It is a common misconception that the internet is something new and revolutionary while in fact, it is actually more than thirty years old. ARPANET Shortly after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, the United States saw the importance of creating a scientific research agency to advance it's military capabilities. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, soon was established under the control of the US Department of Defense. In order to help facilitate defensive research, DARPA determined that a network should be devised which could help it's partners get access to the expensive computing labs to run testing and share data. Throughout the 1960s, networking, and even computers, was still very much in it's infancy. Because of the threat of an attack from Russia, a new system was needed to transfer data across the network. The new system is known as "packet switching." While it was now possible to send data to another computer far away, there was still another major obstacle to overcome - there was no standard way for computers from different manufacturers to talk to each other because each vendor created their own communications system. In order to overcome this, a special device known as an Interface Message Processor (IMP), was created. The IMPs knew how to talk to each other and also knew how to talk to different kinds of computers. Shortly after putting a man on the moon in 1969, ARPANET carried the first packets from Charley Kline at UCLA to Stanford Research Institute. The research age 1970 brought the first transcontinental link between UCLA and Bolt Beranek and Newman, the manufacturers of the IMPs, and publication of the ARPANET Network Control Protocol. By 1971, ARPANET had grown from four nodes to fifteen. While it was possible to send messages to other people on the same machine, Ray Tomlinson of BBN thought it would be a great idea to combine this messaging with a new file transfer protocol. The result of this wedding was an instant hit which still reigns supreme today - email. The first international connection to the ARPANET net connected the University College of London in 1973. Vinton Cerf and Bob Kahn soon devised a concept of a globally linked ARPANET, an Internet, and presented their ideas later that year. The next year, BBN founded a commercial network called Telenet. By the late 1970s, researchers were extensively using email to communicate with one another and often the same emails were sent to dozens of people. Several researchers at Duke and UNC saw this as inefficient and created USENET to help foster better contact. During the 1980s, hundreds of new private networks were created which would later join up to the Internet. One notable exception split from ARPANET in 1983, the Department of Defense removed 68 nodes to it's own private network. By 1986, advances in packet switching and other networking had outgrown the capabilities of the aging ARPANET. In response, the National Science Foundation created a more modern network and to bring the Internet to the masses. In 1989, the Internet grew from 10,000 hosts in 1987 to 100,000. In 1990, ARPANET officially ceased to exist and the NSFNET became the core of the Internet. Introduction of the WWW ARPANET, and later the NSFNET, had done the job of allowing people to use remote computers fairly well, email and USENET were a wonderful way to discuss topics but to many, it seemed the that more information should be available on the Internet than the topic of the week. People envisioned archives of data where students, hobbyists and others could go to learn the collective knowledge of their peers and predecessors. 1990 brought one of the first attempts, known as Archie. Basically, Archie allowed a user to search for a specific file on a wide variety of file servers. This made it easier to get files but was not much help in finding information. A similar tool called Gopher solved this problem by creating an index of information to search through. Around this time, Tim Berners-Lee was developing a system which would allow people to share something more than just a simple document or picture. He envisioned a method of allowing people to share any information they wanted in a way which would allow them to point to yet more information easily. His creation? The World Wide Web. Commercialization and the future The Web, much like NSFNET, grew at an unprecedented rate, growing from a few dozen to thousands of servers in the first two years of it's existence. In 1993, the NSF created InterNIC to manage various services of the Internet and by 1994, government agencies and businesses begin to mark their internet presence. In the years since then, the Internet has grown at an amazing rate, not only in the sheer number of users and availability but also in capability. It has seen radio stations broadcasting to the masses, video conferencing, cyber-warfare and e-zines. As of April 2001, it's even sent data via carrier pigeon. The Internet was designed to be ultimately upgradable and it is only limited by the imaginations of generations yet to come. **************************************************************** "packet switching" sidebar While phone lines were a form of networking which had been in existence and thoroughly tested, it relies on a circuit. That is, when someone picks up their phone, they get a direct, dedicated line to the person on the other end. The problem is if anything should happen to this line, it is impossible to continue communications. In the event of an attack it is of paramount importance to maintain communications. In 1961, Leonard Kleinrock devised a system called packet switching which effectively allows data to be transmitted to intermediary points which can figure out which point along the route is the best choice to help get the packet, or message, to the final destination. Should one location be destroyed, it is possible to route around it much like a driver will follow a detour when necessary. **************************************************************** "Highlights of the Internet" sidebar 1969 - ARPANET comes online 1971 - Email invented 1973 - First conference call over the internet 1975 - First satellite links 1976 - Queen Elizabeth II sends an email 1983 - Domain Name System (DNS) created 1986 - NSFNET created 1987 - 10,000 hosts online 1988 - Morris' Internet worm shuts down Net 1989 - 100,000 hosts online 1990 - Cessation of ARPANET "The World" becomes first commercial provider 1991 - NSF lifts restrictions on commercial usage Al Gore "invents" Internet two decades late with High Performance Computing Act World Wide Web started 1992 - "surfing the Internet" coined by Jean Armour Polly 1993 - White House comes online 1994 - First "spam" sent by the Canter & Siegal law firm Banner advertising appears 1996 - Communications Decency Act passed and later overturned "Browser war" between Netscape and Microsoft 1998 - Moratorium on Internet taxation 1999 - Cyber-war during Kosovo conflict This article is Copyright 2001, Ken Witherow. All rights reserved. For questions or comments, email phantoml@rochester.rr.com