|
Who
Invented The Internet?
By Mike
Bianchini, Network Technician Bardissi
Enterprises
This is a great
question that we often get asked. There is a
urban legend that Al Gore claims he invented
the internet. He didn't but here is the best
information we can find.
From
http://www.boutell.com:
No one person
invented the Internet as we know it today.
However, certain major figures contributed
major breakthroughs:
Leonard
Kleinrock was the first to publish a
paper about the idea of packet switching,
which is essential to the Internet. He did
so in 1961. Packet switching is the idea
that packets of data can be "routed" from
one place to another based on address
information carried in the data, much like
the address on a letter. Packet switching
replaces the older concept of "circuit
switching," in which an actual electrical
circuit is established all the way from the
source to the destination. Circuit switching
was the idea behind traditional telephone
exchanges.
Why Packet Switching Matters
The big advantage of packet switching: a
physical connection can carry packets for
many different purposes at the same time,
depending on how heavy the traffic is. This
is much more efficient than tying up a
physical connection for the entire duration
of a phone call. And for services like the
World Wide Web, where traffic comes in
bursts, it's essential.
What if Google needed a separate modem and
phone line to talk to every user, like an
old-fashioned BBS (Bulletin Board System)?
Handling millions of users would be
prohibitively expensive.
With packet switching, packets destined for
thousands or millions of users can share a
single physical connection to the Internet.
J.C.R. Licklider was the first to
describe an Internet-like worldwide network
of computers, in 1962. He called it the
"Galactic Network."
Larry G. Roberts created the first
functioning long-distance computer networks
in 1965 and designed the Advanced Research
Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), the seed
from which the modern Internet grew, in
1966.
Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf invented the
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) which
moves data on the modern Internet, in 1972
and 1973.
Radia Perlman invented the spanning
tree algorithm in the 1980s. Her spanning
tree algorithm allows efficient bridging
between separate networks. Without a good
bridging solution, large-scale networks like
the Internet would be impractical.
By 1983, TCP
was the standard and ARPANET began to
resemble the modern Internet in many
respects. The ARPANET itself was taken out
of commission in 1990. Most restrictions on
commercial Internet traffic ended in 1991,
with the last limitations removed in 1995.
|
