The Big Bang Of Communication Online And Who The Heck Invented The Internet Anyway?

While browsing your favorite sites, checking your email, or chatting with friends on Facebook, you must have thought about how it actually works at some point. The wonderful new age of technology and communication brought us many wonders and possibilities.

More than a century ago people were still exchanging information through the only means of communication at the time, the written word. While consuming knowledge and useful information through just books or pure communication, a man's dream was a huge global network which would connect all the people regardless of the distance. The invention of the first phone during the 19th century helped in improving the communication between people at distance but still, even with the invention of the television system and, of course, the main source of information for the masses - the newspaper, something was missing.

The entire breakthrough invention that changed the human perspective are connected to certain names, so the question "who actually invented the Internet?" surely came to anyone who has ever used the Internet, exchanged few emails or built a web site. Well, there isn't a person to whom we could actually pin this invention to but there are certainly a few names who contributed to the progress of this major breakthrough.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - DARPA originally developed the Internet. They did this with the purpose of sharing the defense research information between the universities and facilities that were involved. At the start it was just FTP sites and a form of a message board - the Usenet that enabled the scientists to post questions and then give answers to each other. This form of network was called ARPANET. The developing of its concept started in 1964, while the first exchanged messages were passed in 1969, between the Stanford Research Institute and UCLA.

In 1961, Leonard Kleinrock (MIT) wrote and published a paper that expressed his idea on packet switching. His idea is considered to be of the essence when it comes to the Internet and how it actually can work.

This idea replaced the old "circuit switching" concept where a real electrical circuit needs to be established from the source to the desired destination. This idea was behind the good old telephone exchanges.

Packet switching has a purpose to "rout" the packets of any data from one position to another. This is based on the address of information which the data carries, similar to the address written on the letter. With the use of packet switching, all of the packets that are destined for a huge number of users can share just one physical connection towards the Internet.

Packet switching indeed matters a lot when it comes to many services Internet has to offer today, like the World Wide Web (WWW) where handling traffic is of the highest importance.

Once Leonard Kleinrock's concept was proven, the process for standardization began.

TCP/IP, the communication protocol, developed by Robert Kahn and Vint Cerf in 1974 was very important for the development of the Internet, while the creation of the Ethernet is credited to Robert Metcalfe. Ethernet is considered to be the basic standard of communication in computers on the network.

Another figure that is credited for the development of the World Wide Web and making it more public friendly is definitely Tim Berners-Lee.

When it comes to the WWW, many people mix the World Wide Web with the Internet. However, these two are two different things. The WWW is a full set of documents that reside on all of the Internet servers that are using the HTTP protocol. These documents are accessible to all users simply via a "point and click" system. On the other hand the Internet is an interconnected system that consists of many networks and it connects computers worldwide through the TCP/IP protocol.

Being oceans apart from someone and at the same time being able to communicate or send important information or data in just a few seconds is a revelation that brought people around the globe closer together. The development of the Internet and networks is unlimited and it grows more everyday offering astonishing possibilities and applications for easier and more fun interaction.


Submitted by The Computer Guy at:
http://www.thegreenbug.com.au/