The Humble Beginnings of Internet Discovery

The year is 1957 and the USSR has just launched the first artificial earth satellite. In response America launches the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) within the Department of Defense (DOD) to create America"s lead in science and technology. The Internet had its humble beginnings here, The Internet has become one of the key symbols of today"s pop culture: everything has a "dot com" address; people do not say "call me," but instead its "I"ll E-mail you;" and the new word on the stock market is "E-business.

The Internet has not always been such a key figure in American life; in fact it was The theory for the Internet first started being published in 1961 with Leonard Kleinrock"s document on packet-switching theory, "Information Flow in Large Communication Net. " This document presented the theory behind the first problem of the Internet, and how to solve it1. The problem was this: when a large document is sent then pieces of it become lost in transfer and the entire document has to be resent, but then different pieces are missing from the new copy of the document.

This is a major problem and the obvious solution is to "chop" the information up into smaller pieces and then transmit the smaller ieces2. Then another problem was realized, how does the computer know where to put these small bits of information? The solution to that was what has come to be known as packet-switching (PS). In PS, the entire document is sent in a bunch of tiny "packets," these packets contain the information of the document "wrapped" in its placement on the page.

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The receiving computer then sends a message back to the transmitting computer telling it which packets were corrupted or missing and the transmitting computer then re-sends the lost The next problem that the Internet faced was first discovered at the ARPA"s networking project, ARPAnet. Since it was militarily connected, the leaders of ARPAnet wanted a way that information could be moved between two computers without requiring a direct connection in case the direct link between two computers failed (was destroyed).

The way that the ARPAnet project dealt with this was by having the network bounce the information around without it taking a direct path to the receiving computer4. The result of this was that almost no two packets will travel the same path and there will always be a The final problem that ARPAnet came across was the fact that most omputers did not run exactly the same hardware or software as another. Their solution to this was to build smaller computers (called Interface Message Processors or IMPs) that were in direct contact with the main computer and also in connection with the other IMPs on the network.

All of the IMPs were built to the same specifications so that one could easily communicate with the other5. In 1968 all three of these developments were put into action when ARPA sent out proposals and requests for contractors. Bolt, Beranek, and Newman, Inc. (BBN) were awarded the contract to build the IMPs, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) was awarded the Network Measurement Center contract, and the Network Working Group (NWG) was formed to develop host protocols for the soon to be developed ARPAnet. Nodes are set up as soon as BBN builds the IMP for that location.

The first node was at UCLA and installed on August 30, 1969. It was the Network Measurement center and ran on the SDS SIGMA7 operating system. The second node was setup on October 1, 1969, at Stanford Research Institute. It was the Network Information Center (NIC) and ran on the SDS940/Genie operating system. Node three was installed November 1, 1969, at University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). It served as the mathematical engine for the network and ran on the IBM 360/75 operating system. The fourth, and final, node of the ARPAnet was put at University of Utah in December.

This computer ran the graphics for the ARPAnet, and ran on the DEC PDP-10 operating system6. The connecting of these different operating systems and computers showed that the idea behind the IMPs really worked. On October 29 the first packets were sent by Charley Kline at UCLA as he tried logging into SRI. The system crashed as the letter "G" of "LOGIN" was being The ARPAnet was a far cry from the Internet of today: there was no e-mail, no web pages, and no AOL. This began to change in the 1970"s. The first step was the cross-country link between UCLA and BBN.

As a result of this, fifteen nodes (twenty-three hosts) were connected to the ARPAnet. BBN also developed a cheaper IMP, and a new IMP that supports up to sixty-four hosts, instead of the old four hosts. Then Ray Tomlinson developed an E-mail program for the ARPAnet, and in the following year, Larry Roberts wrote an E-mail management program that allows people to selectively read, file, forward, and respond to messages. Quickly after that development the first computer-computer chat occurs and is demonstrated at the International Convention on Computer Communications.

Then the first international links to ARPAnet are installed in the United Kingdom and Norway. In 1974, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn publish "A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection" that outlined, in detail, a design of a Transmission Control Program (TCP)7. During the same year, BBN opened Telnet, the first public packet data service (a commercial version of ARPAnet). Vint Cerf also draws the ideas for gateway architecture on the back of an envelope in a hotel lobby. Three years later his ideas are employed as BBN provides the gateways for the first true Internet (one that uses Internet protocol, which was then a part of TCP).

Shortly after that, in 1978, TCP is split up into TCP/IP (Transmission Control In 1979 there was a new development in the ARPAnet with the addition of the Packet Radio Network (PRNET). To conduct experiments of the PRNET computers were literally loaded up in vans and driven around until they could not communicate. Also, on April 12, Kevin MacKenzie sends out a message suggesting the use of emotions (such as ":)" for happy) and is heckled by most f the people he sends an E-mail to. None of these folks had any idea that it would become the huge phenomenon it is today.

Later on, in 1982, the Internet begins to become a reality when Norway leaves ARPAnet and connects using a TCP/IP connection over the SATNET (Satellite Network), and ARPA finally designated TCP/IP as the protocol suite for ARPAnet and the term "Internet" is born. Now the entire world is open for communication by the connecting of the specific countries networks to those of the SATNET. Then, in 1985, Symbolics. com becomes the first registered domain name, and NetNorth is connected to provide Canada with coast-to-coast onnectivity one hundred years to the day after the last spike for the November 2, 1988, the day the net stood still.

Robert Morris Jr. , son of NSA chief scientist Robert Morris Sr. , sent out what will forever be known as the "Morris Worm. " The Morris Worm clogged up about ten percent of the Internet--a small amount, but enough to crash the Internet and land Mr. Morris (Jr. ) a hefty fine and prison time. Earlier in that year, Internet Relay Chat was developed; something that has become one of the key factors in Internet usage In the ten years since the Morris Worm the Internet has gone mainstream.

After the ARPAnet ceased, the Internet had an explosion in usage and has become the giant that Americans know today. It has transformed from its humble beginnings, when it crashed on the first attempted remote LOGIN, into an economy driving, pop culture staple. Few people have heard of men such as Leonard Kleinrock, but none can say he has not contributed to America today. So, when you think about the Cold War, think about Sputnik and the Internet it Hafner, Katie; Lyon, Matthew. Where Wizards Stay up Late: The Origins of the Kristula, David. "The History of the Internet. "

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