
The Black Technologist Who Invented the First Internet Search Engine - miraj
https://daily.jstor.org/alan-emtage-first-internet-search-engine/
======
nl
Oh I remember Archie!

There was always a story it was named after the comic, and after it there were
the Veronica and Jughead systems which were named the same way. I just checked
then and Wikipedia says he didn't name it after the comic and hated it. So
there goes another 1990's myth.

Archie itself actually never worked very well, but nothing did in those days
so we were amazed when it actually returned a result.

~~~
macintux
I can probably count the number of dinner parties I've been to on one hand.
The only one I remember is the one where, in the mid-90s, we discussed the
fact that the web was wonderful but there was no way to find anything.

~~~
noobermin
And you didn't sense a start-up opportunity and beat Sergey, Larry and friends
to the table?

~~~
macintux
I only lacked a few things: a good idea, a workable skillset, a funding
source, anything remotely construable as personal initiative...

------
firstworldman
HN is sometimes one of the more progressive wings of the geek community. It's
disheartening to see the number of replies expressing dismay at race being an
interesting and notable part of this story. Representation is a crucial
concept in history and media, and a key element in why conversations about
privilege are necessary.

Rather than stating that you don't know why it would be relevant to mention
the man's race, why don't you just actually ask yourself the question? Why
does it matter that he is black? You all are great problem solvers. I think
you can come up with some interesting answers.

~~~
treehau5
Removing my comments because this thread has sparked unnecessary discourse and
reactions that this comment is the cause of.

~~~
dbaupp
Ah yes, if you truly want to get rid of bugs in your software, then not
mentioning them is the best way to get there. Start acting like your code has
no bugs now!

The status quo doesn't change if people don't talk about, analyse and
challenge it.

~~~
libertymcateer
"Fuck it, ship it" as applied to bugs in political systems... I like it.

Maybe it can help get through to people who write code all day that racism is
built up technical debt, and ignoring it doesn't mean it will go away?

------
Animats
Here's the 1990 USENET announcement of "archie".[1] This wasn't a full text
search engine. It just collected what it got from "ls".

 _" Alan has a set of shell scripts that automagically calls up some subset of
our list of servers each night (to keep load down on any one machine) and do a
remote 'ls' on that machine. We cycle through the entire list in about a
month, so no entry can be more than that old. For what it's worth, we
currently know of about 210 sites."_

 _Archie allows anyone to rlogin into one of our machines and query our
archive lists. Another one of my guys, (Bill Heelan, whe...@cs.mcgill.ca)
wrote a bare-bones front end, which allows people to login, get a help
message, ask for a specific string (using ed-like regular expressions) or get
the contents of a specific archive server._

 _Currently, archie is pretty brain-damaged. The files are stored as flat
ASCII files and the "prog" command just launches a "grep" with the appropriate
arguments. Future plans (once we get the latest start of semester out of the
way) is to add a real database (we've compiled postgres (sp?) and Alan has
started to code the program to parse the raw input)._

So that was Archie. That's like a library shelf list, or Active Directory, not
a search engine.

Long before WWW search engines, there were computerized keyword and catalog
databases. The US National Library of Medicine (MEDLARS) and Mead Data Central
(later Lexis/Nexis) were early big ones. Big libraries also had online
catalogs by 1990.

AltaVista was the first big full-text search engine. AltaVista was in the old
telco building behind the Walgreens in Palo Alto. where PAIX is now. AltaVista
was built as a demo of DEC Alpha servers. It was the first data center built
telco-style, on open racks with the cables overhead. This was because they had
the racks in place, but it became a trend.

[1]
[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.archives/LWVA50W8...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.archives/LWVA50W8BKk/wyRbF_lDc6cJ)

------
anigbrowl
I loved Archie and it was still useful for a good year or two after the weww
got going. Nice to finally learn who was behind it - back then people rarely
shared photos of themselves since they took forever to download.

------
sebtoast
Not related but Montreal is mentioned every once in a while on HN but I still
feel a bit of pride every time.

------
julienchastang
I vaguely remember Archie. On the topic of early web search, does anyone
remember "Jump Stations"? They were basically collections of curated web links
(as I recall, 25 years out now).

