The Internet in the year 2009. We send e-mails, 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 a vague idea fifty years ago. In order
to understand how we got this far let's go back to 1957, when everything began.
Before 1957 computers only worked on one task at a time. This is called 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 led to a lot of bugs, wasting
time and fraying the developers´ nerves. The year 1957 marked a big change. A
remote connection had to be installed so the developers could work directly on
the computers. At the same time the idea of time-sharing came up. This is the
first concept in computer technology to share the processing power of one
computer with multiple users. On October 4th 1957, during the Cold War the first
unmanned satellite, Sputnik 1, was sent into orbit by the Soviet Union. The fear
of a "Missile Gap" emerged. In order to secure America's lead in technology, the
US founded the "Defense Advanced Research Project Agency" in February 1958. At
that time, knowledge was only transferred by people. The DARPA planned a
large-scale computer network in order to accelerate knowledge transfer and avoid
the doubling up of 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. Its development began in 1966. Universities were
generally quite cautious about sharing their computers. Therefore small
computers were put on front of the mainframe. This computer, the Interface
Message Processor, took over control of the network actvitities, while the
mainframe was only in charge of the initialization of programs and data files.
At the same time, the IMP also served as interface for the mainframe. Since only
the IMPs were interconnected in a network this was also called IMP-subnet. For
the first connections between the computers the Network Working Group developed
the Network Control Protocol [Network Control Program]. Later on, the NCP was
replaced by the more efficient Transmission Control Protocol. The specific
feature of the TCP is the verification of the file 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 transfer were expected. In order to
avoid congestion of the lines, the sent files were divided into smaller packets
which were put together again at the receiver. "Packet Switching" was born! In
1962 American ferret aircrafts discovered middle and long range range missiles
in Cuba, which were able to reach the United States. This stoked fear of an
atomic conflict. At that time information systems had a centralized network
architecture.
To avoid the 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-wave radio waves wouldn't work anymore. Therefore they had to use direct
waves, 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 layed on the communication with other
networks. In this way the term "inter-net" 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´ protocol went through all machines using a physical
layer that was implemented into the hardware, providing a direct connection with
the receiver – an end-to-end structure. Inspired by the Cyclades network and
driven by the incompatibility between the networks, their connection gained in
importance everywhere. The phone companies developed the X.25 protocol which
enabled communication through their servers – in exchange for 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 its ends and the channel's 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 28, 1990 the ARPANET hardware was removed, but the Internet was up
and running.
Документальный фильм "History of the Internet"
