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NAME:Adeyinka Sheriff Gbolahan
DEPT: Civil Engineering
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
CSC 101
HISTORY OF COMPUTER
WHAT IS INTERNET:
The Internet, sometimes called simply "the Net," is a worldwide
system of computer networks - a network of networks in which users at any one computer can,
if they have permission, get information from any other computer (and sometimes talk directly
to users at other computers. It was discovered by the U.S. government in 1969 and was first
known as the ARPANET. The original aim was to create a network that would allow users of a
research computer at one university to "talk to" research computers at other universities. A
side benefit of ARPANET design was that, because messages could be routed or rerouted in
more than one direction, the network could continue to function even if parts of it were
destroyed in the event of a military attack or other disaster. Internet is also the global system
of interconnected computer networks that use the internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to link
device woridwide.
The Internet has revolutionized the computer and communications world like nothing before.
The invention of the telegraph, telephone, radio, and computer set the stage for this
unprecedented integration of capabilities. The Internet is at once a world-wide broadcasting
capability, a mechanism for information dissemination, and a medium for collaboration and
interaction between individuals and their computers without regard for geographic location.
The Internet represents one of the most successful examples of the benefits of sustained
investment and commitment to research and development of information infrastructure. The
history of internet begins with the development of electronic computers in the 1950s. Initial
concepts of packet networking originated in several computer science laboratories in the
United States, United Kingdom, and France. The US Department of Defense awarded contracts
as early as the 1960s for packet network systems, including the development of the ARPANET.
The first message was sent over the ARPANET from computer science Professor Leonard
Kleinrock's laboratory at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to the second network
node at Stanford Research Institute (SRI).
Packet switching networks such as ARPANET, NPL network, CYCLADES, Merit Network, Tymnet,
and Telenet, were developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s using a variety of
communications protocols. Donald Davies first designed a packet-switched network at the
National Physics Laboratory in the UK, which became a testbed for UK research for almost two
decades. The ARPANET project led to the development of protocols for internetworking, in
which multiple separate networks could be joined into a network of networks.
Access to the ARPANET was expanded in 1981 when the National Science Foundation (NSF)
funded the Computer Science Network (CSNET). In 1982, the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP)
was introduced as the standard networking protocol on the ARPANET. In the early 1980s the
NSF funded the establishment for national supercomputing centers at several universities, and
provided interconnectivity in 1986 with the NSFNET project, which also created network access
to the supercomputer sites in the United States from research and education organizations.
Commercial Internet service providers (ISPs) began to emerge in the very late 1980s. The
ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990. Limited private connections to parts of the Internet by
officially commercial entities emerged in several American cities by late 1989 and 1990, and the
NSFNET was decommissioned in 1995, removing the last restrictions on the use of the Internet
to carry commercial traffic.
In the 1980s, research at CERN in Switzerland by British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee
resulted in the World Wide Web, linking hypertext documents into an information system,
accessible from any node on the network. Since the mid-1990s, the Internet has had a
revolutionary impact on culture, commerce, and technology, including the rise of near-instant
communication by electronic mail, instant messaging, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
telephone calls, two-way interactive video calls, and the World Wide Web with its discussion
forums, blogs, social networking, and online shopping sites. The research and education
community continues to develop and use advanced networks such as NSF's very high speed
Backbone Network Service (vBNS), Internet2, and National LambdaRail. Increasing amounts of
data are transmitted at higher and higher speeds over fiber optic networks operating at 1Gbit/s, 10-Gbit/s.
From its earliest beginnings on pages of paper and in brilliant minds, the Internet has always
been an emerging technology and an emerging ideal. What follows is a selective and developing
chronology of some of the most important events in the cultural and technological
development of cyberspace and the internet. Primarily intended for interested readers without
a technological background, this selective chronology seeks to present a brief narrative
chronology of the technological innovation of the internet and its predecessors as well as
accompanying consumer and cultural developments. The concept of data communication –
transmitting data between two different places through an electromagnetic medium such as
radio or an electric wire – predates the introduction of the first computers. Such
communication systems were typically limited to point to point communication between two
end devices. Telegraph systems and telex machines can be considered early precursors of this
kind of communication. The Telegraph in the late 19th century was the first fully digital
communication system.
Fundamental theoretical work in data transmission and information theory was developed by
Claude Shannon, Harry Nyquist, and Ralph Hartley in the early 20th century.
Early computers had a central processing unit and remote terminals. As the technology evolved,
new systems were devised to allow communication over longer distances (for terminals) or
with higher speed (for interconnection of local devices) that were necessary for the mainframe
computer model. These technologies made it possible to exchange data (such as files) between
remote computers. However, the point-to-point communication model was limited, as it did
not allow for direct communication between any two arbitrary systems; a physical link was
necessary. The technology was also considered unsafe for strategic and military use because
there were no alternative paths for the communication in case of an enemy attack.
With limited exceptions, the earliest computers were connected directly to terminals used by
individual users, typically in the same building or site. Such networks became known as localarea networks (LANs). Networking beyond this scope, known as wide-area networks (WANs),
emerged during the 1950s and became established during the 1960s.
Origins of the Internet
The first recorded description of the social interactions that could be enabled through
networking was a series of memos written by J.C.R. Licklider of MIT in August 1962 discussing
his "Galactic Network" concept. He envisioned a globally interconnected set of computers
through which everyone could quickly access data and programs from any site. In spirit, the
concept was very much like the Internet of today. Licklider was the first head of the computer
research program at DARPA,4 starting in October 1962. While at DARPA he convinced his
successors at DARPA, Ivan Sutherland, Bob Taylor, and MIT researcher Lawrence G. Roberts, of
the importance of this networking concept.
Leonard Kleinrock at MIT published the first paper on packet switching theory in July 1961 and
the first book on the subject in 1964. Kleinrock convinced Roberts of the theoretical feasibility
of communications using packets rather than circuits, which was a major step along the path
towards computer networking. The other key step was to make the computers talk together. To
explore this, in 1965 working with Thomas Merrill, Roberts connected the TX-2 computer in
Mass. to the Q-32 in California with a low speed dial-up telephone line creating the first
(however small) wide-area computer network ever built. The result of this experiment was the
realization that the time-shared computers could work well together, running programs and
retrieving data as necessary on the remote machine, but that the circuit switched telephone
system was totally inadequate for the job. Kleinrock's conviction of the need for packet
switching was confirmed.
In late 1966 Roberts went to DARPA to develop the computer network concept and quickly put
together his plan for the "ARPANET", publishing it in 1967. At the conference where he
presented the paper, there was also a paper on a packet network concept from the UK by
Donald Davies and Roger Scantlebury of NPL. Scantlebury told Roberts about the NPL work as
well as that of Paul Baran and others at RAND. The RAND group had written a paper on packet
switching networks for secure voice in the military in 1964. It happened that the work at MIT
(1961-1967), at RAND (1962-1965), and at NPL (1964-1967) had all proceeded in parallel
without any of the researchers knowing about the other work. The word "packet" was adopted.
from the work at NPL and the proposed line speed to be used in the ARPANET design was
upgraded from 2.4 kbps to 50 kbps. 5