Magnet (1983)

St. Lawrence County News
Watertown Daily Times
Saturday, October 15, 1983

NNY Man Develops Network To Put Computers in Touch
By James R. Donnelly
Times Staff Writer

POTSDAM — The north country’s first public access computer “network” quietly went on line here nine days ago, and already it has attracted telephone calls from as far away as Massachusetts.

Known to its users as “Magnet,” the network is the brainchild of Robert J. Jewett, coordinator of academic computing at Potsdam State University College.

But Mr. Jewett, known to Magnet users as “Sysop,” (systems operator) says that while the idea for the network is his, it will become whatever its users want.

“I’m just the system operator. I take care of making it work. But when I put the other Apple here, I’m just another user,” Mr. Jewett said.

Mr. Jewett’s network is, at one level, a simple system. It consists of an Apple computer with a pair of disc drives and an operating system which controls the computer. The entire system occupies a small desk in Mr. Jewett’s Larnard Street home.

But within the system’s programming is a sophisticated electronic “bulletin board” which allows anyone with a home computer to read and write messages to other system users.

One of the keys to networks like Magnet is that while programs from one brand of computer will not run on other brands because their operating systems are different, all can communicate because their languages are the same.

“It is very simple in design and operation, yet its social impact, in terms of the broadened means of communication it offers, is difficult to predict,” Mr. Jewett said. “The more people and ideas (the system) connects, the more valuable it becomes. We may find that it acts as an incredible social catalyst, or a curious side show to the current hoopla surrounding computers.”

Mr. Jewett said one of his fondest hopes is that Magnet will promote the growth of “electronic cottage industries” in the north country as users take advantage of his system’s abilities to advertise and promote their products.

In order to connect up with Mr. Jewett’s system a computer owner with a “modem,” the device which connects computers to telephone lines, has merely to dial 265-8107. Persons who are interested in the network but lack the computing gear may still subscribe to a printed monthly newsletter detailing the system’s messages by writing to Magnet, P.O. Box 487, Potsdam, N.Y., 13676.

Although Magnet has only been on line for nine days it already has attracted a surprising number of users.

In fact, Mr. Jewett said, “I gave the phone tie telephone number last week and the telephone hasn’t stopped ringing.”

One of those calls, he added, came in from Massachusetts Wednesday night when an employee of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), one of the largest computer firms in the country, dialed in. “How he found out (the network existed), I don’t know. But he called.”