Monday, December 06, 2004

Institute of Internet History - a non-profit, non-governmental, non-organization

Do you know what "ping" is all about?
According to Institute of Internet History also known as "non-organization" back in 1902 poor kids cleaning rusty pipes were called "pings".
To keep the rust at bay, network operators and service providers employed young boys, and sometimes girls, to run through the pipes with stout wire brushes to remove built-up deposits. These boys and the runs they made were referred to colloquially as "pings" due to the noise they made by tapping their brushes on the inside of the pipe at each joint to indicate their progress. The term "ping" is still used today to refer to a method of ensuring that a route on the Internet is available and not clogged.

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