A Brief History of the Internet

An anecdotal history of the people and communities that = brought about=20 the Internet and the Web

=A92005 Walt Howe
(Last updated 7 November = 2005)

The Internet was the result of some visionary thinking by = people in the=20 early 1960s who saw great potential value in allowing computers to = share=20 information on research and development in scientific and military = fields.=20 J.C.R. Licklider of MIT, first proposed a global network of = computers in=20 1962, and moved over to the Defense Advanced Research Projects = Agency=20 (DARPA) in late 1962 to head the work to develop it. Leonard = Kleinrock of=20 MIT and later UCLA developed the theory of packet switching, which = was to=20 form the basis of Internet connections. Lawrence Roberts of MIT = connected=20 a Massachusetts computer with a California computer in 1965 over = dial-up=20 telephone lines. It showed the feasibility of wide area = networking, but=20 also showed that the telephone line's circuit switching was = inadequate.=20 Kleinrock's packet switching theory was confirmed. Roberts moved = over to=20 DARPA in 1966 and developed his plan for ARPANET. These = visionaries and=20 many more left unnamed here are the real founders of the Internet. =

When Senator Ted Kennedy heard in 1968 that the pioneering = Massachusetts company BBN had won the ARPA contract for an=20 "interface message processor (IMP)," he sent a = congratulatory=20 telegram to BBN for their ecumenical spirit in winning the=20 "interfaith message processor" contract. =

The Internet, then known as ARPANET, was brought online in 1969 = under a=20 contract let by the renamed Advanced Research Projects Agency = (ARPA) which=20 initially connected four major computers at universities in the=20 southwestern US (UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, UCSB, and the=20 University of Utah). The contract was carried out by BBN of = Cambridge, MA=20 under Bob Kahn and went online in December 1969. By June 1970, = MIT,=20 Harvard, BBN, and Systems Development Corp (SDC) in Santa Monica, = Cal.=20 were added. By January 1971, Stanford, MIT's Lincoln Labs,=20 Carnegie-Mellon, and Case-Western Reserve U were added. In months = to come,=20 NASA/Ames, Mitre, Burroughs, RAND, and the U of Illinois plugged = in. After=20 that, there were far too many to keep listing here.

Who was the first to use the=20 Internet?
Charley Kline at UCLA sent the first = packets on=20 ARPANet as he tried to connect to Stanford Research = Institute on Oct=20 29, 1969. The system crashed as he reached the G in LOGIN!=20

The Internet was designed in part to provide a communications = network=20 that would work even if some of the sites were destroyed by = nuclear=20 attack. If the most direct route was not available, routers = would=20 direct traffic around the network via alternate routes.

The early Internet was used by computer experts, engineers, = scientists,=20 and librarians. There was nothing friendly about it. There were no = home or=20 office personal computers in those days, and anyone who used it, = whether a=20 computer professional or an engineer or scientist or librarian, = had to=20 learn to use a very complex system.

Did Al Gore invent the=20 Internet?

According to a CNN transcript of an = interview=20 with Wolf Blitzer, Al Gore said,"During my service in the = United=20 States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the = Internet." Al=20 Gore was not yet in Congress in 1969 when ARPANET started or = in 1974=20 when the term Internet first came into use. Gore was elected = to=20 Congress in 1976. In fairness, Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf = acknowledge in=20 a paper titled Al Gore = and the=20 Internet that Gore has probably done more than any other = elected=20 official to support the growth and development of the = Internet from=20 the 1970's to the present .

E-mail was adapted for ARPANET by Ray Tomlinson of BBN in 1972. = He=20 picked the @ symbol from the available symbols on his teletype to = link the=20 username and address. The telnet=20 protocol, enabling logging on to a remote computer, was published = as a=20 Request for Comments (RFC) in 1972. RFC's are a means of sharing=20 developmental work throughout community. The ftp = protocol,=20 enabling file transfers between Internet sites, was published as = an RFC in=20 1973, and from then on RFC's were available electronically to = anyone who=20 had use of the ftp protocol.

