BITNET

	This is the JargonFile ^(V4.00) entry for BITNET - Next: bits, Prev: bitblt
:BITNET: /bitnet/ /n./ [acronym: Because Its Time NETwork] Everybodys least favorite piece of the network (see network, the). The BITNET hosts are a collection of IBM dinosaurs and VAXen (the latter with lobotomized comm hardware) that communicate using 80-character [[EBCDIC]] card images (see eighty-column mind); thus, they tend to mangle the headers and text of third-party traffic from the rest of the ASCII/RFC-822 world with annoying regularity. BITNET was also notorious as the apparent home of B1FF.
* (text is auto-included via JargonExtension by mutante using jargon with VERSION 4.0.0, 24 JUL 1996 - JargonFile by Eric S. Raymond is in the public domain)