Werner Zorn
lorenetworking
The Karlsruhe professor who connected Germany to the internet in 1984, and China three years later.
He had been proposing the connection since 1982, and the first message - received by his colleague Michael Rotert on 3 August 1984 - was a welcome from MIT, making Germany the second country outside the United States to be reached. What he did next is the part usually left out: in 1987 he connected China to the same network through Germany. A national connection is normally told as a national achievement, and this one was performed twice by the same man for two countries, one of which was not his.
Also known as: zorn, csnet germany, xlink
Sources
- Internet Hall of Fame: the first email arrived in the Karlsruhe informatics computing centre from the US Computer Science Network on 3 August 1984; Zorn repeated the success with a connection to China's CSNET in 1987 and founded Xlink in 1989
- Karlsruhe Institute of Technology: Zorn proposed connecting the German research network to CSNET as early as 1982; the welcome email of 3 August 1984 was received by Michael Rotert and sent by Laura Breeden at MIT, making Germany the second country outside the USA to be connected