History of the Internet We won't bore you with a load of technical jargon, just an outline of how and why it all came about and a chance for you to see how it is growing at a phenomenal rate. Where will it lead? I don't think we can begin to comprehend that, as it is still very much in its infancy but think how books and the printed word have changed this planet. As an Internet user, you become a member of the first truly planet-wide community, instant communication in words, pictures, sounds, and video. Here you can find more information and entertainment than you could possibly absorb in a lifetime. Via the Internet you can do business, get world news, research hobbies or interests, make friends, influence your member of parliament, and many other things. In the early 1960's the United States of America faced a problem. What would they do for communications in the event of a nuclear holocaust? No amount of armour could protect the communications network linking city to city, state to state. This was a very unique problem associated with a nuclear war, which would tear any possible network to shreds. Any control station, any brain centre of the network would obviously be a primary target for an enemy missile. These problems were turned over to the think-tank, RAND corporation. The RAND Corporation puzzled over these problems for many months until one man, Paul Baran, came up with an ingenious plan. This plan, officially announced in 1964, was a network designed to function while in shreds, so unstructured that under normal conditions it would be considered unreliable. The different nodes, or computer control centres, were designed to communicate in an unstructured, haphazard way: one node would toss a message to any other random node in the general direction of the final destination, which in turn would toss the message to the next node and so forth, like a hot potato, until it eventually reached the final destination. This system would be very inefficient compared to other networks, like the telephone system for instance, but would be practically indestructible. This idea of a decentralized network would eventually lead to what we know today as the Internet. This was funded from the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Defence (DOD). The first network was between four university computers from Utah to Southern California. The plan was unprecedented; a University of Southern California professor and a small team of graduate students hoped to log onto the Stanford Research Institute computer hundreds of miles away, and send it a message. They would start by typing the word "login" and see if the letters appeared on the remote computer screen.  "We set up a telephone connection between us and the guys at Stanford..."  "We typed the L and we asked on the phone, 'Do you see the L?'  "Yes, we see the L," came the response.  "We typed the O, and we asked, 'Do you see the O?'  "Yes, we see the O."  "Then we typed the G, and the system crashed..." It's good to know that some things never change. The next problem to be faced was getting all of the computer nodes to understand each other. To solve this problem TCPI/IP was developed. TCP or "Transmission Control Protocol," which converts messages into small packets of data, then reassembles them back into messages at their destination. IP, or "Internet Protocol," handles the addressing, so that packets are safely sent across multiple nodes with multiple standards. Previous computer networking efforts had required a line between each computer on the network, sort of like a train track on which only one train can travel at a time. The packet system allowed for creation of a data highway, in which large numbers of vehicles could essentially share the same lane. Each packet was given the computer equivalent of a map and a time stamp, so that it could be sent to the right destination, where it would then be reassembled into a message the computer or a human could use This gave rise to the notion of the Super Information Highway One of the first peacetime uses of this network, known as ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), was for the few nodes on the network to help each other by sharing their computers' limited computing facilities with those of the other computers on the ARPANET, a very useful function for the computers of the early 1970's. By the second year of ARPANET's existence the main use for the network had changed. The main traffic was no longer long-distance computing, but rather news and personal messages. Researchers shared notes, engineers collaborated on projects, and they all gossiped. Electronic-mail (E-mail) had been invented. By the close of the 1970s, links developed between ARPANet and counterparts in other countries. The world was now tied together in a computer web. In the 1980s, this network of networks, which became known collectively as the Internet, expanded at a phenomenal rate. Hundreds, then thousands, of colleges, research companies and government agencies began to connect their computers to this world wide Net. Some enterprising hobbyists and companies unwilling to pay the high costs of Internet access (or unable to meet stringent government regulations for access) learned how to link their own systems to the Internet, even if "only" for e-mail and conferences. Some of these systems began offering access to the public. Now anybody with a computer and modem -- and persistence -- could tap into the world. In the 1990s, the Net grew at exponential rates. Some estimates are that the volume of messages transferred through the Net grows 20% a month. In response, the U.S. government and other users have tried in recent years to expand the Net itself. Once, the main Net "backbone" moved data at 1.5 million bits per second. That proved too slow for the ever increasing amounts of data being sent over it, and in recent years the maximum speed was increased to 45 million bits per second. Even before the Net was able to reach that speed, however, Net experts were already figuring out ways to pump data at speeds of up to 2 billion bits per second -- fast enough to send the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica across the country in just one or two seconds. Timeline 1969 4 Host Computers on-line   1971 23 Host Computers on-line   1973 40 Host Computers on-line   1974 62 Host Computers on-line   1977 111 Host Computers on-line   1981 200 Host Computers on-line   1982 235 Host Computers on-line   1983 562 Host Computers on-line   1984 1,024 Host Computers on-line   1985 1,961 Host Computers on-line   1986 5,089 Host Computers on-line   1987 28,000 Host Computers on-line   1988 60,000 Host Computers on-line   1989 130,000 Host Computers on-line   1990 300,000 Host Computers on-line   1992 1,100,000 Host Computers on-line   1995 6,600,000 Host Computers on-line   1996 12,800,000 Host Computers on-line   1997 19,500,000 Host Computers on-line   1998 35,600,000 Host Computers on-line 2004 350,000,000 Host Computers on-line   By the year 2008 it is estimated there will be over one Billion Host Computers on-line Summary 1969 4 Host Computers Connected on what was later to become known as the Internet. This is the birth of the Internet, also Man lands on the moon, time will tell which has the bigger impact. 