Promoting global connectivity
The 1980s saw a rapid increase in the spread of the Internet in new regions. These connections would be the beginning of a true World Wide Web and would play a major role in setting standards and expanding Internet connectivity on a global scale.
1980
In 1980, the world experienced the rapid growth of computer networks and new protocols.
Mike Jensen started his project to develop networks to connect nonprofit organizations. His work would ultimately lead to the creation of a network for developing countries.
Source: APC
Jaap Akkerhuis was the head of Internet development in the Netherlands. He was also one of the important contributors to the development of the Internet in Europe.
Source: Internet Hall of Fame
Radia Perlman begins work on her Intermediate System to Intermediate System (IS-IS) protocol design. It would be used for IP routing, which is still used today. It is also used for the spanning tree algorithm, a technology that allows Ethernet to control larger amounts of data.
Source: Wikipedia
The CSNet (National Science Foundation Computer Science Network) is organized and created by Professor David Farber. This was essential to creating a global internet presence.
Source: Internet Hall of Fame
Dr. Van Houweling begins managing and monitoring all operations on NSFnet. This was the basis for the creation of the global Internet network.
Source: Wikipedia
The Internet Activities Board is led by Dr. Barry Leiner founded. Leiner was a DARPA manager, worked at the IAB until 1989 and helped develop various technical standards for the Internet.
Source: Internet Society
Lawrence Landweber begins creating the first network gateways between the US and Europe. He created several gateways from the USA and other European countries. Landweber worked on this project from 1980 to 1989. During this time he also organized the “Landweber Conferences” around the world to teach scientists from different countries how to build their own research, academic and national networks.
Source: Internet Hall of Fame
| People Mike Jensen – born in Johannesburg, South Africa. As an Internet pioneer and ICT expert, he founded many non-profit networks. His work helped many countries gain internet connectivity. He was named a “Global Connector” by the Internet Hall of Fame. Source: Wikipedia Jaap Akkerhuis – born in 1951 in the Netherlands. He is one of the lead research engineers working at NLnet Labs. In the early 1980s he played a leading role in the development of the Internet in Europe and the Netherlands. Source: Wikipedia Radia Perlman – born 1951 in Portsmouth, Virginia. She is a network engineer and programmer. Their greatest achievements to date have been the invention of various network standards and designs. These include various protocols such as STP and IS-S. Source: Wikipedia Van Houweling – born 1943 in Kansas City, Missouri. This computer scientist worked and managed various projects related to the Internet. These include the National Science Foundation project, the Internet2 project, and distributed computing. Source: Wikipedia David Farber – born 1934 in the USA. The computer scientist has contributed a lot to the development of computer networks and their systems. He also worked on various programming languages. He worked on the design of the SNOBOL language, ESS-1 switching system, NREN, NSFNet, CSNET and so on. Source: Wikipedia Barry Leiner – Date of birth unknown. Leiner was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame after his death. While serving as one of DARPA’s executives, he helped establish the Internet Architecture Board. He also established structures through which Internet communications protocols were developed. Source: Internet Hall of Fame Technologies |
1981
The Computer Science Network (CSNET) was founded by Lawrence Landweber and computer scientists from BBN, RAND Corporation, the University of Wisconsin, Purdue University, and the University of Delaware. The NSF provided seed money for the project and the goal was to provide network access and communications services to university scientists without ARPANET. From 1981 to 1984, the network included more than 180 state computer science, industrial and university departments.
Source: Purdue University
In the same year, BITNET was founded by Ira Fuchs and Greydon Freeman. The network was founded at the City University of New York and Yale. The acronym BITNET stood for “Because It’s Time Network”. Other universities and colleges that wanted to join the network had to obtain their own telephone lines and modems and connect for free.
Source: Wikipedia
| People Ira Fuchs – born in 1948 in the United States of America. Known as one of the co-founders of the computer network BITNET. Fuchs is also president of an online learning consulting firm called BITNET, LLC. Source: Wikipedia Technologies |
1982
The first public WAN emerged in 1982. It came about in the form of the EUUG dial-up service via EUnet, started by Teus Hagen.
Source: Internet Hall of Fame
At the same time, Asia received its first own Internet connection SDN, developed by Kilnam Chon. This was a sign that scholars in Asia needed to start promoting regional Internet development.
