A Brief Evolution of the Internet
Tuesday, November 8th, 2011
If you’re reading this blog, you know how to use the Internet. That is, of course, unless you’re looking over someone’s shoulder. For the purposes of this post, we’ll run with the idea that you have at least a passing interest in the World Wide Web. Perhaps you’ve even been kicking around the idea of learning how to make your own website for free.
Whether you’re an Internet novice or on your way to creating a stunning site, learning the history of the Internet is important if we want to know where it is going. Here is a very brief history of what we lovingly refer to as “the net”:
1969: the first computers at UCLA and Stanford connect. Called Arpanet, the link supposedly crashed when the letter ‘g’ was types. What was the intended message? “Login”. In the same year, Unix, the parent of Linux and FreeBSD, was introduced.
1970: Arpanet grows and includes Harvard, MIT and BBN.
1971: Ray Tomlinson introduces email. Project Gutenberg is also introduced in 1971. The project is considered the birth of the eBook.
1972: Cyclades is introduced in France; a project very similar to Arpanet.
1973: Arpanet crosses the big pond for the first time, connecting with the University College of London.
1974: TCP/IP is born through a proposed inter-network.
1975: ‘Reply’ and ‘Forward’ options are added to email by John Vittal of the University of Southern California.
1977: the first PC Modem is introduced and sold.
1978: BBS (bulletin board system) is developed in Chicago. Also in 1978, the bane of the computer world, spam, is born.
1979: the first word-based multi-player game, MUD, is introduced. Usenet is created and introduced, allowing people from around the world discuss topics of interest.
1980: hypertext is used by scientists at The European Organization for Nuclear Research.
1984: DNS, or domain name servers, are created.
1987: there are now over 30,000 hosts on the Internet.
1988: Internet Relay Chat is launched and the first worm is released.
1989: AOL is released and the World Wide Web is on the horizon.
1991: the World Wide Web introduces its first web page.
1993: Mosaic allows non-geeks easier access to the Internet.
1995: the ‘net becomes commercialized with what will become eBay and Amazon.com. JavaScript is also launched.
1998: we are introduced to Google! and Napster.
2003: the world is introduced to VoIP and MySpace.
2004: The Facebook is used by college students for the first time.
2005: YouTube is launched.
2006: Twitter has users tweeting all over the world.
2007: Apple renews interest in mobile web browsing with the iPhone.
And that, in a nutshell, is a timeline of the history of the Internet. Interesting, isn’t it, to see how far we have come in such a short amount of time. The future will be an exciting place!