[Air-L] ARPANET resurrection update and possible significances?

[Jacob Johanssen]

ELIZA has been "reconstructed" for some time now, see here:
https://sites.google.com/view/elizaarchaeology/home



On Sun, 26 Apr 2026, 18:31 Peter Gloviczki via Air-L, <
air-l at listserv.aoir.org> wrote:

> Thanks Charles for sharing all this.
>
> It reminded me of Licklider & Taylor's seminal paper:
> https://internetat50.com/references/Licklider_Taylor_The-Computer-As-A-Communications-Device.pdf
>
> Fondly, Peter
> [image: email graphic] <http://www.wiu.edu/>
> *Peter Joseph Gloviczki, Ph.D.*Professor
> School of Communication and Media
> Western Illinois University
> 1 University Circle, Macomb, IL 61455
> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/1+University+Circle,+Macomb,+IL+61455?entry=gmail&source=g>
> Schedule a meeting via Calendly:
> https://calendly.com/pj-gloviczki/30min
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 26, 2026 at 4:52 AM Charles Melvin Ess via Air-L <
> air-l at listserv.aoir.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi AoIRists,
>>
>> As I mentioned in an earlier note to Morten Bay, there is an active
>> project to recreate the ARPANET from ca. 1972. You can see the update
>> here:
>>
>> <https://obsolescence.dev/arpanet_home>
>>
>> Including the chance to log in yourself to one of the now 35 working
>> nodes.
>>
>> One of the documents referenced here is titled
>>
>> SCENARIOS for using the ARPANET at the INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
>> COMPUTER COMMUNICATION, Washington, D.C., October 24-26, 1972
>>
>> and is in fact reproduced in the pages giving further instructions on
>> logging in - along with 2026 scenarios that might also be fun to play
>> with.
>>
>> One of the available programs from the MIT.AI node is:
>> ==
>> DOCTOR is a LISP program written by Joseph Weizenbaum and described in
>> "ELIZA - A Computer Program For the Study of Natural Language
>> Communication Between Man And Machine" in the Communications of the ACM,
>> January 1966.
>> DOCTOR simulates a psychiatric interview with a Rogerian psychotherapist.
>> ==
>> (I'll come back to this below.)
>>
>> I know that ARPANET is central to the work of e.g.,Janet Abbate's early
>> history, _Inventing the Internet_ (1999).
>> But what I'm asking here, especially of historians who know these
>> domains far better than I:
>> 1) how far did these early exchanges, so far as they could be followed
>> and/or documented - and/or, as at least some study of primary aims,
>> practices, affordances, etc. might have been possible - enter into early
>> research on CMC?
>> 2) Might this reconstruction project, insofar as it grants access to
>> "the rest of us," be of possible use / interest for historical / current
>> research on CMC and its descendants?
>> E.g., I know a great deal has been written about ELIZA - but, to my
>> knowledge at least, not with direct access to the working program
>> itself. I suspect the working program would give researchers a chance to
>> not only become much more familiar with how the program works and
>> "behaves," but also to try out hypotheses as to how different sorts of
>> engagements, expectations, etc. might be dis/confirmed through actually
>> using it?
>>
>> In any case, to quote the welcome message from the first terminal I
>> tried: Happy Hacking!
>>
>> - charles
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