http://www.lightlink.com/fors/
[For some of you not on a first name basis with these people there is a 
glossary in the back, W. Curtiss Priest, CITS]

                             History Of The Net 
                             ==================

First there was God. He was quite lonely so he created Dennis.

Dennis was unimpressed with God.

So, God created Brian.

But, Brian got bored with God.

So Brian and Dennis started playing, and they created C. God saw C, and 
saw that it was good. So he decided to let Brian and Dennis play some 
more.

Then Brian and Dennis created Unix. God saw Unix, and he was jealous. So 
he created Bill to torment Brian and Dennis and obscure their creation 
(for God could not destroy Unix, for he secretly admired its
perfection).

So Bill created Microsoft. And Microsoft created Windows. And God saw 
that it was bad, but it had market share, so he was happy. Then Bill got 
cocky, and his ego got bigger than God's. So to knock Bill down a couple 
of pegs, God put into effect a wondrous plan.

First God created Tim. And Tim created the World Wide Web (using Unix,
of course). This was good, but not THAT good. So God created Marc. Marc 
created Mosaic (using Unix, of course). Mosaic created a huge feeding 
frenzy that has got a lot of people who are reading this their jobs.

But that's a different story. Mosaic was good, and God saw it was good, 
so he allowed Marc to start Netscape. Back to this later.

But all this time Brian and Dennis started to make something better than
Unix called Plan 9. (Great legends say that God crushed Plans 1-7. There
was no Plan 8 because Brian and Dennis pulled the wool over God's eyes and
just jumped to Plan 9, which was too bright a move for even God to figure
out.)

Eventually, God figured out how to create Larry.

No one knows how or why he created Larry, except perhaps to reduce 
productivity at the Jet Propulsion Labs at NASA. Rumors are that God 
created Larry because he secretly liked what Dennis and Brian had done 
with C, but didn't think C and Unix was enough -- this probably isn't 
true because God believed he had destroyed Brian and Dennis's plans by 
destroying Plans 1-7, and by creating Microsoft to slay their beloved 
Unix.

Anyhow, Larry created Perl (using Unix and C, of course), and God saw it 
was good, so he made Randal. Larry and Randal wrote books about Perl.
And everyone saw that this was good, except snobs who were too much into
C, Windows, and Intel.

One day God and the angels were discussing all this, and in walks an
Intel lawyer. God asked him, "Where have you been?" and the lawyer said,
"Cruising the Net". God thought he would cut the Intel lawyer down a
peg, so he said, "You must have seen my faithful servant, Randal. What
do you think? Books, courses, free advice on the news group, the guy
never stops." But Intel's lawyer said to God, "Big deal, what with all
money from royalties, consulting, courses, etc., no wonder he's such a
boy scout. Take it away, and he'll give up, curse you and stop telling
bad jokes."

This was too much for God. "No way!", he said. "Go take all Randal
has, but let him keep teaching courses as long as he tells those great
jokes. I love his jokes." (Randal's jokes are a big hit with God and
all the angels. On earth folks think they're bad. In Heaven they say
you had to be there.) So the Intel lawyer had the Oregon D.A. take
every penny Randal makes that isn't necessary to keep him teaching
courses. And that is why Randal tells bad jokes as if his life depended
on it.

The Intel lawyer told the D.A. and everyone else that the reason Randal
was being punished was because he sinned against God by breaking into
Intel. And many repeat the story told by the Intel lawyer even unto
this day.

Anyhow, Randal and Larry wrote books, but they had to be nice because of
the people they worked for. So then came Tom. But back to Tom later.

Anyhow, God saw Netscape (made using Unix and C, of course), and he saw 
it was good, and that annoyed Bill quite a bit. And that made Him very 
happy, and made Marc very rich. But Bill was very very rich. But that's
a *completely* different story.

But as good as Larry's creation, Perl, was, it couldn't do everything,
so God created Scott. Scott announced Java, and this was big news. Now
Java really pissed Bill off, because Bill also created Blackbird, and
Java killed Blackbird. This was bad because killing Blackbird also meant 
killing The Microsoft Network. And many rejoiced over that, but that,
too is another story.

Now Java, obviously had done much to annoy Bill. For Java was so good 
that Bill had to license Java. All this time, Scott poked lots of fun at 
Bill because Sun, which was where Scott worked, made a better OS,
derived -- of course -- from Unix, which was better than Bill's and
Microsoft's Windows.

Anyhow, even God's creations Steve and Steve who created Apple couldn't 
make Bill license the much superior MacOS. But finally, Bill had to 
license Java. So justice was served, and Bill's ego was served him on a 
platter for him to eat his words. Or something. That part is unclear.

So by this time Windows and Microsoft and Bill in general really sucked. 
Especially considering the advantages that Brian and Dennis's C and Unix, 
running Marc's Netscape and Mosaic over Tim's World Wide Web, doing cool 
CGI stuff with Larry's Perl, which you learned from Randal and Tom, and 
got to program with Scott's Java.

And God realized he had put Bill down too far. So then God made it so 
that Marc's Netscape and Mosaic could run on Windows. We already know 
that Bill had to license Java from Scott. We know that Bill missed the 
boat for not beating Tim to the punch on the World Wide Web. The last 
straw was for God to make it possible for Larry's Perl to run on Bill's 
Windows.

So back to Tom. Tom was a Perl God. And God didn't like this, but Tom's 
a God so there isn't much God could do, so He couldn't stop Tom from
saying things like "install an operating system on your poor lonely
computer the way God and Dennis intended", and "Espousing the eponymous
/cgi-bin/perl.exe?FMH.pl execution model is like reading a suicide 
note -- three days too late."

The moral to the story? God is fickle. That's why Microsoft and Bill and 
Windows exists. Do what God intended, install C, Unix, Mosaic/Netscape, 
Java, and Perl on your system, and make Brian, Dennis, Larry, Tim, Tom, 
Randal, Scott, and even Steve and Steve, I'm sure, happy by doing so.

Oh yeah, Linus was cool too. He's the guy you thank for being able to run
all the cool stuff on your crappy little Pee Cee. (Anything with x86 on
it, by default, is crappy, no PERSONAL flames intended.)