CSNET

CSNET (the "Computer Science Network") was created by the U.S. National Science Foundation in the early 1980s. It was a computer network linking academic Computer Science departments nationwide. It was an alternative to ARPANET, to which many Computer Science departments didn't have the privilege of access. CSNET connected with ARPANET using TCP/IP, and ran TCP/IP over X.25, but it also supported departments without sophisticated network connections, using automated dial-up mail exchange. It was a forerunner to NSFNet. CSNET operated autonomously until 1989, when it merged with Bitnet to form CREN. By 1991 the growth of the Internet had made the CSNET services redundant, and CREN discontinued them.
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.csnet was a pseudo-domain-style suffix used in the late 1980s when identifying a hostname not connected directly to the Internet but possibly reachable through inter-network gateways. In this case, it indicated that the hostname preceding it was reachable via the CSNET network. This was one of several apparent "top-level domains" that were not actually in the Internet root, but were sometimes used in addresses during the time when non-Internet networks remained in wide use. Of these, .arpa was the only one ever actually added to the Internet root, where it continues to exist in a redesignated purpose of "Address and Routing Parameter Area".
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Computers and Science Network, operated by CREN for US computer science institutes. It provides electronic mail service via dial-up lines, X.25 and Internet services.

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COMPUTER SCIENCE NETWORK. CSNET