Origin of the Internet
The basic ideas for the Internet came in 1957. The US Defense Department created the ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency). Its purpose was to produce technologies that the military could use.
In the 1960s ARPA and MIT (Massachusetts institute of technology) corroborated to share information and technology. They would do this by joining networks using phones.
In 1966, Larry Roberts (from the MIT) introduced the ARPANET, which consisted of computers linked over long distances. The history of the Internet was also affected by packet switching, a technology that allowed for faster and cost effective data transmissions.
In 1969, universities were allowed to be a part of the network nodes. UCLA and Standard were among the early ones. By 1971, several more universities were included. By 1973, ARPANET had also established a node in London, England.
The 1970s
Several milestones were attained in the 1970s. TCP (Transmission Control Program) was developed and made data transfer easier. Unix was also developed in 1976 and the same year email was used for the first time by the Queen of England.
The history of the Internet in the 70s was also marked by the birth of USENET. This would be the model upon which all discussion groups and forums would be modeled.
The 1980s and 1990s
The development of the TCP/IP (Transmission Protocol and Internet Protocol) in 1982 is one of the earliest references to the word Internet itself. In 1985 symbolics.com became the initial domain name to be registered. It was in 1988 that the first virus/worm was reported. By this time the hosts on the Net were in the thousands.
In 1990, Tim Berners Lee was working in CERN when he conceived of the idea of documents being linked by hypertext. The World Wide Web was born and the history of the Internet would never be the same.
Throughout the 1990s, applications for the Web and the Net (called browsers) would be developed. The number of Web pages would increase dramatically, year after year.
Prominent Individuals
There were a lot of people who contributed to the development of ARPANET and consequently, the Internet. One of them was J.C.R. Licklider. He was in charge of the Information Processing Technology Office. He conceived of the idea that a network of computers could connect people wherever they may be.
Larry Roberts, as stated, was at the helm of the ARPANET team. It was he who put to use the packet switching invented by Leonard Kleinrock. To this day, packet switching is utilized for relaying info on the Net, indicating the importance of Roberts’ and Kelnirock’s works.
After Roberts left the group, he was replaced by Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn. Together these two would produce TCP/IP, which would revolutionize packet switching. After that, the history of the Internet would be intertwined with the Web, changing the face of personal computing forever.