Source: Internet Hall of Fame
| People Teus Hagen – born in Wijnjeterp, Netherlands. He founded the European Unix User Group and the European Unix User Group. He also created the Eunet, the European Unix network. This was also the first public WAN ever. He also received the Global Connector Award from the Internet Hall of Fame. Source: Wikipedia Kilnam Chon – born 1943 in Osaka, Japan. This South Korean-Japanese computer scientist recognized the value of the Internet and thanks to his efforts, South Korea became the second country after the United States to be connected to the Internet through the System Development Network. Source: Wikipedia Technologies |
1983
In 1983, ARPANET finally switched to the more powerful TCP/IP protocol system. By then, the network was already using outdated Network Control Program protocols. This change marked the beginning of the Internet as we know it today.
Source: Wikipedia
At the same time, the Domain Name System was invented by Paul Mockapetris, which made it possible to expand the Internet to everyone in the world, not just people in the academic community. With the help of John Klensins, the first working definitions and procedures to be carried out by the administration at the DNS were established.
Sour: Internet Hall of Fame
| People Paul Mockapetris – born 1948 in Boston, Massachusetts. Mockapetris and Jon Postel invented the Domain Name System for the Internet. He was one of the Internet pioneers and is still a successful computer scientist today. Source: Wikipedia John Klensin – born in 1945. Computer scientist, internet protagonist and political scientist. He worked at the United Nations University, MIT, and was vice president of AT&T. He worked on the development of the Domain Name System and the File Transfer Protocol. Source: Wikipedia Technologies |
1984
In 1984, top-level domains such as .com, .edu and .org were introduced. Their inventor Jon Postel describes top-level domains as “administrative units”. He published a number of Internet Engineering Task Force articles. One of the things mentioned in these documents was top-level domains.
Source: Cnet.com
In the same year, Global SchoolNet was founded by Yvonne Marie Andrés. This non-profit educational organization wanted to help various people around the world for free and introduce them to important technologies and projects.
Source: Internet Hall of Fame
Ben Segal began pursuing his idea of adding TCP/IP to the Internet. He pushed this idea forward in the scientific community and at CERN until 1989. Who knows what the Internet would look like today without his involvement.
Source: CERN
The first university network called JUNET is created in Japan. It was a Unix network by Jun Murai.
Source: Internet Hall of Fame
This year Germany also received its first email. The email read “Welcome CSNET” and was greatly appreciated because of Werner Zorn’s contribution to connecting Germany to the Internet.
Source: Internet Hall of Fame
| People Jon Postel – born 1943 in Altadena, California. Postel had a very successful career in computer science. His work with internet standards is still praised today. He is known for Postel’s Law, Internet Assigned Numbers Authority and Request for Comment. Postel died in 1998. Source: Wikipedia Yvonne Marie Andres – Date of birth unknown. One of the pioneers of e-learning. She co-founded Global SchoolNet in 1984 and Global Schoolhouse in 1992. She was also behind the launch of the Friendship Through Education Initiative. Source: Wikiwand Ben Segal – Date of birth unknown. Ben Segal was responsible for adding the TCP/IP protocol to CERN. He also introduced the organization to the application programming interface and IP stack. His role in shaping the Internet was crucial. Source: Internet Hall of Fame Jun Murai – born 1955 in Tokyo, Japan. He is also called the “Internet Samurai” and the “Father of the Japanese Internet.” He founded the JUNET network, the first of its kind in Japan. Murai also founded the WIDE project and received the IEEE Internet Award in 2011. Source: Wikipedia Werner Zorn – born 1942 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. This Internet pioneer and computer scientist worked to bring email to Germany, connect China to international networks, create one of the first Internet providers in Germany, and much more. Source: Wikipedia Technologies |
1985
The very first domain name was captured and registered as Symbolics.com. It was provided to Symbolics Inc.
Source: gcn.com
Stephen Wolff’s research and education network led to the development of a brand new network called NSFNET. This was the first public network for researchers and students in the United States.
Source: Internet Hall of Fame
| People Dr. Stephen Wolff – Date of birth unknown. He is one of the many internet pioneers. His greatest contribution is the fact that he was able to commercialize the Internet and let the public benefit from it, not just the government. He was NSFNET project manager, introduced UNIX to the Army, and worked on the development of ARPANET. Source: Wikipedia Technologies statistics |
1986
The standard email routing system was developed by Craig Partridge. This technology routes email through domain names and is still used today.
