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History of the Internet

The Internet (note the capital I) is the largest internet in the world. It is a three level hierarchy composed of backbone networks (e.g., NSFNET, MILNET), mid-level networks, and stub networks. The Internet is a multiprotocol internet.The 1960's witnessed the birth of a military experiment that was to evolve into what we now call the "Net". The Advanced Research Projects Agency,ARPA, was the US defense departments central research body. In 1969 it initiated plans to build a communications network designed to survive a nuclear attack.

The answer was to build a net of supercomputers that could transfer data in packets. If one part of this was destroyed the data could still find its way through the surviving nodes. A distributed system like this has no central weak point. Companies Bolt, Beranak, and Newman were contracted to build this invincible system. The task was completed with the linking of four universities by December 1969. This initial system was labelled the ARPANET. Cold war ideology, and its irrational fears gave birth to the "Net", but gradually the technology was taken over by more rational human emotions.

By 1972 ARPANET had increased to a size of thirty-two nodes. That same year a man by the name of Ray Tomlinson created an e-mail program that could send personal messages across the network (for more information on e-mail CLICK HERE). This development played an important role by helping the net move further away from its military roots. The schools with access to email were using it predominantly to communicate with colleagues.

The first international connections were made with England and Norway, in 1973. By 1987 there were over 10,000 hosts, then by 1989 it had expanded to 100,000. During the early 1990's, OSI (Open-System Interconnection) protocol implementations also became available and, by the end of 1991, the Internet has grown to include some 5,000 networks in over three dozen countries, serving over 700,000 host computers used by over 4,000,000 people. With more and more connections being made worldwide the term "Internet" arrived during the early 80's. By this time the military aspect of the system had virtually been eaten away, ARPANET was eventually dissolved. The military, of course, began to build its own network known as MILNET