I remember fairly recently reading about an international computerized chat that occurred between Ronald Reagan and some foreign official (I think Putin), along with a few other people involved. I cannot find any mention of it now via Google, though.
It was touted as one of those things that it is hard to believe–that computerized chat was used even back then. I believe it was on a typewriter system, even.
It definitely seemed real. Can anyone help me find it?
Regan and Putin doesn’t really make sense, time wise. Meanwhile, while none of this directly answers your question it may be of some help:
In terms of computerised chats, depending upon your definition the cross Atlantic radio link between Roosevelt and Churchill used a form of encryption called SIGSALY which I would argue to be a form of computing.
In terms of sitting down at a terminal and talking to one another, note that the original red telephone linking Kennedy and Khruschev was not actually a telephone at all, it encrypted typed communication.
Meanwhile, the Queen sent her first email in 1976. It took until Bill Clinton before a US president sent one.
Frankly, this sounds like the setup for a joke.
It was a really long joke, then, with all the Americans in talking about how they were waiting for the Russian side to join. Everything Regan said sounded not like stereotype but about how he would actually talk. They were even almost getting into a political debate. The way they were talking fit with the time period and was very real. If it’s fake, I commend the creators for their realism. At least, in the parts I read. I didn’t even finish it–I never made it to when the Russian joined.
And, yes, I said the wrong Russian leader–for some reason I had Putin on the brain–but I do believe it was with Russia. The site I’m remembering was discussing other historical computer things.
I really wish I remembered where I found it. If you can actually see it, then maybe you can show me why you think it’s fake. Otherwise, it seemed too real.
It would have been Gorbachev, I would imagine. Putin wasn’t even on the horizen – he was still working for the KGB.
Gah, I hate that I keep typing Regan instead of Reagan. I already look stupid enough screwing up the Russian leader’s name, and asking about a chat communication when most people will assume they didn’t happen. I don’t need misspelling on top of it.
And, yes, I know it was Gorbachev. I don’t know why I was thinking Putin. But changing the name in the Google search isn’t helping.
BTW, when I say they were getting into a political debate, I mean the Americans. This was before the Russians got on the line.
a more comprehensiveIRC history (note: no search pings for “president” nor “reagan.”
hobbes internet timeline(note: first presidential milestone is listed as clinton’s email).
early chat programs(ARPANET)
and, finally, because i’m a nice guy–
exactly the thing you’re looking for w transcript. (and a non-blog, fuller version)
(let the record show this might be the first legit contribution i’ve made so far. how about *that *for milestones…)
^btw i posted all of that, linked as i found it in succession to show my 10 minute google research process. i had no information or prior knowledge of this topic before opening this thread…no prior interest in computer or chat history. but i thought it was interesting how quickly i could find the thing via that ladder of search-terminology: first presidential chat, first president computer, first
computer chat, IRC, first president irc, arpanet, first president arpanet, and finally, the winner: reagan arpanet.
my point being: what a dang rad time we live in. we can research the ever loving crap out of stuff in mere minutes.
Yeah, but it sucks that you had to go all the way to Arpanet to find it. Nobody seems to talk about it as being one of the first computerized chats–nor does the site use any keywords to make it easier to find. It also didn’t help that I remembered them eventually planning on talking to some Russian leader, when it seems it was just another actor they were going to talk to.
BTW, the fullest version is here. I wish it had a white background. (I have an addon that can fix that, but I’m sure not all of you do.)
I guess I forgot that sometimes you have to actually read a bit to figure out what to search for. It’s been so long since I’ve had to do that.
Ah, so Jane Fonda must have been the commie the OP was thinking of. 
Also, wow, check out this one with Jim Henson, Yoko Ono, Ayn Rand (!) and Sidney Nolan (?) Apparently dumping on Big Bird is a certifiable conservative tradition!
Something about this pinged my BS meter immediately.
Well, actually, a number of things.
First, it was the site design. Nothing says ‘too-clever-by-half’ art project like that weird color scheme. Actual academic sites are designed, at best, by people who want to emulate books. At worst, they were designed by people who thought horizontal rainbow bars and animated GIFs were really cool in 1995 and haven’t been redesigned since.
Second, check out the list of names: Yoko Ono. Jim Henson. Ayn M-F’in Rand, for Hayek’s sake! The Internet wouldn’t garner the attention of those kinds of celebrities until both Henson and Rand were dead. That’s Early Nineties The Internet Is The Global Revolution stuff, not Mid-Seventies Defense Department Serious Business. In the mid-seventies, most Cool people either didn’t know what computers were or thought the SDS should have bombed more of them.
Third is the complete lack of other information, including in my own mind. I know about NCP. I know about JANET. I know about what Flag Day and Rogerian psychotherapy have to do with computing. I don’t know anything about something that would be in every History of Networking book in existence if it ever really happened.
Last, of course, is where they give the game away:
Characters. Right. Rappin’ Ronnie Reagan is a Character. Ronald Wilson Reagan (King of Kings) was a serious politician with a lot of [del]jellybeans to eat[/del] serious business to accomplish.
Oh, rats.
Another little thing: Reagan wouldn’t have been typing. He would have been dictating to a secretary, who would have been typing at a rather impressive rate.
One of the big things the personal computer revolution did was teach executives how to type, if only at a very basic level.
waaaait wait wait wait wait–
you guys implying somethingposted on the internet maybe not of genuine quality?
…is there a hotline we can report this to…?
but seriously, here’s a write-up about the fictional conversations–Arpanet Dialogues art project.
this is why it was kind of hard to search out–it’s not historical. it’s just a veeeery obscure art project that doesn’t do a very good job at disclaimer; it is fiction, but they don’t make that point readily known.
The first time I saw the facebook comments involving NFL quarterbacks, I thought it was real.
i did the same with the people from star wars bantering back and forth.
“seems legit.”
Yeah, don’t worry. I don’t feel bad about being duped. I never saw the rest of these, which seem more far fetched, and I got this from a different site that didn’t have the disclaimer. The only thing that should have stood out for me was that they couldn’t handle other punctuation, but they could handle uppercase and lowercase. That’s quite fishy, as I know earlier computers stuck with just uppercase.
I’m far more embarrassed by by inability to find the page in the first place. Part of the reason I post so few GQs is that I’m usually pretty good at finding the answer on my own, with Google. So it’s a bit embarrassing that someone else out-Googled me.
Those computers would have been quite old-fashioned even in the mid-1970s. Not obsolete, necessarily, but not mainstream. Upper- and lower-case were at least possible from the mid-1960s onwards.
I should add that the first couple generations of microcomputers (what early home computers were called) frequently only had upper-case, but nobody was using microcomputers to chat real-time across the Arpanet back in 1976 or so.
My point is, it would make no sense to include uppercase and lowercase yet not include punctuation other than a period. I mean, sure, there might be some esoteric software designers that would think lowercase is more important than, say, the question mark, but that should have been a red flag to me.
Also, I’m not surprised that it was just a limitation for the home computer market. I was thinking about the Apple II which came out in 1977. I specifically remember reading in a manual for the Apple //e at my elementary school (Yeah, it was old, but at least we actually had a computer!) that it was the first Apple II to support lowercase. And yet I know the Apple II has always had at least some punctuation.
Imagining the whole thing with minicomputers makes this story make even less sense.