Prior to the widespread internetworking that led to the Internet, most communication networks were limited by their nature to only allow communications between the stations on the network, and the prevalent computer networking method was based on the central
mainframe method. In the 1960s, computer researchers,
Levi C. Finch and
Robert W. Taylor pioneered calls for a joined-up global network to address interoperability problems. Concurrently, several research programs began to research principles of networking between separate physical networks, and this led to the development of
Packet switching. These included
Donald Davies (
NPL),
Paul Baran (
RAND Corporation), and
Leonard Kleinrock's
MIT and
UCLA research programs.
This led to the development of several packet switched networking solutions in the late 1960s and 1970s, including
ARPANET and
X.25. Additionally, public access and hobbyist networking systems grew in popularity, including
UUCP and
FidoNet. They were however still disjointed separate networks, served only by limited
gateways between networks. This led to the application of packet switching to develop a protocol for inter-networking, where multiple different networks could be joined together into a super-framework of networks. By defining a simple common network system, the
Internet protocol suite, the concept of the network could be separated from its physical implementation. This spread of inter-network began to form into the idea of a global inter-network that would be called '
The Internet', and this began to quickly spread as existing networks were converted to become compatible with this. This spread quickly across the advanced telecommunication networks of the western world, and then began to penetrate into the rest of the world as it became the de-facto international standard and global network. However, the disparity of growth led to a
digital divide that is still a concern today.
Following commercialisation and introduction of privately run
Internet Service Providers in the 1980s, and its expansion into popular use in the 1990s, the Internet has had a drastic impact on culture and commerce. This includes the rise of near instant communication by
e-mail, text based discussion forums, the
World Wide Web. Investor speculation in new markets provided by these innovations would also lead to the inflation and collapse of the
Dot-com bubble, a major market collapse. But despite this, Internet continues to grow.
History of computingHardware before 1960Hardware 1960s to presentHardware in Soviet Bloc countriesComputer scienceOperating systemsPersonal computersLaptopsSoftware engineeringProgramming languagesArtificial intelligenceGraphical user interfaceInternet
World Wide WebComputer and video gamesTimeline of computingTimeline of computing 2400 BC–19491950–19791980–19891990— Networks that led to the Internet
ARPANET
Main article:
ARPANETLen Kleinrock and the first
IMP.
[4]Promoted to the head of the information processing office at
DARPA, Robert Taylor 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 and the
Stanford Research Institute on 22:30 hours on
October 29,
1969. By
5 December 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, the ARPANET grew rapidly. By 1981, the number of hosts had grown to 213, with a new host being added approximately every twenty days.
[5][6]ARPANET became the technical core of what would become the Internet, and a primary tool in developing the technologies used. 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.
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
University College London.
information" (1989).
information" (1989).
