TIMELINE
A Brief History of the Net
The Net has evolved slowly to what it is today and even as you read this, that evolution continues, in many directions, simultaneously. Some of them will die out.Some will sustain, without anybody really knowing about how or why they came about. And some, like the Web browser, will totally revolutionize your lives.
Let's take a walk down the.memory lane, looking at some of the revolutionary changes that have molded. the Internet into what it is todayHow old is the Net? Two years? Four? What about 37? That's how old the Net is. Surprised? But, before that....
Before the beginning...
1961: Packet switching is devised.The earliest models
of networking used circuit switching. This required an unbroken connection
between the communicating hosts. Leonard Kleinrock at MIT came up with packet
switching which was not dependent on a single unbrokenline of communication.
Circuit switching was not flexible and the connections had to be maintained
once made. But packets could, in case of a broken connection, route themselves
through other available routes. Packet switching is at the core of the Net
as it exists today.
1962: Galactic network-the Internet's first Idea document by JCR Licklider.This can be found at http://memex.org/ licklider.pdf (there are even a few neat diagrams). He predicts that it will one day become the chief medium of communication.
1968: The US department of defense gets interested.A RAND Corporation study shows the "no single outage point" facet of packet switching. That is, with packet switching you are not limited by the existence or otherwise of a specific network route for communication. The US DoD gets interested and calls for contracts to build the IMP (interface message processor) for such a network. BBN Bolt Beranek and Newman get the contract to build the IMP. The RAND study is available at www.rand.org/publications/RM/RM3420/ Also, the NWG. (networking group) is formed. The NWG went on to develop protocols for the infant Net.
1969: ARPANET, the first usable packet switched network That is part of the Internet folklore. However, there was an earlier attempt at packet- switched networks, the NPL network in Middlesex, England (1967). ARPANET had three universities - University of California, Santa Barbara, University of California, LA (UCLA), the University of Utah - and the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), as its nodes. Bolt Beranek,and Newman Inc built it, and the first message was sent from UCLA to SRI
1970: The first of many protocols for the Internet,NCP (network communication protocol),is released by the NWG.The NCP over the years became increasingly unfeasible as more machines joined the "Net".
1972: E-mail, the first "killer app" for the Net is born.Applications like this will increasingly drive the Web's growth. The Net is still limited to scientists and academicians within computer sciences faculties. The open networking model is also proposed in this year to get over the problem of differences between the protocols developed by different agencies.
1973: First international connections to the ARPANET from Norway and UK. Other sidelights include the arrival of FTP and the Ethernet. More and more small networks will make use of this to become a profusion of small networks within offices and local areas. This is also driven by a deliberate policy to keep these networks off ARPANET's backbone.
1974: First part of TCP/IP - TCP arrives. Later they would find that TCP needed to be split into two, TCP and IP, for error control and efticiency at the packetlevel.
1978: TCP splits into TCP and IP.
1979: ICCB,the Intemet Configuration Control Board, is formed. These boards become increasingly necessary as variants of technology emerge ,and coordinating between them requires continuous effort.
1983:NCP makes way for TCP/IP.The internet is formally ushered in on January 1 , 1983.NSFNET is the first network to start off in life as a pure TCP/IP network.The internet becomes the Internet - with the capital I.
MILNET splits off from ARPANET
IAB , the Internet Activity Board ,formed.It later on becomes the Internet
Architecture Board.
1984: Domain Name System is started to get over the problem of remembering routes and network numbers.
1988:The internet faces its major security incident with the Internet worm.It made one tenth of the Net go down in its wake .The worm attacked the distributed nature of the Net itself. For more information see www.eos.ncsu.edu/eos/info/computer_ethics/dengler/wvt/internet_worm/index.html.
1989:Two more boards formed under the IAB:the IETF and IRTF.The IRTF is to be the Web's premier research agency, and the IETF is to take care of coordinating the architecture of the Internet.
1990:ARPANET dies happy.Networks proliferate and ARPANET feels not necessary for it to exist and provide services.Archie , an easier way to find files on the Net arrives. In fact , it seems like easier ways of using the NET are going to be the rage.
1991:Commercialisation of the Internet arrives and the commercial use of the NET is no longer restricted.CIX(commercial Internet Exchange) is formed.The age of the general user arrives.WWW is released at CERN and MOSAIC , a graphical browser for the WWW,is also released. I can use the Net now! Gopher , another easy way of finding information on the Net, is also released.
1992:The Internet Society is launched in 1992, and the IAB comes under ISOC.
1995:Commercialisation becomes visible.Internet addresses are no longer free.In fact , all the time there's the whisper that one could make money on the Net.More and more people get thinking about e-commerce.Sites multiply.And security becomes a big problem.Going online is the operative word and even the Vatican goes online.So do governments, and anybody and everybody.
1999::Internet 2 is here.A network that operates at a hundred to a thousand times the speed of the Internet, and enabling live video and 3D.Currently restricted to US universities,its operation reminds one of the early days of the ARPANET,restricted to academicia.Is history repeating itself?
Visit: More information about the internet
Thinkquest Participation 99Edition(http://www.thinkquest.org)
Entry from Royal College Port Louis Students
Mauritius