1971 23 Host Computers Connected on Internet E-mail invented -- a program to send messages across a distributed network 1973 40 Host Computers Connected on Internet The first International connections to ARPANET came from UK and Norway. PhDThesis outlines idea of Ethernet 1974 62 Host Computers Connected on Internet Transmission Control Program (TCP) specified. Packet network Intercommunication -- the basis of Internet Communication. Telenet, a commercial version of ARPANET, opened -- the first public packet data service. 1977 111 Host Computers Connected on Internet THEORYNET provides electronic mail to over 100 researchers in computer science (using a locally developed E-mail system and TELENET for access to server). 1981 200 Host Computers Connected on Internet Things start to come together BITNET, the "Because It's Time NETwork" Started as a co-operative network at the City University of New York, with the first connection to Yale 1984 1,024 Host Computers Connected on Internet Domain Name Server (DNS) introduced. Instead of 123.456.789.10 it is easier to remember something like www.wdnet.co.uk 1986 5,089 Host Computers Connected on Internet 241 News groups. NSFNET created (backbone speed of 56 Kbps) NSF establishes 5 super-computing centres to provide high-computing power for all -- This allows an explosion of connections, especially from universities. 1987 28,000 Host Computers Connected on Internet Commercialization of Internet Born UUNET is founded with Usenix funds to provide commercial UUCP and Usenet access. 1989 130,000 Host Computers Connected on Internet Large growth in Internet. Number of hosts breaks 100,000 First relays between a commercial electronic mail carrier and the Internet 1990 300,000 Host Computers Connected on Internet Expansion of Internet continues 1,000 News groups ARPANET ceases to exist. Archie released files can be searched and retrieved (FTP) by name. The World comes on-line (world.std.com), becoming the first commercial provider of Internet dial-up access. 1992 1,100,000 Host Computers Connected on Internet Modernization Begins Commercial Internet eXchange (CIX) Association, Inc. formed after NSF lifts restrictions on the commercial use of the Net. Friendly User Interface to WWW by now established. Gopher released by Paul Lindner and Mark P. McCahill from the U of Minnesota. Text based, menu-driven interface to access Internet resources. No need to remember or even know complex computer command. User Friendly Interface Largely superseded by WWW, these days. Most Important development to date World-Wide Web (WWW) released by CERN; Tim Berners-Lee developer. Easy access to any form of information anywhere in the world. Initially non-graphic (this came later, (First Browser MOSAIC, 1993). Revolutionized modern communications and even our, way of life 1995 6,600,000 Host Computers Connected on Internet Well what can we say about this year! 26 into the Internet and Bill Gates still hasn't seen it's potential. He concentrates on the release of Windows 95 but that will soon change. Oh! and Registration of domain names is no longer free. 1996 12,800,000 Host Computers Connected on Internet Microsoft enter, Internet phones catch the attention of US telecommunication companies who ask the US Congress to ban the technology (which has been around for years) The WWW browser war begins, fought primarily between Netscape and Microsoft, has rushed in a new age in software development, whereby new releases are made quarterly with the help of Internet users eager to test upcoming (beta) versions. 1997 19,500,000 Host Computers Connected on Internet "The Internet is kind of like a gold rush where there really is gold," says Bill Gates, Billionaire President of Microsoft. Via the Internet it is now possible to get any bit of information from anywhere on the Earth in minutes and virtually free! One example of this was a man who back during the late 1970s had sold magnetic padlocks in the United States that were produced in Taiwan. Unfortunately, he lost contact with his supplier and thus with magnetic padlocks. Then just last month, this entrepreneur rediscovered those magnetic padlocks from Taiwan. How? By visiting Taiwan of course, but not in the flesh, but rather via cyberspace, on the Internet. Research is becoming easier as people no longer need to go to the library; the library has come to them. For example, all the research for this paper was done from the Internet. It is also possible to communicate via voice for free over the Internet. With the right hardware and software, you could talk to anyone in the world for free in "real time" albeit the signal is not as clear as the telephone. To call Tokyo for an hour would normally cost over £50, but via the Internet it is free! And that is not all! The following are only some of the limitless potential uses: shopping at any store on earth, conferencing with fellow experts in any field, banking from your home or office, and reserving tickets for travel and entertainment. 1998 35,600,000 Host Computers Connected on Internet wdnet.co.uk comes into being. As the years progress the Internet will continue to grow at exponential rates. By the turn of the century being "Internet literate" was as important as being "Computer Literate" is today. Though speculation and theories abound, it is nearly impossible to predict what the Internet will actually be like in 5 years. After all, today's Internet has next to no resemblance to RAND Corporations' post-nuclear-Armageddon command network of the '60s. Today, in whatever year this is, the web is still growing at an amazing rate. Technology has improved considerably, and the web is regarded as an indispensable tool for education, business and entertainment. There are billions of pages on the web, with thousands more being added every hour. The Internet is a system that is nigh-on impossible to destroy, and looks set to become an ever- larger influence on the world in the future. 2007 We have given our website a facelift and now re-introduced this history page but admit that we haven't done any further research since its first introduction back in 1999, we just haven't had the time. If anyone cares to update it for us we will give them full credit for the work. Anyone may feel free to use all or part of this research, we would appreciate a link back to us but it isn't a necessary condition.

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