------
noobermin
Was just thinking this earlier this week, can anything, at this point, hold a
candle to Google in terms of search? Or possibly compete well with it such
that people could switch?

Recently heard about the news Google is discontinuing enterprise site search,
not that that is such a huge problem, but it's just another example of the
issues that arise from having a monopoly control everything with no
alternatives. They can pull the plug and everyone is left lacking.

~~~
Nomentatus
The cost of entry in the search market just went way, way up due to Google
implementing neural nets extensively in its search algorithms (Deep Mind
whatever.) No question about that. Someone else might find a way to do that
better, however; if so they could now take the market away. (But that doesn't
mean I think that's likely.)

~~~
tyingq
The years of collected data on personalizing search results, what different
demographics expect, etc...Is a big barrier as well.

I believe they are able, for example, to know I want "Apache" the software
organization even if I've never typed it before, because they've seen my
previous software related searches. And...Injected some behavior based on
searches by other people like me.

Someone else is getting much different results for the same term...Again, even
if it's for the first time.

When I hear people say they don't like duckduckgo's results for a search term,
it seems to usually trace back to "no tracking equals no personalization".

~~~
Nomentatus
I agree with all of that. I think it's all well known. Which is why I said I'm
not saying that someone overtaking Google is likely - just more possible now.

------
jandrese
One of the things I love on the old Internet is how people took off with the
Archie theme on other search engines. Gopher's main search engine was Veronica
(Very Easy Rodent Oriented Internet Something Something). I also recall a
Jughead search engine.

The second generation search engines killed the theme off (Altavista, Lycos,
Webcrawler, Infoseek, etc...), but it was fun while it lasted.

------
Diederich
Neat.

I clearly recall connecting to archie.au and archie.nz to do (slow-ass!)
searches back in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Why those? Easy to remember!

------
kinsho
Sad to see some people here be upset at the harmless mention of a subject's
race. Though it is proof positive to me that even a community as dedicated
towards intellectual pursuits like Hacker News has its fair share of
regressive elements as well.

------
danbruc
This escalated quickly. But I would actually somewhat side with the commenters
saying that it is odd to explicitly mention the race in the article. I get
that it is Black History Month in the US and in that context it seems
appropriate but I would question whether having a Black History Month is a
good idea in the first place.

It is not obvious to me that explicitly pointing out a distinction is the best
way to get rid of said distinction, be it black or white, male or female, gay
or straight. It is a historical accident that one of the groups in each case
was at a disadvantage in the past and that this continuous on to today with
the gap narrowing slower than one may want.

So I understand that it seems warranted to give the disadvantaged group
special attention to close the gap as fast as possible. But does this
necessarily require pointing out the distinction in the way this article or
Black History Month does? Sure, any program targeting a specific group can not
totally avoid making use of the addressed distinction, but would it not be
better to keep this as inconspicuous as possible?

~~~
Nomentatus
Why mention his race 'cause there's no such thing as unconscious bias and
Valley funding and hires are as diverse as society is and... ah... oops, no,
wait...

~~~
danbruc
This did not really add something to what I said, I did not deny the existence
of the problem. You have to argue why mentioning the race is helpful, why it
helps to reduces biases. Why does it not do the opposite, why does mentioning
the race not reinforce its importance?

~~~
Nomentatus
I think I did mention that bias was unconscious; we all know brains are
association machines, therefore associating more colors with computing
achievements is obviously a good thing. If you know of a perverse effect, I'd
be glad to hear of it.

------
miraj
the OP here. as it seems there are some queries in peoples' mind re: the
article's title; I am copying below the author's thoughts (from her social
media feed) about the article, which I think is useful.

"My latest piece for JSTOR Daily looks at a hugely influential technologist
who is strangely absent from most lists of Black inventors. Alan Emtage
invented the world's first search engine -- so I look at the massive impact of
search, not only on how the web works, but how our brains work, too."

P.s. Am notifying the author about the discussion here. If she has time & so
inclined, to engage.

P.p.s. as for myself, I was hoping to see interesting HN discussion about
search before pre-Google, & how search is affecting our brain + thinking
process.

