History of the Internet
History of the Internet
The history of the internet can be dated back to the 1950s and 1960s. The development of computers paved a way where people could share information easily and fast. This was mostly done to aid easy sharing of information on research and development in military and scientific fields.
The first proposal for global network of computers which was done in 1962 was done by J.C. R Licklider of MIT and later of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Leonard Kleinrock of MIT who later moved to UCLA came up with the theory of packet switching that was done to form the basis of internet connections.
Another real founder who can be linked to the history of the internet is Lawrence Roberts of MIT who linked a California computer and a Massachusetts computer using the dial up telephone lines in the year 1965. This process showed the possibility of a wide area networking but also proved that telephone lines switching was inadequate. The same also confirmed Kleinrock’s packet switching theory. Later on, Robert moved to ARPANET.
Known as ARPANET, the internet was then made available in 1969 which began by connecting four major universities in South West of the United States. This was done where multiple separate networks were joined together into a network of other networks for the University of Utah, Santa Barbara and the University of California 213 with new hosts being added after every 20 days. In the year 1981, the number of hosts had grown to 21.
In 1982, the internet protocol suite was standardized and the idea of worldwide network of fully interconnected networks known as the internet was introduced. Better access to ARPANET had previously been expanded on in the year 1981 after the Computer Science Network (CSNET) was developed by the National Science Foundation. Later on, access to supercomputer sites in the US were provided from education organizations and research.
ARPANET was the technical core of what is now known as the internet. It was also a primary tool that was used in the development of various technologies where the developments were mostly centered on the Request for Comments process. This is still being used today in proposing and also in distributing internet systems and protocols. International collaborations on ARPANET were sparse due to political reasons.
In 1990, ARPANET was decommissioned and other internet service providers- commercial in nature-began to emerge. The internet was subsequently commercialized in 1995 where last restrictions were removed to allow the internet to carry commercial traffic. This significantly changes the history of the internet since many were allowed to use the internet.
Dating back to mid 1990s, the internet began to have a strong impact on commerce and culture. This included an increase in instant communication by use of electronic mail, the World Wide Web and text based discussion forums. From the initial idea of introducing the internet, it has continued to grow and is driven by greater amounts of online forms of entertainment, commerce, knowledge, information and even social networking. Basically, the use of internet became widespread late in the 1990s.
The use of e-mail was adapted by Ray Tomlinson of BBN in the year 1972 for ARPANET. Ray picked up the use of the symbol @ from the readily available symbols on his teletype to link the address and the user name. Additionally, the telnet protocol that enables logging on to remote computers was published only as a Request for Comments, also known as RFC in 1972. This was a means of sharing developmental work all through community. On the other hand, the ftp was used a protocol in 1973 to enable transfer of files between internet sites and was also published as an RFC.
The main reason for the introduction of the internet was to provide a platform for a communication network that would work even in extreme situations for instance, if some sites were destroyed by a nuclear attack. Initially, the internet was used by computer engineers, experts, scientists and librarians. Using it was not as friendly as you would think. Any individual who had the desire to use the internet was forced to learn how to use a rather complex system. In the history of the internet, the first person to use it was Charley Kline at UCLA on October 29, 1969. Charley sent first packets on ARPANET when he tried to link to the Stanford Research Institute. However, the system crashed as he only reached the letter G in LOGIN.
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