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{{Short description|Early computer network in the US}}
{{Internet history timeline}}
The '''Computer Science Network''' ('''CSNET''') was a computer network that began operation in 1981 in the United States.<ref name="nsf">{{Cite web |title= The Internet—From Modest Beginnings |work= NSF website |url= https://www.nsf.gov/about/history/nsf0050/internet/modest.htm |accessdate= September 30, 2011 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20161007113705/https://www.nsf.gov/about/history/nsf0050/internet/modest.htm |archive-date= 2016-10-07 |url-status= dead }}</ref> Its purpose was to extend networking benefits, for [[computer science]] departments at academic and research institutions that could not be directly connected to [[ARPANET]], due to funding or authorization limitations. It played a significant role in spreading awareness of, and access to, national networking and was a major milestone on the path to development of the global [[Internet]].  CSNET was funded by the  [[National Science Foundation]] for an initial three-year period from 1981 to 1984.

==History==
<!-- Deleted image removed: [[File:CSNET Geographic Map 1987.jpg|thumb|right|CSNET Geographic Map circa 1987]] -->

By 1986 about 150 computers connected to [[ARPANET]], and about 2000 computers to the larger Arpa [[Internet]]. Membership of ARPANET was restricted to universities and companies with [[United States Department of Defense]] contracts. Other commercial, educational, and nonprofit organizations, ineligible for membership, wanted to interchange information with them.<ref name="fisher19880425">{{Cite magazine |last=Fisher |first=Sharon |date=1988-04-25 |title=The Largest Computer Network |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pj0EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA57#v=onepage&q&f=false |access-date=2025-04-17 |magazine=InfoWorld |pages=S7-S10}}</ref>

[[Lawrence Landweber]] at the [[University of Wisconsin–Madison]] prepared the original CSNET proposal, on behalf of a consortium of universities ([[Georgia Tech]], [[University of Minnesota]], [[University of New Mexico]], [[University of Oklahoma]], [[Purdue University]], [[University of California, Berkeley]], [[University of Utah]], [[University of Virginia]], [[University of Washington]], [[University of Wisconsin–Madison|University of Wisconsin]], and [[Yale University]]). The US [[National Science Foundation]] (NSF) requested a review from [[David J. Farber]] at the [[University of Delaware]]. Farber assigned the task to his graduate student Dave Crocker who was already active in the development of [[email|electronic mail]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Impact of Email Work at The Rand Corporation in the mid-1970s |author=Dave Crocker |date=August 18, 2008 |url=http://bbiw.net/articles/rand-email.pdf |accessdate=September 30, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120510112529/http://bbiw.net/articles/rand-email.pdf |archive-date=May 10, 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref> The project was deemed interesting but in need of significant refinement. The proposal eventually gained the support of [[Vinton Cerf]] and [[DARPA]]. In 1980, the NSF awarded $5 million to launch the network. It was an unusually large project for the NSF at the time.<ref>{{Cite journal |title=History and overview of CSNET |author=Douglas Comer |journal=Communications |date=October 1983 |volume=26 |pages=747–753 |number=10 |doi=10.1145/358413.358423 |s2cid=11943330 |author-link=Douglas Comer |doi-access=free }}</ref>
A stipulation for the award of the contract was that the network needed to become self-sufficient by 1986.<ref name="nsf"/>

The first management team consisted of Landweber (University of Wisconsin), Farber (University of Delaware), [[Peter J. Denning]] ([[Purdue University]]), [[Anthony C. Hearn]] ([[RAND Corporation]]), and Bill Kern from the NSF.<ref>{{Cite book |author1=Peter J. Denning |author2=Anthony Hearn |author3=C. William Kern |title=Proceedings of the symposium on Communications Architectures & Protocols - COMM '83 |chapter=History and overview of CSNET |publisher=[[SIGCOMM]], [[Association for Computing Machinery]] |date=April 1983 |volume=13 |number=2 |page=138 |doi=10.1145/1035237.1035267 |isbn=978-0-89791-089-7 |s2cid=28021088 |url=http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/documents/Comm83.pdf |access-date=2011-09-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111026035120/http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/documents/Comm83.pdf |archive-date=2011-10-26 |url-status=dead |author1-link=Peter J. Denning }}</ref> Once CSNET was fully operational, the systems and ongoing network operations were transferred to a team led by Richard Edmiston<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Partridge|first1=Craig|last2=Blumenthal|date=March 2006|title=Data Networking at BBN|journal=IEEE Annals of the History of Computing|volume=28|issue=1|pages=63|doi=10.1109/MAHC.2006.7|s2cid=16881178}}</ref> at [[BBN Technologies|Bolt Beranek and Newman]] (BBN) of [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]] by 1984.<ref>{{Cite web |title=CSNET Transition Plan Bulletin #1 |author=Rick Adrion |date=October 5, 1983 |work=email message |publisher=National Science Foundation |url=http://www.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/museum/csnet-transition-bulletin.n1.1 |accessdate=September 30, 2011}}</ref>

The Purdue team, consisting of Peter Denning, Douglas Comer, and Paul McNabb, was responsible for designing and building the kernel interfaces that would allow sites outside of the ARPANET infrastructure to connect via public [[X.25]] networks, such as [[Telenet]]. The mechanism allowed systems with TCP/IP network stacks to use an X.25 network device, with IP datagrams being sent through dynamically allocated X.25 sessions. Purdue and other sites with ARPANET access would act as gateways into the ARPANET, allowing non-ARPANet sites to have email, telnet, ftp, and other forms of network access directly into the ARPANET.

