What is the small web? (2020)

Re:What is the small web? (2020) by jazzyjackson on Monday January 03, 2022 @09:45PM (#29790633)

Well the drug dealers were certainly there first, etymonline.com has this to say of "user": Of narcotics, from 1935; of computers, from 1967."

I am struggling to find a source for who first called users "users" back in 1967 - Actually I see it being used in the 1965 "Multics" papers [0] and the 1964 article in The Atlantic "Computers of Tomorrow" [1], as if it was already a term-of-art.

[0] https://multicians.org/history.html

[1] https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~traister/greenbf.html

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Re:What is the small web? (2020) by jarpadat on Monday January 03, 2022 @11:26PM (#29791309)

OED gives the following usages, the first of which suggest users predate computers:

1950 Science 112 732/1 Analog machines..are enthusiastically supported by their users.

1959 E. M. McCormick Digital Computer Primer x. 139 The number of instructions which can be executed by a computer represents a compromise between the designer's and user's requirements.

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Re:What is the small web? (2020) by jazzyjackson on Tuesday January 04, 2022 @12:55AM (#29791867)

Thanks for a good reference! It makes sense that "users of a service" or "user of a machine" slipped its way into computer jargon, no need to be coined or anything.

I'm tempted to pick up a copy of Digital Computer Primer on ebay, I love the old explanations of what these machines even are.

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