The history of the Internet has its origin in the efforts of wide area networking that originated in several computer science laboratories in the United States, United Kingdom, and France.[1] The U.S. Department of Defense awarded contracts as early as the 1960s, including for the development of the ARPANET project, directed by Robert Taylor and managed by Lawrence Roberts. The first message was sent over the ARPANET in 1969 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 the NPL network, ARPANET, Merit Network, CYCLADES, and Telenet, were developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s using a variety of communications protocols.[2] Donald Davies first demonstrated packet switching in 1967 at the National Physics Laboratory (NPL) in the UK, which became a testbed for UK research for almost two decades.[3][4] The ARPANET project led to the development of protocols for internetworking, in which multiple separate networks could be joined into a network of networks. The design included concepts from the French CYCLADES project directed by Louis Pouzin.
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,[5] 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.[6] 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 JANET in the United Kingdom and Internet2 in the United States. Increasing amounts of data are transmitted at higher and higher speeds over fiber optic networks operating at 1 Gbit/s, 10 Gbit/s, or more. The Internet's takeover of the global communication landscape was rapid in historical terms: it only communicated 1% of the information flowing through two-way telecommunications networks in the year 1993, already 51% by 2000, and more than 97% of the telecommunicated information by 2007.[7] Today, the Internet continues to grow, driven by ever greater amounts of online information, commerce, entertainment, and social networking. However, the future of the global network may be shaped by regional differences.[8]
| Internet history timeline |
Early research and development:
Merging the networks and creating the Internet:
Commercialization, privatization, broader access leads to the modern Internet:
Examples of Internet services:
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Contents
- 1Foundations
- 2Development of wide area networking
- 3Networks that led to the Internet
- 4Merging the networks and creating the Internet (1973–95)
- 5Internet governance
- 6Politicization of the Internet
- 7Use and culture
- 8Web technologies
- 9Historiography
- 10See also
- 11References
- 12Further reading
- 13External links
Foundations
Precursors
The concept of data communication – transmitting data between two different places through an electromagnetic medium such as radio or an electric wire – pre-dates the introduction of the first computers. Such communication systems were typically limited to point to point communication between two end devices. Semaphore lines, 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.
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.
Information theory
Fundamental theoretical work in data transmission and information theory was developed by Claude Shannon, Harry Nyquist, and Ralph Hartley in the early 20th century. Information theory, as enunciated by Shannon in 1948, provided a firm theoretical underpinning to understand the trade-offs between signal-to-noise ratio, bandwidth, and error-free transmission in the presence of noise, in telecommunications technology.[9]
Semiconductor technology
The development of transistor technology was fundamental to a new generation of electronic devices that later effected almost every aspect of the human experience.[10][11][12] The long-sought realization of the field-effect transistor, in form of the MOS transistor (MOSFET), by Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs in 1959,[13][14][15] brought new opportunities for miniaturization and mass-production for a wide range of uses. It became the basic building block of the information revolution and the information age,[16][17][18] and laid the foundation for power electronic technology that later enabled the development of wireless Internet technology.[19][20][21] Network bandwidth has been doubling every 18 months since the 1970s, which found expression in Edholm's law,[22] similar to the scaling expressed by Moore's law for semiconductors.
Development of wide area networking
With limited exceptions, the earliest computers were connected directly to terminals used by individual users, typically in the same building or site.
Wide area networks (WANs) emerged during the 1950s and became established during the 1960s.
Inspiration
J. C. R. Licklider, Vice President at Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc., proposed a global network in his January 1960 paper Man-Computer Symbiosis:[23]
In August 1962, Licklider and Welden Clark published the paper "On-Line Man-Computer Communication"[24] which was one of the first descriptions of a networked future.