Libraries began automating and networking their catalogs in the = late=20 1960s independent from ARPA. The visionary Frederick G. Kilgour of = the=20 Ohio College Library Center (now OCLC,=20 Inc.) led networking of Ohio libraries during the '60s and = '70s. In=20 the mid 1970s more regional consortia from New England, the = Southwest=20 states, and the Middle Atlantic states, etc., joined with Ohio to = form a=20 national, later international, network. Automated catalogs, not = very=20 user-friendly at first, became available to the world, first = through telnet or = the=20 awkward IBM variant TN3270 = and=20 only many years later, through the web. See The History of = OCLC

Ethernet, a protocol for many local networks, appeared in = 1974,=20 an outgrowth of Harvard student Bob Metcalfe's dissertation = on=20 "Packet Networks." The dissertation was initially rejected = by the=20 University for not being analytical enough. It later won = acceptance=20 when he added some more equations to it. =

The Internet matured in the 70's as a result of the TCP/IP=20 architecture first proposed by Bob Kahn at BBN and further = developed by=20 Kahn and Vint Cerf at Stanford and others throughout the 70's. It = was=20 adopted by the Defense Department in 1980 replacing the earlier = Network=20 Control Protocol (NCP) and universally adopted by 1983.=20

The Unix to Unix Copy Protocol (UUCP) was invented in 1978 at = Bell=20 Labs. Usenet was started in 1979 based on UUCP. Newsgroups, which = are=20 discussion groups focusing on a topic, followed, providing a means = of=20 exchanging information throughout the world . While Usenet is not=20 considered as part of the Internet, since it does not share the = use of=20 TCP/IP, it linked unix systems around the world, and many Internet = sites=20 took advantage of the availability of newsgroups. It was a = significant=20 part of the community building that took place on the networks. =

Similarly, BITNET (Because It's Time Network) connected IBM = mainframes=20 around the educational community and the world to provide mail = services=20 beginning in 1981. Listserv= =20 software was developed for this network and later others. Gateways = were=20 developed to connect BITNET with the Internet and allowed exchange = of=20 e-mail, particularly for e-mail discussion lists. These listservs = and=20 other forms of e-mail discussion lists formed another major = element in the=20 community building that was taking place.=20

In 1986, the National Science Foundation funded NSFNet as a = cross=20 country 56 Kbps backbone for the Internet. They maintained their=20 sponsorship for nearly a decade, setting rules for its = non-commercial=20 government and research uses.=20

As the commands for e-mail, = FTP, = and telnet = were=20 standardized, it became a lot easier for non-technical people to = learn to=20 use the nets. It was not easy by today's standards by any means, = but it=20 did open up use of the Internet to many more people in = universities in=20 particular. Other departments besides the libraries, computer, = physics,=20 and engineering departments found ways to make good use of the = nets--to=20 communicate with colleagues around the world and to share files = and=20 resources.=20

While the number of sites on the Internet was small, it was = fairly easy=20 to keep track of the resources of interest that were available. = But as=20 more and more universities and organizations--and their = libraries--=20 connected, the Internet became harder and harder to track. There = was more=20 and more need for tools to index the resources that were = available.

The first effort, other than library = catalogs, to=20 index the Internet was created in 1989, as Peter Deutsch and his = crew at=20 McGill University in Montreal, created an archiver for ftp sites, = which=20 they named Archie. = This=20 software would periodically reach out to all known openly = available ftp=20 sites, list their files, and build a searchable index of the = software. The=20 commands to search Archie were unix commands, and it took some = knowledge=20 of unix to use it to its full capability.

McGill University, which hosted the first Archie, found = out one=20 day that half the Internet traffic going into Canada from = the United=20 States was accessing Archie. Administrators were concerned = that the=20 University was subsidizing such a volume of traffic, and = closed down=20 Archie to outside access. Fortunately, by that time, there = were many=20 more Archies available.

At about the same time, Brewster Kahle, then = at=20 Thinking Machines, Corp. developed his Wide Area Information = Server (WAIS), = which=20 would index the full text of files in a database and allow = searches of the=20 files. There were several versions with varying degrees of = complexity and=20 capability developed, but the simplest of these were made = available to=20 everyone on the nets. At its peak, Thinking Machines maintained = pointers=20 to over 600 databases around the world which had been indexed by = WAIS.=20 They included such things as the full set of Usenet Frequently = Asked=20 Questions files, the full documentation of working papers such as = RFC's by=20 those developing the Internet's standards, and much more. Like = Archie, its=20 interface was far from intuitive, and it took some effort to learn = to use=20 it well.