Source: Internet Hall of Fame
The legendary IETF 1 takes place in San Diego, California. This was the first ever IETF meeting with 21 participants. The Internet Engineering Task Force is a global community of Internet experts who propose standards and architectural designs for the Internet.
Source: Wikipedia
| People Craig Partridge – born 1961 in Washington, Columbia District. He is a computer scientist, worked for BBN, was chairman of the Association for Computing Machinery, worked in the Internet Engineering Steering Group and so on. His best-known work is the mail and domain routing system. Source: Wikipedia Technologies |
1987
The publication of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Internet” by Ed Krol. Krol understood how valuable the Internet could be for everyone, especially the academic community. However, he knew that academics were not using the Internet properly.
That’s why he created The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Internet as a user-friendly guide to using the Internet when you don’t know how to code. The guide later became Internet Engineering Task Force RFC-1118.
Source: Internet Hall of Fame
The Internet continues to expand. Florencio Utreras, a Chilean scientist, is helping bring the Internet to his country. Chile is connected to BITNET.
Source: Internet Hall of Fame
Srinivasan Ramani began developing the Education and Research Network of India, also known as ERNET. He played a key role in building the first international gateway for ERNET, connecting it to Amsterdam.
Source: Internet Hall of Fame
In 1987, the entire southern Africa region began to be connected to the Internet. By the end of 1992, all countries in the region were connected to the Internet. One of the people who contributed the most to this project is Anriette Esterhuysen. Thanks to their hard work, much of the continent now had internet and email.
Source: Wikipedia
The African Information Society Initiative is founded with the help of Nancy Hafkin. This group is responsible for establishing email connectivity in the first 10 African countries.
Source: Internet Hall of Fame
This was also the year GIFs were born. A group of developers at CompuServe, including Steve Willhite, learned about the LMZ compression algorithm. Its efficiency and lossless quality helped these developers create the first ever GIF, and GIFs became popular very quickly. They transformed the web into a more colorful place.
Source: Cnet
| People Ed Krol – born 1951 in Chicago, Illinois. He was a respected network executive and Internet enthusiast. Krol is best known as the author of The Whole Internet and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Internet. Source: Wikipedia Florencio Utreras – born 1951 in Ancud, Chile. He is considered the father of the Internet in Chile. This mathematician and programmer was responsible for connecting Chile to Bitnet and founded the National University Network, an academic network for all of Latin America. Source: Wikipedia Srinivasan Ramani – born 1939 in India. One of India’s most important internet pioneers. He helped develop and introduce ERNET. He also worked as a coordinator for the network and helped build email and gateways for ERNET. Source: Internet Hall of Fame Nancy Hafkin – Date of birth unknown. Hafkin is one of the main people responsible for the development of information technologies, electronic communications and networking in Africa. The result of her work was the development of the PADIS network and she helped 10 countries receive email in Africa. Source: Wikipedia Steve Wilhite – Date of birth unknown. The American-born computer scientist worked as a developer at CompServe. He is the main person responsible for creating GIFs, which were a standard until the PNG format was available. Source: Wikipedia Technologies |
1988
The first Internet exchange point is created by Dr. Glenn Ricart created. This exchange point connected all government-operated TCP/IP networks to all commercial and other Internet networks in the United States.
Source: Internet Hall of Fame
The book “The User’s Directory of Computer Networks” is written by Tracy LaQuey Parker. It is one of the first truly popular books on the Internet. This book later became part of NSFNET’s historical records.
source: Internet Hall of Fame
Thanks to the hard work and dedication of Dr. Kanchana Kanchanasut Thailand finally gets its own domain name.
Source: Internet Hall of Fame
Francois Flückiger organized the very first meeting of RIPE (Réseaux IP Européens), where the organization itself was founded. RIPE is a non-profit organization focused on providing technical support and expertise for Internet infrastructure in Europe.
Source: Internet Hall of Fame
The first European Internet service provider is built by Daniel Karrenberg and his employees. Karrenberg is also one of the founders of Reseaux IP Europeens and founder of the RIP Network Coordination Center – the first regional Internet registry.