In October 1962, Licklider was hired by Jack Ruina as director of the newly established Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) within DARPA, with a mandate to interconnect the United States Department of Defense's main computers at Cheyenne Mountain, the Pentagon, and SAC HQ. There he formed an informal group within DARPA to further computer research. He began by writing memos describing a distributed network to the IPTO staff, whom he called "Members and Affiliates of the Intergalactic Computer Network".[25] As part of the information processing office's role, three network terminals had been installed: one for System Development Corporation in Santa Monica, one for Project Genie at University of California, Berkeley, and one for the Compatible Time-Sharing System project at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Licklider's identified need for inter-networking would become obvious by the apparent waste of resources this caused.
Although he left the IPTO in 1964, five years before the ARPANET went live, it was his vision of universal networking that provided the impetus for one of his successors, Robert Taylor, to initiate the ARPANET development. Licklider later returned to lead the IPTO in 1973 for two years.[27]
Development of packet switching
The issue of connecting separate physical networks to form one logical network was the first of many problems. Early networks used message switched systems that required rigid routing structures prone to single point of failure. In the 1960s, Paul Baran of the RAND Corporation produced a study of survivable networks for the U.S. military in the event of nuclear war.[28] Information transmitted across Baran's network would be divided into what he called "message blocks".[29] Independently, Donald Davies (National Physical Laboratory, UK), proposed and was the first to put into practice a local area network based on what he called packet switching, the term that would ultimately be adopted. Larry Roberts applied Davies' concepts of packet switching for the ARPANET wide area network,[30][31] and sought input from Paul Baran and Leonard Kleinrock. Kleinrock subsequently developed the mathematical theory behind the performance of this technology building on his earlier work on queueing theory.[32]
Packet switching is a rapid store and forward networking design that divides messages up into arbitrary packets, with routing decisions made per-packet. It provides better bandwidth utilization and response times than the traditional circuit-switching technology used for telephony, particularly on resource-limited interconnection links.[33]
Software
The software for establishing links between network sites in the ARPANET was the Network Control Program (NCP), completed in c. 1970. Further development in the early 1970s by Robert E. Kahn and Vint Cerf let to the formulation of the Transmission Control Program, and its specification in December 1974 in RFC 675. This work also coined the terms catenet (concatenated network) and internet as a contraction of internetworking, which describe the interconnection of multiple networks. This software was monolithic in design using two simplex communication channels for each user session. The software was redesigned as a modular protocol stack, using full-duplex channels. Originally named IP/TCP it was installed in the ARPANET for production use in January 1983.
Networks that led to the Internet
NPL network
Following discussions with J. C. R. Licklider, Donald Davies became interested in data communications for computer networks.[34][35] At the National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom) in 1965, Davies designed and proposed a national data network based on packet switching. The following year, he described the use of an "Interface computer" to act as a router.[36] The proposal was not taken up nationally but by 1967, a pilot experiment had demonstrated the feasibility of packet switched networks.[37][38]
By 1969 he had begun building the Mark I packet-switched network to meet the needs of the multidisciplinary laboratory and prove the technology under operational conditions.[39][40][41] In 1976, 12 computers and 75 terminal devices were attached,[42] and more were added until the network was replaced in 1986. NPL, followed by ARPANET, were the first two networks in the world to use packet switching,[43][44] and were interconnected in the early 1970s.
ARPANET
Robert Taylor was promoted to the head of the information processing office at Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in June 1966. He intended to realize Licklider's ideas of an interconnected networking system. Bringing in Larry Roberts from MIT, he initiated a project to build such a network. The first ARPANET link was established between the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Stanford Research Institute at 22:30 hours on October 29, 1969.[45]
By December 5, 1969, a 4-node network was connected by adding the University of Utah and the University of California, Santa Barbara. Building on ideas developed in ALOHAnet[citation needed], the ARPANET grew rapidly. By 1981, the number of hosts had grown to 213, with a new host being added approximately every twenty days.[47][48]
ARPANET development was centered around the Request for Comments (RFC) process, still used today for proposing and distributing Internet Protocols and Systems. RFC 1, entitled "Host Software", was written by Steve Crocker from the University of California, Los Angeles, and published on April 7, 1969. These early years were documented in the 1972 film Computer Networks: The Heralds of Resource Sharing.
