The Internet has a rich history thanks to many great inventors.
In this article we are going to explain how the Internet was invented and the different technological concepts.
How the Internet started?
In 1966, the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPA) was founded by the US Department of Defense, which built on the Licklider idea and created a viable prototype of the Internet.
It used packet switches to allow multiple computers to communicate over a single network.
In the following years, engineers Vinton Cerf, known as the father of the Internet, and Robert Cahn developed a communication model for standard data transmission over multiple networks.
They called it the communication model for the standardized transmission and control protocol (TCP) and later the Internet protocol (IP).
Then, this network connected computers at universities, government agencies, and defense contractors all over the world and was in many ways the forerunner of the internet as we know it today.
With the growing popularity of the Internet, many people started to adopt the “Internet” word in their vocabulary.
Nowadays, thousands of different organisations operate their own networks and have interconnection agreements.
The scientists and engineers who invented the Internet
Most people consider Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn, who developed the TCP Protocol in 1973, to be the inventors of the web.
But it is unfair to attribute the invention of the network to one individual.
Indeed, there are many scientists that made the Internet a reality and they worked in locations as diverse as the French government-sponsored Cyclade computer network, the national physical laboratory of England, the University of Hawaii and Xerox, etc…
Some of them are:
- Paul Baran who worked on creating a distributed network.
- British scientists at the same time developed a similar technology as Roberts and Kleinrock at the National Physical Laboratory in Middlesex.
- Based on Donald Davies ideas, Louis Pouzin developed the Cyclade Packet Switch Network to explore alternative ARPANET designs and support Internet research.
The first viable prototype of the Internet
The first viable prototype of the Internet emerged with the founding of ARPANET, the Network of Advanced Research Projects Agency in the late 1960s.
The ARPENET was funded by the US Department of Defense.
It used packet switching to enable multiple computers to communicate over a single network.
Although it was a network that developed with great success into what we know as the Internet, membership was limited to certain academic and scientific organizations mandated by the Ministry of Defense.
The Sublink Network: application of the web network concept to the public
The Sublink Network, launched in 1987 and established in Italy in 1989, was one of the first examples of the advancement of Internet technology through its spread among the population.
Sublink based its network on the UUCP and distributed e-mails, messages and group messages between its Italian nodes, which at the time were 100% owned by private individuals and small businesses.
How the Internet works in simple words
The Internet by definition is a global network of connected devices that uses a wide range of electronic, wireless and optical network technologies to exchange DATA.
The network mostly use the Internet Protocol Suite (TCP / IP ) to connect devices to devices.
The Internet offers a wide range of information resources and services, including links to hypertext documents and applications on the World Wide Web (WWW), e-mail, telephony and file sharing.
The method of transferring electronic data has become one of the most important building blocks of the Internet.
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