History of the Internet
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Today the Internet is a seamless service that seems to fit into human life as it was always there, but the truth is that it is only about forty years old. The Internet began in the 1960s when early packet switching networks were created. Packet switching is the process of dividing data into chunks that are sent one at a time. Prior to this concept it was very difficult to route data through a network. For example, if the computer was to send a file it would be sent in a stream of data usually in analog format. Computers would have a hard time trying to determine where the stream began and ended. This makes it nearly impossible to route the stream through a network. With packet switching, however, it becomes much easier to package data and then address it so that computers can tell where it should be sent.
In 1964 the advantages of digital packet switching were first explored with the purpose of creating a communications network that had wide connectivity and would be able to survive failure of any of its nodes. This was visualized in a series of papers titled On Distributed Communications. This communications idea was very attractive for military purposes as it promoted a network that could easily survive attack. Messages could be forwarded around any computer or server that had failed or been destroyed. The first internet application was therefore a military network called ARPANET, developed during the height of the Cold War to make communication possible in the case of a wide spread nuclear attack.
In the 1979 however, ARPANET became the backbone of a new network called USENET. This network began as a system for connecting major universities so that they could share resources and data from experiments. However, this network was also used for bulletin board systems and email. College students found that they could use USENET for their own purposes. Although the ARPANET networks forbid the use of their servers for discussions on subjects such as drugs and sex, innovative students found ways to set up their own servers to host such discussions. The development of personal computers made it possible for a much larger group of people to connect to the developing internet. Hackers and computer buffs from around the world began setting up their own servers and chat systems.
The Internet as we know it today began at CERN with the innovation of Tim Berners-Lee. He wanted to set up a network that would work well between different types of computers. He also thought up hypertext, text documents that had links and other active content that paper documents could not have. This protocol, called the World Wide Web, works on top of the infrastructure that is the internet. Today it has absorbed such a large portion of internet use that most people confuse the World Wide Web with the Internet itself.
To summarize the Internet began as a military network to distribute information in the case of an enemy attack. From there it expanded to include educational institutions that wanted a good way to share data. Then college students began using the network for bulletin boards, chat, and other applications, paving the way for the internet that we know today.
For more information see:
- ARPANET – http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_arpanet.htm
- History of the Internet – http://www.yourhtmlsource.com/starthere/historyofthenet.html
- Packet Switching – http://www.livinginternet.com/i/iw_packet_inv.htm
- Modest Beginnings – http://www.nsf.gov/about/history/nsf0050/internet/modest.htm
Guest Post by NathanKP of Inkweaver Review.
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