By Bill Straub
Before 1970 the idea of connecting more than one computer was a revolutionary idea. Computers were very expensive and few people had access to them.
In the 1960s, the U.S. military wanted to create a computer network to share military information between computers.
The U.S. Military's Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) hired a Massachusetts firm, Bolt Beranek & Newman Inc., to invent a way for computers to talk to each other.
In 1969, seven weeks after the first Apollo moon landing, they succeeded in creating the first computer network which became known as ARPAnet
People realized that computer networks could help share information and scarce computing resources. More research facilities joined ARPAnet. The military split off onto a second network called MILnet. ARPAnet and MILnet computers communicated using a set of rules called Internet Protocol (IP). By 1983, all computers connected to ARPAnet were required to use Transmission Control Protocol over Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). These two computer networks were called "the InterNet".
In the 1980s the National Science Foundation set up a computer network between five supercomputer centers. This network, known as the NSFnet, was for scholarly (nonmilitary) research. They connected at 56K over expensive private telephone lines.
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NSFnet later took over ARPAnet. NSFnet continued its "acceptable use policy" which prohibited any for-profit activity on the network.
Therefore, many businesses did not use ARPAnet because they could not make money with it. It was also expensive to hook up to ARPAnet .
1989 - 1990
Tim Berners-Lee came up with an idea for keeping track of research projects and information at Geneva's European particle physics laboratory in Switzerland (CERN).
Tim Berners-Lee proposal involved using computer networks to share hypertext documents (which contained text, graphics, videos, and links to other documents) using a standard user interface. He called his idea the World Wide Web.
Screen shot of one of the first World Wide Web browsers from CERN
In 1991 . . .
The U.S. High-performance Computing Act established the National Research and Education Network (NREN). Its goals were to:
maintain high-speed research and education networks and allow a commercial presence on the Internet
This allowed businesses to use the Internet for profit for the first time.
By 1994 . . .
There were more businesses on the Internet than educational institutions. ISPs (Internet service providers) began offering Internet access to individuals and businesses. Home users could gain access to the Internet.
Internet addresses known as URLs began appearing on billboards, television, and on products themselves. Graphical browsers like Mosaic and Netscape Navigator helped people find information on the Web through new Wide Area Information Search (WAIS) sites such as Yahoo. Pizza could be ordered on-line.
Developments since 1995 . . .
CompuServe, America Online, Prodigy and others have offered Internet access to people around the globe. RealAudio has provided a standard format for listening to music and speech in real-time on the Internet. Microsoft and Netscape/AOL have conducted a browser war to have the public exclusively use their World Wide Web browser software. Everyday more and more people and companies are setting up Web sites and conducting business on the Internet. More individuals like yourself are learning to use the Internet.
Today...
the World Wide Web has become the primary way that most people use the Internet.
However, the Internet is much more than the World Wide Web. The Internet also includes:
The End Of the beginning.
Return to Internet Miniclass Activity
Sources
H'obbes' Zakon, Robert. "Hobbes' Internet Timeline v4.1." Online. Internet. 17 October 2005. Available http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/
The Internet Society. "Internet Histories". 17 October 2005. Available http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/
Krol, Ed. The Whole Internet User's Guide, Special Edition, Version 2.0. Sebastopol, California: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., 1995.
Nerds 2.0.1 A Brief History of the Internet. By Stephen Segaller. PBS. KEET, Eureka. 25 Nov. 1998
"Nerds 2.0.1 Timeline." PBS Online, Inc. Online. Internet. 12 Aug. 1999. Available http://www.pbs.org/opb/nerds2.0.1/
Randall, Neal and John December. The World Wide Web Unleashed 1996. Indianapolis: Sams.Net Publishing, 1995.
Wilensky, Marshall and Candace Leiden. TCP/IP For Dummies. Foster City, California: IDG Books Worldwide, Inc., 1995.