By 1981, three sites were connected: University of Delaware, [[Princeton University]], and Purdue University. By 1982, 24 sites were connected expanding to 84 sites by 1984, including one in Israel. Soon thereafter, connections were established to computer science departments in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Korea, and Japan. CSNET eventually connected more than 180 institutions,<ref>[http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_csnet.htm CSNET History]</ref> 60% universities, although {{asof|1988|lc=y}} most members only had email connections. Sites exchanged data via either X.25 or Phonenet<!--Not Apple Phonenet-->, a [[store and forward]] protocol.{{r|fisher19880425}}

One of the earliest experiments in free software distribution on a network, [[netlib]], was available on CSNET.<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Distribution of mathematical software via electronic mail |author1=Jack J. Dongarra |author2=Eric Grosse |journal= Communications |date=May 1987 |volume=30 |pages=403–407 |number=5 |doi=10.1145/22899.22904 |citeseerx=10.1.1.73.7679|s2cid=52895937 |author1-link=Jack J. Dongarra }}</ref>

CSNET was a forerunner of the [[National Science Foundation Network]] (NSFNet) which eventually became a backbone of the Internet. CSNET operated autonomously until 1989, when it merged with [[BITNET]] to form the [[Corporation for Research and Educational Networking]] (CREN). By 1991, the success of the NSFNET and NSF-sponsored regional networks had rendered the CSNET services redundant, and the CSNET network was shut down in October 1991.<ref>[ftp://athos.rutgers.edu/resource-guide/chapter6/section6-6.txt CSNET-CIC Shutdown Notice]{{dead link|date=May 2025|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref>

==Components==
The CSNET project had three primary components: an email relaying service (Delaware and RAND), a name service (Wisconsin), and [[TCP/IP]]-over-[[X.25]] tunnelling technology (Purdue). Initial access was with email relaying, through gateways at Delaware and RAND, over dial-up telephone or X.29/X.25 terminal emulation. Eventually  CSNET access added TCP/IP, including running over X.25.<ref>{{Cite journal |title= Implementation of Dial-up IP for UNIX Systems|author1= Craig Partridge |author2= Leo Lanzillo|journal=Proceedings of the 1989 Winter USENIX Technical Conference |date= Feb 1989}}</ref>

The email relaying service was called Phonenet, after the telephone-specific channel of the [[MMDF]] software developed by Crocker. The CSNET [[name service]] allowed manual and automated email address lookup based on various user attributes, such as name, title, or institution.<ref>{{Cite book |author1= Larry Landweber |author2= Michael Litzkow |author3= D. Neuhengen |author4= Marvin Solomon |title= Proceedings of the symposium on Communications Architectures & Protocols - COMM '83 |chapter= Architecture of the CSNET name server |publisher= [[SIGCOMM]], [[Association for Computing Machinery]] |date= April 1983  |volume=13 |number=2 |page= 146 |doi= 10.1145/1035237.1035268 |isbn= 978-0-89791-089-7 |s2cid= 9006661 }}</ref> The X.25 tunneling allowed an institution to connect directly to the ARPANET via a commercial X.25 service ([[Telenet]]), by which the institution's TCP/IP traffic would be tunneled to a CSNET computer that acted as a relay between the ARPANET and the commercial X.25 networks. CSNET also developed dialup-on-demand (Dialup IP) software to automatically initiate or disconnect [[Serial Line Internet Protocol|SLIP]] sessions as needed to remote locations.<ref>{{cite web|title=Dialup IP release|url=http://megalextoria.com/usenet-archive/news133f1/b197/comp/dcom/modems/00007952.html|publisher=BBN Systems and Technologies, Cambridge MA|accessdate=17 October 2014}}</ref> CSNET was developed on [[Digital Equipment Corporation]] (DEC) [[VAX-11]] systems using BSD Unix, but it grew to support a variety of hardware and [[operating system]] platforms.

==Recognition==
At the July 2009 [[Internet Engineering Task Force]] meeting in [[Stockholm]], [[Sweden]], the [[Internet Society]] recognized the pioneering contribution of CSNET by honoring it with the [[Jonathan B. Postel Service Award]]. Crocker accepted the award on behalf of Landweber and the other [[principal investigator]]s.<ref name="isoc">{{Cite news |title= Trailblazing CSNET Network Receives 2009 Jonathan B. Postel Service Award |date= July 29, 2009 |work= News release |publisher= Internet Society |url= http://isoc.org/wp/newsletter/?p=1098 |accessdate= September 30, 2011 }}</ref> A recording of the award presentation and acceptance is available.<ref>{{Cite web |title= Postel Award to CSNET |author= Lynn St. Amour, Dave Crocker |date= July 29, 2009 |work= Audio recording |url= http://bbiw.net/misc/IETF75-ISOC-Postel-CSNet.mp3 |accessdate= September 30, 2011 }}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}

==External links==
*[http://livinginternet.com/i/ii_csnet.htm Living Internet: CSNet ]
*[http://museum.media.org/eti/RoundThree08.html Exploring the Internet: Round Three, Madison]

==See also==
* [[National Science Foundation Network]]

{{American research and education networks}}

[[Category:Experimental computer networks]]
[[Category:Wide area networks]]
[[Category:History of the Internet]]
[[Category:Academic computer network organizations]]
[[Category:1981 in computing]]
[[Category:1980s in computing]]
[[Category:1991 in computing]]
[[Category:Computer-related introductions in 1981]]
[[Category:1981 establishments in the United States]]
[[Category:1991 disestablishments in the United States]]