Bang Paths, Usenet, and vi: Open Source Before the Web

Long before GitHub, Stack Overflow, or high-speed fiber optics, open-source software and developer communities were actively shaping the digital world. In the late 1970s and 1980s, collaboration moved over 1200-baud modems, physical magnetic tapes, paper teletypes, and a patchwork of UUCP, Berknet, and ARPANET links.

In this talk, early tech pioneer Mary Ann Horton takes you on a firsthand journey through the birthplace of foundational developer tooling and networking. From the origins of the vi editor, early Unix at Berkeley, bang-path email routing (host!host!user), to the birth of sendmail and the mapping of Usenet, discover how a global community of engineers solved complex routing, editor design, and distribution challenges with limited bandwidth and raw ingenuity.

Join us for a look at the open-source spirit that predated the modern Web, and see how the architecture, tools, and lessons from the Unix era continue to underpin the infrastructure and developer workflows we rely on today.