‘UC.edu’ stands for…

The University of California?

…Colorado?

…Chicago?

…Connecticut?

No, and no, no, no.

UC.edu is owned by the University of Cincinnati, thanks to great foresight by Joe Landwehr, who started working at UC in the 1960s as a mainframe programmer trainee.

The UC.edu domain name was activated on November 16, 1987. The worldwide web hadn’t even been invented yet.

UC’s first webpage went live in 1993, six years after the domain was registered.

I’m impressed with Mr. Landwehr’s foresight, but even more by his mental flexibility. This was a person who grew up in the era of mainframes, when IBM ranked #2 on the Fortune 500, and a computer was as big as a house (literally) and weighed two-and-a-half tons or more.

Joe, who lived in a world of behemoth computers, could imagine a world of little computers, on little desks, all around the world, all talking to each other.

Chewing the Cud of Good

Thankful for friends going back decades.