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The 1980's

A big event in 1981 was the creation of BITNET (Because Its Time Network) which offered e-mail for discussion lists (listserv software was developed for this network).

In 1981, NSF (National Science Foundation) created a backbone called the CSNET 56 Kbps network, it was intended to be used by institutions that don’t have connection to APRANET.

In 1983 the name server (and in 1984 became the Domain Name System or DNS) was developed by The University of Wisconsin , meaning that there was no longer a need to remember numbers, but names. Also TCP/IP was now a must in order to connect to ARPANET, the new TCP/IP protocol has replaced the old NCP protocol completely.

Also in 1983, the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) was created, a technical advisory group.

In 1984, ARPANET was split into two networks. One was MILNET, a network for military uses, and the other was, ARPANET, was used to support the advanced research component. The DOD (Department of Defense) continued to support both of the networks.

A new network appeared in 1985-8, NSFNET (National Science Foundation Network), which had a backbone of T1 (1.544 MBPS!) lines. The creation of NSFNET was a major step to today’s fast Internet.