The Internet in the year Two Thousand and 9
We send emails,
make calls over the internet, and discuss topics we take an interest in
even our banking is going virtual!
But what we take for granted today
was only vague idea fifty years ago.
In order to understand how we got this far,
let's go back to
nineteen fifty-seven
when everything began.
Before nineteen fifty-seven, computers only worked on one task at a time;
this is called a batch processing.
Of course this was quite ineffective.
With computers getting bigger and bigger, they had to be stored in special cooled
rooms;
but then the developers couldn't work directly on the computers anymore,
specialists had to be called in to connect them.
Programming at that time meant a lot of manual work and the indirect connection
to the computers lead to a lot of bugs, wasting time, and fraying the developers nerves.
The year nineteen fifty seven marks a big change.
A remote connection had to be installed
so that the developers could work directly on the computers;
at the same time the idea of time sharing came out.
This is the first concept in computer technology -
to share the processing power of one computer with multiple users.
On October fourth nineteen fifty-seven, during the cold war,
the first unmanned satellite, Sputnik One
was sent into orbit by the Soviet Union.
The fear of a missile gap emerged.
In order to secure America's leading technology, the US founded the Defense
Advanced Research Project Agency in February nineteen fifty-eight.
At that time
knowledge with only transferred by people.
The DARPA planned a large-scale computer network in order to accelerate
knowledge transfer
and avoid the doubling up above already existing research.
This network would become the ARPANET
Furthermore three other concepts were to be developed which are fundamental for
the history of the internet.
The concept of a military network by the Rand Corporation in America.
the commercial network of the National Physical Laboratory in England
and the scientific network Cyclades in France
the scientific
military
and commercial approaches of these concepts are the foundations for our modern
internet
let's begin with the ARPANET the most familiar of these networks
it's development began in nineteen sixty six
universities which are really quite cautious about sharing their computers
therefore small computers were put in front of the mainframe
this computer the Interface Message Processor took over control of the
network activities while the mainframe was only in charge of the initialization
of programs and data files.
At the same time the IMP also served as the interface for the mainframe.
Since only the IMPs were interconnected in a network this was also called an IMP
subnet.
For the first connections between the computers
the network working group developed the Network Control Protocol,
later on the NCP was replaced by the more efficient Transmission Control
Protocol.
The specific feature of the TCP is the verification of the final transfer.
Let's take a short detour to England.
Since the NPL network was designed on a commercial basis,
a lot of users
and file transfers were expected,
in order to avoid congestion of the lines, the sent files were divided into
smaller packets
which were together again at the receiver;
packet switching was born.
In nineteen sixty two
American aircraft discovered middle and long-range missiles in Cuba which were
able to reach the United States.
This stoked fear of atomic conflict.
At that time information systems had a centralized network architecture.
To avoid a breakdown during an attack
a decentralized network architecture had to be developed
which in case of loss of a node
would still be operative.
Communication still used to work through radio waves,
that would have caused problems in case of an atomic attack.
The ionosphere would be affected and the long way a radio waves wouldn't work
anymore;
therefore they had to use direct ways which however don't have a long range.
A better solution was the model of a distributed network,
thus long distances could be covered with a minimum of interference.
Another milestone followed with the development of the French network
Cyclades.
Since Cyclades had a far smaller budget than ARPANET and thus also fewer
nodes,
the focus was laid on the communication with other networks.
In this way the term Internet was born.
Moreover
Cyclades' concept went further than ARPA's and the NPL's.
During communication between sender and receiver the computers were not to
intervene anymore, but simply serve as a transfer node.
Cyclades' protocols went through all machines using a physical layer that was
implemented into the hardware
providing a direct connection with the receiver
and an end to end structure.
Inspired by the Cyclades network and driven by the incompatibility between
the networks, that connection gained in importance everywhere.
The phone companies develop the X point 2 five protocol which enabled
communication through their servers in exchange for a monthly basic charge
of course.
DARPA's transmission control protocol was to connect the computers through gateways,
and the international organization for standardization designed the OSI
reference model
the innovation of OSI
was the attempt to standardize the network from it ends and the channels
division into separate layers.
Finally the TCP assimilated the preferences of the OSI reference
model and gave way to the TCP/IP protocol
a standard which guaranteed compatibility between networks,
and finally merged them, creating the Internet.
by February twenty eighth nineteen ninety the ARPAnet hardware was removed
but the Internet was up and running!