Internet Timeline:
- 1960s: Packet-switching networks
- Paul Boran, RAND: Distributed Communications - no single outage
point
- 1967: ACM Symposium on Operating Principles
- Plan presented for a packet-switching network
- 1968: Network details presented to the Advanced Research Projects
Agency (ARPA)
- 1969: ARPANET commissioned by DOD for research into networking
- Uses NCP (Network Control Protocol) through IMPs (Information
Message Processors).
- IMP = Honeywell 516 mini computer with 12K of memory.
- First node at UCLA and soon after at Stanford Research
Institute, UCSB, and U of Utah.
- 1971: Ray Tomlinson of Bolt Beranek and Newman sends the first network
email message.
- 1972: Network of Networks starts forming
- International Conference on Computer Communications with
demonstration of ARPANET between 40 machines.
- InterNetworking Working Group (INWG) created to address
need for establishing agreed upon protocols.
- 1973: Work begins on the Transmission Control Protocol at a Stanford
University laboratory headed by Vinton Cerf.
- 1975: Operational management of Internet transferred to DCA (now DISA)
- 1970s: Store and Forward Networks
- Used electronic mail technology and extended it to conferencing
- 1976: uucp (unix-to-unix copy) developed at AT&T Bell Labs and
distributed with UNIX one year later
- 1977: THEORYNET created at U of Wisconsin providing electronic
mail to over 100 researchers in computer science. (uses uucp)
- 1979: Meeting between U of Wisconsin, DARPA, NSF, and computer
scientists from many universities to establish a Computer Science
Department research computer network.
USENET established using uucp and client/server technology.
- 1981: BITNET, the "Because Its There NETwork"
- Started as a cooperative network at the City University
of New York (CUNY).
- Provides electronic mail and listserv servers to distribute
information.
- Unlike USENET, where client s/w is needed, electronic mail
is only tool necessary.
- 1982: INWG establishes the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
and Internet Protocol (IP), as the protocol suite, commonly known
as TCP/IP, for ARPANET.
- This leads to one of the first definition of an "internet"
as a connected set of networks, specifically those using TCP/IP.
and "Internet" as connected TCP/IP internets.
- CSNET (Computer Science NETwork) comes into being providing
a dial-up capability to electronic mail. Many universities feeling
left out of ARPANET, join CSNET.
- 1983: Name server developed at U of Wisconsin, no longer requiring
users to know the exact path to other systems.
- CSNET / ARPANET gateway put in place
- ARPANET split into ARPANET and MILNET with the latter becoming
integrated with the Defense Data Network created the previous year.
- NSF takes over administering ARPANET backbone.
- Desktop workstations come into being, many with Berkeley
UNIX which includes IP networking software.
- Need switches from having a single, large time sharing computer
connected to Internet per site to connection of an entire
local network.
- 1984: Domain Name Server (DNS) introduced. It would take 4 years
for full implementation.
- 1986: NSFNET created
- NSF establishes 5 super-computing centers to provide
high-computing power to all.
- ARPANET bureaucracy keeps it from being used to interconnect
centers
and NSFNET comes into being with the aid of NASA and DOE.
- This allows an explosion of connections, especially from
universities.
- 1987: NSF awards a contract to manage NSFNET to Merit Network, Inc., which
ran Michigan's educational network in partnership with IBM and MCI.
- 1988: Graduate student Robert Morris, Jr. reveals the need for greater
network security by releasing a worm program into the Internet on November 2.
- 1989: Tim Berners-Lee proposes the World Wide Web project to CERN (European
Council for Nuclear Research).
- 1990: ARPANET is officially decommissioned. Berners-Lee writes the
initial prototype for the World Wide Web, which uses his other creations:
URLs, HTML, and HTTP.
- 1992: In March, the first MBone audio multicast is transmitted on the
Net.
- 1993: Management of NSFNET contracted out to:
- AT&T - directory and database services
- Network Solutions Inc. - registration services
- General Atomics/CERFnet -information services
- 1993: Students and staff at the University of Illinois' National
Center for Supercomputing Applications create a graphical user interface
for Internet navigation called NCSA Mosaic.
- 1994: In April, Jim Clark and Marc Andreesen found Netscape Communications
(originally Mosaic Communications). Netscape's first browser becomes available
in September and creates a rapidly growing body of web surfers.
- 1995: The Java programming language, unveiled in May, enables platform-
independent application development. "Duke" is the first applet.
- 1996: Businesses take notice of the Internet