Peter Scott of the University of Saskatchewan, recognizing the = need to=20 bring together information about all the telnet-accessible library = catalogs on the web, as well as other telnet resources, brought = out his=20 Hytelnet catalog in 1990. It gave a single place to get = information about=20 library catalogs and other telnet resources and how to use them. = He=20 maintained it for years, and added HyWebCat in 1997 to = provide=20 information on web-based catalogs.

In 1991, the first really friendly = interface to the=20 Internet was developed at the University of Minnesota. The = University=20 wanted to develop a simple menu system to access files and = information on=20 campus through their local network. A debate followed between = mainframe=20 adherents and those who believed in smaller systems with client-= server=20 architecture. The mainframe adherents "won" the debate = initially, but=20 since the client-server advocates said they could put up a = prototype very=20 quickly, they were given the go-ahead to do a demonstration = system. The=20 demonstration system was called a gopher = after=20 the U of Minnesota mascot--the golden gopher. The gopher proved to = be very=20 prolific, and within a few years there were over 10,000 gophers = around the=20 world. It takes no knowledge of unix or computer architecture to = use. In a=20 gopher system, you type or click on a number to select the menu = selection=20 you want.

Gopher's usability was enhanced much more when the University = of Nevada=20 at Reno developed the VERONICA= =20 searchable index of gopher menus. It was purported to be an = acronym for=20 Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Netwide Index to Computerized Archives. = A spider=20 crawled gopher menus around the world, collecting links and = retrieving=20 them for the index. It was so popular that it was very hard to = connect to,=20 even though a number of other VERONICA sites were developed to = ease the=20 load. Similar indexing software was developed for single sites, = called JUGHEAD=20 (Jonzy's Universal Gopher Hierarchy Excavation And Display).=20

Peter Deutsch, who developed Archie, always insisted that = Archie=20 was short for Archiver, and had nothing to do with the comic = strip.=20 He was disgusted when VERONICA and JUGHEAD appeared.=20

In 1989 another significant event took place = in making=20 the nets easier to use. Tim Berners-Lee and others at the European = Laboratory for Particle Physics, more popularly known as CERN, = proposed a=20 new protocol for information distribution. This protocol, which = became the=20 World Wide Web in 1991, was based on hypertext--a system of = embedding=20 links in text to link to other text, which you have been using = every time=20 you selected a text link while reading these pages. Although = started=20 before gopher, it was slower to develop.=20

3D"Marc The development in 1993 of the graphical = browser Mosaic by = Marc Andreessen and his team at the National Center For = Supercomputing=20 Applications (NCSA) gave the protocol its big boost. Later, = Andreessen=20 moved to become the brains behind Netscape Corp., which = produced the=20 most successful graphical type of browser and server until Microsoft declared war and = developed=20 its MicroSoft Internet Explorer.

MICHAEL = DERTOUZOS
1936-2001

The early days of the web was a confused period as many=20 developers tried to put their personal stamp on ways the web = should=20 develop. The web was threatened with becoming a mass of = unrelated=20 protocols that would require different software for = different=20 applications. The visionary Michael Dertouzos of MIT's = Laboratory=20 for Computer Sciences persuaded Tim Berners-Lee and others = to form=20 the World = Wide Web=20 Consortium in 1994 to promote and develop standards for = the Web.=20 Proprietary plug-ins still abound for the web, but the = Consortium=20 has ensured that there are common standards present in every = browser.

Read Tim Berners-Lee's tribute to Michael=20 Dertouzos.

Since the Internet was initially funded by the government, it = was=20 originally limited to research, education, and government uses. = Commercial=20 uses were prohibited unless they directly served the goals of = research and=20 education. This policy continued until the early 90's, when = independent=20 commercial networks began to grow. It then became possible to = route=20 traffic across the country from one commercial site to another = without=20 passing through the government funded NSFNet Internet = backbone.

