This section introduces the history of the Internet. It begins with MIT attempting to create a computer simulator for Navy training during World War II. Before this point, computers functioned as “powerful adding machines” and operated using batch processing. In order for MIT to accomplish it’s goal, it needed to create a computer that operated in “real” time. This lead to a computer that operated using feedback principles. This ability for computers to slow down, speed up and stay ahead on single tasks led to further innovation. Soon the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) initiative took over the project and contracted out both the IBM Corporation and the Digital Equipment Corporation. Together they created the application software that allowed the computer to do multiple tasks and still keep up with operators.
Soon a man came along who had the idea to connect computers and have them work together. He called it “man-computer symbiosis.” His name was J.C.R. Licklider. A community created the Internet, but if one man could be called the chief architect, it was Licklider. He joined the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA), which supplied monetary resources and the ability to take a risk. By the 1980’s the ARPANET, as they called it, got too big for a government program so Al Gore wrote legislation to privatize it. In 1991, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) took over. At this point, geeks and programmers mostly used the Internet. It didn’t become mainstream until Tim Berners-Lee created the first “browser” and Marc Andreessen added graphics and made it more user-friendly. The rest is history; the Internet was the new big thing.
A for Mitch.
ReplyDeleteWould you believe I'm old enough, and tech savvy enough, to remember when there was more than one "net" and to have worked on a couple of them? Bitnet mostly. And I remember engineering students who were allowed to connect to ARPAnet, but I wasn't.
I'll also admit to 1) being on a committee formed because of this new thing called the Internet and how my university was going to use it, and 2) being one of the negative people because I couldn't figure out what made the idea more attractive than what we already had. That was in late 1993 I think.
The guy who dreamed up big chunks of this died about 4 weeks ago. Paul Baran's obituary appeared in The New York Times on March 28th. I learned a lot from it just as extracurricular reading. His main contribution was packet switching: breaking something digital into pieces, sending them different directions, and reassembling them at the end.