Networks of the past

Photo: Fermilab

Networks of the past
In today's particle physics experiments, it takes a fraction of a second for data recorded by detectors to be transferred to a data storage facility. Soon thereafter, collaboration members from around the world have access to the data via the Internet.

Not so thirty years ago. In the 1970s, experimentalists at Fermilab and other labs had no networks to transfer their experimental data from the data acquisition system to the places where they would store and analyze their data. Their mode of data transfer was rather low-tech: the bicycle. At the end of a shift, a scientist would take the tapes with data, hop on a bike, and ride over to the computer center or wherever the data analysis took place. This process even received its own acronym: BOL, for "Bicycle Online."

Today, the Bicycle Online transfer is history. But like thirty years ago, Fermilab again has a pool of bicycles that is available for experimenters to ride around the site. But today's bike trips are usually to meetings and seminars, or just out to lunch. 

Kurt Riesselmann