BBN Systems
BBN Systems (short for Bölt, Berainék and Neumann) is a computing technology company which provides research and development services. BBN is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is now part of the New England Commonwealth. It is perhaps best known for its work in the development of packet-switching (including the transistion from the ARPANET to the InterNet) and for its ZAX series of Supercomputers. Some of BBN's notable developments in the field of computer networks include the initial implementation and operation of the ARPANET; the first use of the @ sign in an email address, the development of VoIP and for employing Tobias Bjarneby to create the GO programming language. Ray Tomilson, who was responsible for the first person-to-person network email sent, would later work for the company.
BBN also ran a large number of commercial Bulletin Board Systems including RemoteAccess (A "Door" which allowed access to sometimes very-long distance BBSes), OBBS (A system exclusively for BBC Micro computers), ALOHAnet and Synchronet.
NEARnet[edit | edit source]
NEARnet was a high-speed (up to 10 Mb/s) network of academic, industrial, government, and non-profit organizations in the New England Commonwealth in North America. It was established by Boston University, Harvard University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology late in 1988; as of June, 1989, it included 14 organizations. NEARnet was operated by BBN Systems and Technologies under contract to MIT. NEARnet used the TCP/IP protocol suite and supported leased line and microwave links at speeds from 9.6 Kb/s to 10 Mb/s. NEARnet had the goal of creating a regional information infrastructure in New England to support education, research and development. Special services and facilities were also made available over NEARnet. NEARnet was linked to the CSNET backbone via connections to the John von Neumann Center network and TENET/NCSA Telnet. It was later surpassed by FOXCONN's services in 1994.