT.EDU [18.74.1.137]) (fnord) by nando (8.6.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id MAA20637 for ; Tue, 4 Apr 1995 12:18:33 -0700 Received: (from tbeke@localhost) by hix.mit.edu (8.6.9/8.6.9) id PAA06565 for hol@hungary.yak.net; Tue, 4 Apr 1995 15:19:57 -0400 From: Tibor Beke Message-Id: <199504041919.PAA06565@hix.mit.edu> Subject: (HOL) prehistory... To: hol@hungary.yak.net Date: Tue, 4 Apr 1995 15:19:57 -0400 (EDT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3455 Sender: owner-Hungary-Online@hungary.yak.net Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Hungary-Online@hungary.yak.net > It's good to hear your story. You say HIX started up a little more than > five years ago - was that 1989 or 1990? Tibor Beke once mentioned it > started because a few US-based Hungarian students were trying to figure out > how to pay their US taxes. Do I have that right? Steve, that's right: I said it, and I said it half-facetiously. :) Ivan Weisz, then (and now) at the Ohio State University, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, monitored news broadcasts from Hungary on his multi-band receiver and, in March 1989, started transcribing and sending them to his friends on the 'net. (To those without a world receiver :-). Just a few weeks later, he opened a separate section, a ta-ce-pao, as it were, for comments on the news. (Think of the times -- discussion sprang up almost naturally.) 'Faliujsag' became a lively and friendly forum that he meticulously edited and pasted together by hand. As far as I'm aware, these were the first Hungarian-language special interest groups on the Internet and components thereof. (Even soc.culture.magyar followed later.) 'Technology' was so new that Ivan had to figure out from Unix man pages how to create a mailing list that conceals the recipients' identity -- as this indeed became desirable as the list grew larger and larger. Most of these relics and early broadcasts are still available from the HIX archives. 1989 also marked the year of the first true Internet mail originating from Hungary. (ELLA and other baby e-mailing schemes were well under development by that time.) And in the same year, in the fall, Jozsef Hollosi (then in Santa Cruz, CA) and Jeno Torocsik (Princeton, NJ) came up with the idea of TIPP. I hope that demands no translation, even if you lack fluency in Finno- Ugric languages. ;-) HIX as such was born in February 1990. And yes, TIPP was to be a general exchange of practical ideas, something to respond to needs and necessities of the subscribers, who were, originally, from Ivan's list -- primarily university students and researchers. I remember distinctly Jeno's very first piece, in the very first issue of TIPP, if I'm not mistaken: how to pass your membership card in the Hungarian Automobile Association for membership in the AAA. And soon after (I kept that message for ages and ages) there came a fully exhaustive discussion of calling the US for free from Budapest, provided you were in one of those ugly, run-down public phone booths made in Rumania. Deja vu? :-) Yes, Rick, it's the very same thing you brooded over in your first Hungary-Report; fooleries with the Hungarian phone system that are half mythical and half open secret to everyone. > I first came across HIX sometime in 92 or 93 - somewhere in CompuServe I > guess. It was a bit surprising to me to find something so active and > complex existed in Hungarian language. I've pondered myself if HIX has a counterpart in any languge, be it Central European or Icelandic. My impression is no (but Poland comes close in some respects). You can think of the growth of HIX as a two-layered evolution: a tremendous, steady investment of programming know-how, good cheer, technical innovations, personal connections, and TIME (more than equivalent to money, in many cases!) from Jozsef Hollosi; and a constant, if somewhat irregular, stream of contributions, goodwill, hardware resources, donations, and human capital from various individuals and organizations. Tibor ############# # This message to Hungary-Online@hungary.yak.net # was from Tibor Beke # # To unsubscribe, # send "unsubscribe" to # An announcement-only subscription (less volume) is available # at # Send mail to for more information, # or to if you need human assistance. #############