Werner Zorn
loreThe 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