KnoopPunt: The Beginning

It all starte in the Snoekstraat 52 in Ghent.

We started with five members. Ann (librarian), Marc (graphic artist), Patrick (graphic artist), Marian (social assistant) and Daniël (computer scientist). Marc was previously a peace activist who had participated in the Florenne action camps. Daniël and Marian had together founded an anti-racist neighbourhood group Hand in Hand in Ghent. Together they organised the first International Day for Electronic Communications in Ghent in 1992.

In 1992, KnoopPunt had a stand at the "Gentse Feesten" with a computer that could allegedly crack the gendarmerie computer and look up your "data" for 20 Bf. There were quite a few candidates and all of them were, of course, in the gendarmerie computer. It was fake, but still a game that wanted to show how uneven the situation is regarding information gathering in our society.

Look at the original statement of principles beginselverklaring.

The Web had yet to be invented in 1992. ButtonPoint published its and other texts on a Buletin Board System (BBS). All BBSs exchanged data over the ordinary telephone line, in technical jargon the PSTN or Public Switched Telephone Network. The largest BBS network was called Fido net. Internet was still only used in academic centres. By the way before 1989 what no Internet at all in Europe, only UUCP or Unix to Unix Copy over switched telephone lines.

In 1992, KnoopPunt also started experimenting with the Internet. Since it worked with NGOs, all info had to be retrieved and distributed internationally too.Initially, we called hubs in the Netherlands and England but this was not sustainable. So we looked for cheaper ways to exchange information internationally.

In the Netherlands and England, the academic network was already being used for transport via Unix to Unix Copy (UUCP). From 1993, KnoopPunt was already exchanging all its messages over the Internet but via UUCP tunnelling. It was a hack, but it worked well for 1 year and a half, and then we had a landline to the Internet ourselves and an adventure began of which we knew the beginning, but not the end.

KoopPunt was already running courses on how to use the Internet in 1993 via a hacked account of the civil engineers at the UG. Not a cock crowed about it and wondered how we got on the Internet. At first, Daniel was the only computer scientist in KnoopPunt, but soon Linux nerds and other curious computer scientists joined in, turning KnoopPunt into the Flemish Internet lab for a period of three years.

The real KnoopPunt members were not 'nerds' but all socially-minded. So Ann was a librarian. What we all dreamed of was a virtual library. Through her, KnoopPunt got in touch with the library world. Not surprisingly, we soon got the Vlaamse Verneniging voor Bibliotheken (Flemish Association of Libraries) as a customer.

In 1995 and 1996, we gave Internet training to several groups of librarians who would have to work with the Internet in their Library afterwards. Antwerp was the first to have an Internet system where ordinary library users could open an account.

It was modelled on a model already functioning in Amsterdam. Users were given an email account and could set up a small Web page. The great example of community networking back then was 'De Digitale Stad' (DDS) in Amsterdam, installed by Xs4all (ex-Hacktic). It still exists today but it is called DEDS now, 'De Echte Digitale Stad'. And this webpage runs on the servers of 'Open Domein' founded by the people of DEDS including Johan Kok, Reinder Rustema, Jeroen Snijders, Henk Langendijk en Willem de Kei :-).

Although KnoopPunt consisted of activists, it did handle things professionally. Professionalism I guess. It actually did a market survey of NGOs. You can view the questionnaire we sent out here.

KnoopPunt was connected to APC (Association for Progressive Communication) from 1992, in 1994 it became a Full Member. More about APC