------
douche
Unfortunate title, since it's already dragging this into flamey territory...

Any good information on the actual search engine? I'd never heard of it, it's
before my time. TFA has about two paragraphs about it before bloviating into a
philosophical discourse on the effect of search technology on society.

------
EJTH
Why is the race of the man relevant? Seems a bit odd to point it out in the
title that he was of presumably african heritage?

~~~
intopieces
If your question is honest, I'll give you an honest answer: When you're a
member of a minority that is commonly portrayed in the media as being an
'other' / 'not good enough' / 'not likely to succeed', this kind of
identification is heartening. It shows you that people like you can succeed,
people like you have succeeded, and people like you _matter_. I'm going to go
ahead and assume you're not a part of a group that experiences this, and
that's why you're asking this question. This is me assuming the best in your
comment. Be aware, though, that lots of times when this question is asked, the
underlying sentiment is: "I'm tired of hearing about race," or "why can't
everyone just shut up about what group they belong to."

So the next time you ask that question or hear it being asked, be aware of how
it's often heard. It might help you understand the potential reactions.

~~~
gragas
I find it demeaning to make it a point that someone from a certain race "
_actually succeeded this time!_ "

It seems to me that in doing so, one also indirectly makes the point that most
people from race X don't succeed.

It's good sentiment at best and racism at worst.

~~~
intopieces
You raise a valid point. Our celebration of "Minority successes" does often
border on infantilization. This is a sentiment that comes up in the disability
community: "I don't exist to inspire you, I just want to live my life and be
respected like anyone else."

It's a fine line. As more fields (I.e, CS) have visible minority successes,
this need will fade. But we are not there yet.

------
erikbye
Reading "black technologist" my first thoughts goes to some malicious figure
in a science-fantasy novel, not the color of ones skin. What is next, "the
yellow programmer"?

I'm so glad I don't define who I am based on my skin color. Is the color of
your skin of any importance when we are talking about your achievements? If he
was white, would making the first search engine be less remarkable?

~~~
Kinnard
I think it's pretty important if the descendant of someone who was kidnapped
and enslaved to provide for a legally enforced illiterate underclass is able
to not only read and write but read and write code and make significant
contributions to the field of software engineering. Like if someone who lost a
foot won the 100 meter in the olympics, not the paralympics . . .

~~~
erikbye
"Alan Emtage was born in Barbados, the son of Sir Stephen and Lady Emtage."

~~~
Saturnaut
Sorry but your facts don't fit his narrative.

------
zlatan_
Annnd they used the whitest photo of him they could find.

~~~
thecatspaw
im not sure what him beeing black has to do with the first search engine

~~~
jacmoe
Black History Month - that's why.

------
nanodano
Why is his skin color mentioned as part of the headline? Also, isn't Emtage a
French name, and the guy doesn't look black?

------
sunstone
This concept does not conform with my confirmation bias.

------
tomp
I don't understand why one would point out a person's race (unless it's
relevant to the situaiton), but since the title did...

I cannot fanthom how anyone could call this person "black". If anything, his
complexion is similar to what US people call "hispanic" (although to me that's
just southern European, not a distinct race).

~~~
bglazer
I can tell you why it's important to note the race of an underrepresented
minority who made a notable contribution.

I teach programming to a group of black young adults. Self image is very
important to most young folks. Just seeing other black people who are
successful computer programmers helps them imagine themselves as computer
programmers.

Identity matters to young people who are trying to shape their own self image.

~~~
gragas
Then why is it strictly forbidden to write an article with a title that caters
specifically to young white children?

~~~
bglazer
I don't think I'll be able to do satisfactorily answer that question in a
couple sentences, but I'll try.

White people are a majority in technology, so it's assumed to be obvious to
white children that they too can be a technologist. There's not a significant
gap in perceived identity between themselves and Mark Zuckerberg, for example.

So, that begs the question, why focus on encouraging specifically white
children? They don't face racial barriers and have many famous role models.
Preference for white people has a long and ugly history in America.

~~~
leereeves
We probably need more white role models who didn't go to Harvard or Stanford,
though.