Delphi was the first national commercial online service to = offer=20 Internet access to its subscribers. It opened up an email = connection in=20 July 1992 and full Internet service in November 1992. All = pretenses of=20 limitations on commercial use disappeared in May 1995 when the = National=20 Science Foundation ended its sponsorship of the Internet backbone, = and all=20 traffic relied on commercial networks. AOL, Prodigy, and = CompuServe came=20 online. Since commercial usage was so widespread by this time and=20 educational institutions had been paying their own way for some = time, the=20 loss of NSF funding had no appreciable effect on costs.

Today, NSF funding has moved beyond supporting the backbone and = higher=20 educational institutions to building the K-12 and local public = library=20 accesses on the one hand, and the research on the massive high = volume=20 connections on the other.

3D"Bill Microsoft's full scale entry into the = browser, server,=20 and Internet Service Provider market completed the major shift = over to a=20 commercially based Internet. The release of Windows 98 in June = 1998 with=20 the Microsoft browser well integrated into the desktop shows Bill = Gates'=20 determination to capitalize on the enormous growth of the = Internet.=20 Microsoft's success over the past few years has brought court = challenges=20 to their dominance. We'll leave it up to you whether you think = these=20 battles should be played out in the courts or the marketplace.

During this period of enormous growth, businesses entering the = Internet=20 arena scrambled to find economic models that work. Free services = supported=20 by advertising shifted some of the direct costs away from the=20 consumer--temporarily. Services such as Delphi offered free web = pages,=20 chat rooms, and message boards for community building. Online = sales have=20 grown rapidly for such products as books and music CDs and = computers, but=20 the profit margins are slim when price comparisons are so easy, = and public=20 trust in online security is still shaky. Business models that have = worked=20 well are portal sites, that try to provide everything for = everybody, and=20 live auctions. AOL's acquisition of Time-Warner was the largest = merger in=20 history when it took place and shows the enormous growth of = Internet=20 business! The stock market has had a rocky ride, swooping up and = down as=20 the new technology companies, the dot.com's encountered good news = and bad.=20 The decline in advertising income spelled doom for many dot.coms, = and a=20 major shakeout and search for better business models took place by = the=20 survivors.

A current trend with major implications for the future is the = growth of=20 high speed connections. 56K modems and the providers who supported = them=20 spread widely for a while, but this is the low end now. 56K is not = fast=20 enough to carry multimedia, such as sound and video except in low = quality.=20 But new technologies many times faster, such as cablemodems and = digital=20 subscriber lines (DSL) = are=20 predominant now.

Wireless has grown rapidly in the past few years, and = travellers search=20 for the wi-fi "hot spots" where they can connect while they are = away from=20 the home or office. Many airports, coffee bars, hotels and motels = now=20 routinely provide these services, some for a fee and some for = free.

The next big growth area is the surge towards universal = wireless=20 access, where almost everywhere is a "hot spot". Municipal wi-fi = or=20 city-wide access, wiMAX offering broader ranges than wi-fi, and = Verizon's=20 EV-DO will joust for dominance in the USA in the months ahead. The = battle=20 is both economic and political.

Another trend that is beginning to affect web designers is the = growth=20 of smaller devices to connect to the Internet. Small tablets, = pocket PCs,=20 smart phones, game machines, and even GPS devices are now capable = of=20 tapping into the web on the go, and many web pages are not = designed to=20 work on that scale.

As Heraclitus said in the 4th century BC, "Nothing is = permanent, but=20 change!"

May you live in interesting times! (ostensibly an = ancient=20 Chinese curse)*=20

For more information on Internet history, visit these sites:=20

Hobbes'=20 Internet Timeline . =A91993-8 by Robert H Zakon. Significant = dates in=20 the history of the Internet.=20
BBN = Timeline.=20 Similar to Hobbes'.=20
A Brief = History of=20 the Internet from the Internet Society. Written by some of = those who=20 made it happen.

Do you have a comment or question about = Internet=20 history?
Post it in the Navigating = the Net=20 Forum or write to = me.

An anecdotal history of the people and communities that = brought about=20 the Internet and the Web

=A92005 Walt Howe(Last updated 7 November = 2005)

=A92005 Walt Howe
(Last updated 7 November = 2005)