Jim Tice Ellis

Co-creator of Usenet, Ellis changed how people communicate online. It was 1979 when Ellis and a fellow Duke University student, Tom Truscott, decided to use e-mail programs and university computers to establish what were, essentially, electronic bulletin boards to which any member could post items using computer modems and telephone lines.

"Our estimate was one to two articles a day and from 50 to 100 computers maximum," recalled Steve Bellovin, an AT&T researcher who helped draw up plans for the network in 1979.

At the time of its founding, no one anticipated the scale Usenet would eventually reach. There were more than 50,000 Usenet news and discussion groups, and there were too many computers linked to the system to count.