ARPANET became the technical core of what would become the Internet, and a primary tool in developing the technologies used. The early ARPANET used the Network Control Program (NCP, sometimes Network Control Protocol) rather than TCP/IP. On January 1, 1983, known as flag day, NCP on the ARPANET was replaced by the more flexible and powerful family of TCP/IP protocols, marking the start of the modern Internet.[49]
International collaborations on ARPANET were sparse. For various political reasons, European developers were concerned with developing the X.25 networks. Notable exceptions were the Norwegian Seismic Array (NORSAR) in 1972, followed in 1973 by Sweden with satellite links to the Tanum Earth Station and Peter Kirstein's research group in the UK, initially at the Institute of Computer Science, London University and later at University College London.[50]
Merit Network
The Merit Network[51] was formed in 1966 as the Michigan Educational Research Information Triad to explore computer networking between three of Michigan's public universities as a means to help the state's educational and economic development.[52] With initial support from the State of Michigan and the National Science Foundation (NSF), the packet-switched network was first demonstrated in December 1971 when an interactive host to host connection was made between the IBM mainframe computer systems at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and Wayne State University in Detroit.[53] In October 1972 connections to the CDC mainframe at Michigan State University in East Lansing completed the triad. Over the next several years in addition to host to host interactive connections the network was enhanced to support terminal to host connections, host to host batch connections (remote job submission, remote printing, batch file transfer), interactive file transfer, gateways to the Tymnet and Telenet public data networks, X.25 host attachments, gateways to X.25 data networks, Ethernet attached hosts, and eventually TCP/IP and additional public universities in Michigan join the network.[53][54] All of this set the stage for Merit's role in the NSFNET project starting in the mid-1980s.
CYCLADES
The CYCLADES packet switching network was a French research network designed and directed by Louis Pouzin. First demonstrated in 1973, it was developed to explore alternatives to the early ARPANET design and to support network research generally. It was the first network to make the hosts responsible for reliable delivery of data, rather than the network itself, using unreliable datagrams and associated end-to-end protocol mechanisms. Concepts of this network influenced later ARPANET architecture.[55][56]
X.25 and public data networks
Based on ARPA's research, packet switching network standards were developed by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in the form of X.25 and related standards. While using packet switching, X.25 is built on the concept of virtual circuits emulating traditional telephone connections. In 1974, X.25 formed the basis for the SERCnet network between British academic and research sites, which later became JANET. The initial ITU Standard on X.25 was approved in March 1976.[57]
The British Post Office, Western Union International and Tymnet collaborated to create the first international packet switched network, referred to as the International Packet Switched Service (IPSS), in 1978. This network grew from Europe and the US to cover Canada, Hong Kong, and Australia by 1981. By the 1990s it provided a worldwide networking infrastructure.[58]
Unlike ARPANET, X.25 was commonly available for business use. Telenet offered its Telemail electronic mail service, which was also targeted to enterprise use rather than the general email system of the ARPANET.
The first public dial-in networks used asynchronous TTY terminal protocols to reach a concentrator operated in the public network. Some networks, such as CompuServe, used X.25 to multiplex the terminal sessions into their packet-switched backbones, while others, such as Tymnet, used proprietary protocols. In 1979, CompuServe became the first service to offer electronic mail capabilities and technical support to personal computer users. The company broke new ground again in 1980 as the first to offer real-time chat with its CB Simulator. Other major dial-in networks were America Online (AOL) and Prodigy that also provided communications, content, and entertainment features. Many bulletin board system (BBS) networks also provided on-line access, such as FidoNet which was popular amongst hobbyist computer users, many of them hackers and amateur radio operators.[citation needed]
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