In 1957 the Soviet Union launched the first man made satellite into space called Sputnik and this shocked the Americans. At this time the cold war was at its peak, the USA and Soviet Union considered each other enemies.
The Americans thought that if the Soviet Union could launch a satellite into space they could launch a missile at North America.
In 1958 as a direct response to Sputnik President Dwight D. Eisenhower created ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) which was supposed to give the United States a technological advantage over the other countries. Part of ARPA’s mission was computer science.
In the 1950s, computers were enormous devices that lacked processing power and filled an entire room. Most computers could only read magnetic tapes or other sorts of punch cards and in no way could be networked together.
ARPA enlisted a company BBN (Bolt, Beranek and Newman) to create a computer network. The network had to connect four computers all running a different OS (Operating System). They called this network ARPANET.
The first four computers in ARPANET all used different operating systems. The system's designers had to come up with a common set of rules the network would follow in order for the computers to communicate with each other without crashing the system. These rules are called protocols. The first set of protocols was collectively called the Network Control Protocol (NCP). In 1983, ARPANET switched to the Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol suite (TCP/IP), the same set of rules the Internet follows today.
Without ARPANET, the Internet wouldn't look or behave the way it does today -- it might not even exist. Although other groups were working on ways to network computers, ARPANET established the protocols used on the Internet today. Moreover, without ARPANET, it may have taken many more years before anyone tried to find ways to join regional networks together into a larger system.
In 1973, engineers began to look at ways to connect ARPANET to the packet radio network (PRNET). A packet radio network connects computers through Radio transmitters and receivers. Instead of sending data across phone lines, the computers use radio waves. It took three years, but in 1976 engineers successfully connected the two networks.
Technicians joined the Satellite Network (SATNET) to the other two networks in 1977. They called the connection between multiple networks inter-networking, or the Internet for short. Other early computer networks soon joined. They included USENET, BITNET, CSNET and NSFNET.
In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee developed a system designed to simplify navigation on the Internet. In time, this system became known as the World Wide Web. It didn't take long for some people to mistakenly identify the Internet and the Web as the same thing. The Internet is a global interconnection of computer networks; the World Wide Web is a way to navigate this massive network. In sailing terms, it's like comparing an ocean to a ship.
Today, the Internet is more complex than ever. It connects computers, satellites, mobile devices and other gadgets together in a massive network millions of times more intricate than the original ARPANET. And to think, we owe it all to a silver beeping ball that once orbited miles above the Earth’s surface.
If you’re ever on facebook and this blog should come to mind, without the Cold war facebook never where possible.
Happy Blogging,
Xtasty
