<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Kathrin<div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Bitnet had an early variant of the of the listserve program developed by a student at the Ecole Politechnique in Paris. The program ran on IBM mainframes. It spread rapidly across the net though only a couple of dozen sites had large number of lists. Most of the lists dealt with network management. A number deal with with the usual techie hobbies. A few took the Apranet lists and redistributed them. (And you might want to look there in terms of chasing patent ideas. Arpanet/CSnet/NSFNet were far more technically inclined than the Bitnet community. In fact they advertised themselves as" the network for everybody else.”). </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">A few of the list serves have been archived but they tended to be abandoned as schools switched their primary servers from 370 architecture machines ro unix machines. It is attached</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I did an article on bitnet and the list serves in the Annals 20 years ago. It is attached if it may be of use. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">David</div><div class=""><br class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Aug 25, 2020, at 12:07 PM, Wernsdorf Kathrin <<a href="mailto:kathrin.wernsdorf@ip.mpg.de" class="">kathrin.wernsdorf@ip.mpg.de</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div style="font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; direction: ltr; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;" class=""><div class="">Hello everyone,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><font size="2" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class="">My coauthors and I are currently working on a project measuring the impact of Bitnet on academic patenting. After the adoption of Bitnet by a university between 1981 and 1990, we find a substantial increase in patenting by university-affiliated researchers. We are now wondering why this is the case.</span></font></div><div class=""><font size="2" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class=""><br class=""></span></font></div><div class=""><font size="2" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class="">Reading about Bitnet, we came across the fact that email lists were an especially popular item. We think it would be fascinating to know the content of these email lists. Do you happen to know whether data on these email lists exists and is available somewhere? Also, do you know whether some archives of listserves or discussion groups exist where users discussed for what they used Bitnet and what challenges they faced?<br class=""></span></font></div><div class=""><font size="2" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class=""><br class=""></span></font></div><div class="">Any thoughts and hints are highly appreciated. Many thanks in advance.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Kathrin</div><div class=""><p class="MsoNormal"></p></div></div></div></blockquote><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div style="font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; direction: ltr; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;" class=""><div class=""><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" class=""></span></p></div></div></div></blockquote></div></div></body></html>