David Caulkins

437 Mundel Way

Los Altos, CA 94022-1118

Experience

Engineer, Computer Scientist, Entrepreneur, and Founder of GlasNet (the first ISP in Russia) in 1991. GlasNet was recently merged into Russia On Line. GlasNet, by providing open, uncensored communication with the outside world, has been recognized as playing a key role in the failure of the military coup in Russia that in 1991 tried to return the Soviet Union to its former repressive state.

Mr. Caulkins authored the first published paper on networking personal computers, "Design Considerations for a Hobbyist Computer Network" presented at the First Computer Faire, Palo Alto, 1977

In 1977 Mr. Caulkins started the Personal Computer NETwork (PCNET) Project, intended to provide a reliable, low-cost means of transferring files between personal computers using modems operating over ordinary dial-up phone lines.  In 1978 there were approximately 50,000 PCs in the country; Apple II, PET, TRS-80 and others less well-known.

The PCNET Committee was a volunteer organization; the intent was to write software which would implement a protocol (a set of rules allowing two computers to communicate).  Some of the people involved were Larry Tesler (then Chief Scientist at Apple), Dave Fylstra, Mike Wilber, Robert Maas, Steve Kudlak.  The idea was for individual PC owners to write their own PCNET programs, and then communicate with other PC owners who also had PCNET programs.  It was a store-and-forward system; message packets went from one computer to the next.  Presumably one could send files between any two computers anywhere in the US (or the world) with messages hippity-hopping from computer to computer until they got to their destination.

Selected Publications

Design Considerations for a Hobbyist Computer Network, David Caulkins, PP 144-148, Proceedings of the First Computer Faire, Palo Alto, CA, 1977

Personal Computer Networks, David Caulkins, PP 297-306, Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Telecommunications Policy Research Conference, 1978, Airlie House.  Published by Lexington Books

“Personal Computer Telecommunication” , David Caulkins, P43, Proceedings of the Fourth West Coast Computer Faire,  Palo Alto, CA 1979  by Dave Caulkins;