Mike Lawrie - South African Internet pioneer

Jan

Jan

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The man who brought the Internet to South Africa

When it comes to the pioneers who helped drive South Africa's Internet adoption, few names carry as much weight in the industry as Mike Lawrie.

As director of computing services at Rhodes University in the Eastern Cape, Lawrie was a key part of the team that established South Africa's first international Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) connection in 1991.
 
netcruiser said:
Still remember connecting to Fidonet. Node 5:7101/22 was my uplink.
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Good memory, Fidonet cannot remember the email client was it Pegasus email (David Harris from NZ)
Long life USRobotics Courier HST modems, the BBS in Herold had one of these, connected over Telkom SOX carrier phone system over the Outeniqua Mtns to the small town of Herold

All before Compuserve with SLIP and then PPP on dialup, the joys of 1996, all we had was Beltel for banking
 
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But thanks for the story. I always wondered why Grahamstown was the hub of university internet well into the 90's.
 
Thanks for the article. Well, X.25, now that's a blast from the past, I almost forgot about it. It was a pretty extensive network
 
Nephew_ said:
Thanks for the article. Well, X.25, now that's a blast from the past, I almost forgot about it. It was a pretty extensive network
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There was quite a "black market" for X.25 credentials. You could connect to BBS' all over the world via Local Modem > X.25 -> Remote Modem. Still remember connecting the infamous virus BBS in Bulgaria.
 
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