The History of the Internet - Part I
The concept of a network of computers, exchanging programs and data, were first conceived in the August of 1962, by J.C.R. Licklider of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He conceived a network of computers, interlinked to each other, and which share information from one to another. He set into motion, the concept of Computer Networking. In 1965 an MIT scientist named Leonard Kleinrock developed the packet switching network, in which the data is transmitted as blocks or packets. Earlier, it was thought that circuit switching was the way to communicate between computers in a network, but later was abandoned to packet switching, as it was more reliable, efficient, and needed less resources. Circuit switching software networking, is where the sender and receiver, both are connected by a dedicated communications channel, and have the full bandwidth of the channel for the duration of the communication. An example of this would be a telephone call, between two persons.
Packet switching involves sending information in a packet form, which would consist of a header with address and routing information, and a message body. These packets get routed through different computers, until it reaches its final destination computer. A common example would be an email, which is sent by a person in one computer, and it is broken into packets. Each packet is then routed through different computers, until it reaches its destination computer. In the final computer, all the packets are reassembled, and is presented as an email for the recipient. Using packet switching, communicating from computer to computer became a feasible improvement. In 1965, using packet switching, the first computer to computer messaging was done over the telephone network, between a computer in Massachusetts and a computer in California.
In
1969, the first computer network ARPANET was born, when a
computer in the
University
of
California
at
Los Angeles
, and a
computer in
the
Stanford
University
were connected. And then a message was successfully sent through them.
By the end of 1969, two more computers joined the ARPANET to a total of four. They were from the UC Santa Barbara, and the University of Utah . In 1971 more computers in Hawaii , Britain , and Norway , were added to the ARPANET network. The ARPANET was the predecessor of the INTERNET.
But it was difficult to communicate, as there were no proper procedure, for the computers to interface effectively. The procedure of communication is known as a protocol, similar to the way , one country communicates with another country using the diplomatic protocol. Both have a set of rules and interfaces. Then came a computer scientist by the name of Vinton Cerf, who developed a procedure or protocol, for one computer to communicate with another. This protocol was known as 'Transmission Control Protocol-Internet Protocol'. It gained popularity and then became widely known by its acronym TCP/IP. Protocol is a way a computer communicates with another computer, through a handshake, by which both computers identify to each other and pass the data. The protocol TCP/IP was widely used in the 1980s. There were also other protocols developed, like the X.25 and others from major companies like IBM, Digital Equipment Corporation, and Xerox. But TCP/IP was the most popular. The ARPANET grew bigger, with more and more computers added to its network. The ARPANET defined the 1980s.
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