Source: Internet Hall of Fame
| People Glenn Ricart – Date of birth unknown. A successful entrepreneur and internet pioneer who contributed to the development of the internet. He helped introduce ARPANET protocols to commercial and academic sectors. He also developed the distributed mutual exclusion algorithm. Source: Wikipedia Tracy LaQuey Parker – born 1963 in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. She founded the UTech Institute, was CTO at Cisco and is currently vice president of Parker Solutions Group. She is the author of The Internet Companion and The User’s Directory of Computer Networks. Source: Wikipedia Francois Flückiger – Date of birth unknown. A French computer scientist working for CERN. He was instrumental in the founding of Ebone, RIPE and CCIRN. He also served as chairman of Intel in 1988, 2001 and 2002. Source: Wikipedia Daniel Karrenberg – born 1959 in Düsseldorf, Germany. The internet pioneer and computer scientist was involved in setting up EUnet and worked as a network administrator and research assistant at the TU Dortmund. He is also one of the founders of RIPE and worked with NSFNET. Source: Wikipedia VanJacobson – born in 1950 in the United States. This computer scientist is best known for his work improving TCP/IP protocol scaling and network performance. His work is instrumental to TCP/IP as we know it today and its role in establishing the Internet. Source: Wikipedia Technologies & Companies |
1989
The World Wide Web was created by Tim Berners Lee. While working at CERN, Lee puts the finishing touches to the World Wide Web. His partner in the project was Rober Cailliau, who secured the financing.
Source: CERN
The launch of one of the most important projects for the Internet creatures in 1989. Alan Emtage begins work on a program called “Archie”, the very first search engine. Various techniques, structures and designs used in Archie are still used in modern search engines today.
Source: Internet Hall of Fame
Tadao Takahashi begins to lay the foundation for the Brazilian Internet. The main focus is on building an academic network, but after that it becomes the backbone for building an internet connection for the whole country.
Source: Internet Hall of Fame
Dr. Stephen Goldstein begins work on global Internet development. Goldstein works to fund and evaluate Internet development initiatives around the world. Through his work, over 25 countries have been connected to the NSFNET.
Source: Internet Hall of Fame
At the same time, Australian scientist Geoff Huston was working to expand the Internet in his country from research and academic purposes to the general public. Together with Telstra, a company that provides communications services, he was able to deploy the Internet on a large scale throughout the country, as well as as a transit provider in the region.
Source: RogerClarke.com
1989 also marks the year in which the first publishing system called Wide Area Information Server or simply WAIS was created. It was developed by Brewster Kahle together with the company WAIS Inc. WAIS was a forerunner of the search engines as we know them today. It was able to index a lot of online data and make these resources searchable.
Source: Internet Hall of Fame
| People Tim Berners Lee – born 1955 in London, England. This computer scientist is the inventor of the WWW (World Wide Web). He created an information management system and established communication between HTTP and hypertext (server and client) over the Internet. He is also director of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). Source: Wikipedia Robert Cailliau – born 1947 in Tongeren, Belgium. He is an author, computer scientist and computer engineer. Together with Tim Berners-Lee, he was responsible for building the World Wide Web. He also helped move web development from CERN to the Web Consortium. Source: Wikipedia Alan Emtage – born in 1964 on the island of Barbados, Barbados. This computer scientist is best known for developing and implementing “Archie,” the first pre-web search engine that influenced the development of modern SEs. Source: Wikipedia Tadao Takahashi – Date of birth unknown, born in Japan. Takahashi was the person behind the development of RNP, the National Research Network of Brazil. He was also director of RNP for a time. In addition to spreading RNP on a public network in the country, he has also been a proponent of inclusivity in network development and management. Source: Internet Hall of Fame Stephen Goldstein – Date of birth unknown. Goldstein is praised for his efforts to spread the Internet worldwide. He was a program director at the NSF. During this time, he launched the ICM project and connected over 25 countries around the world to NSFNET. He was also involved in STARTAP, a global fast network exchange of the G7 initiative. Source: Internet Hall of Fame Geoff Huston – born 1956 in Australia. An eminent computer scientist who brought the Internet to Australia in the form of an academic network. He also connected this network to the global Internet. Houston has authored three books about ISPs. Source: Internet Hall of Fame Brewster Kahle – born 1960 in New York City, New York. This Internet activist, entrepreneur and computer engineer is a digital librarian and promoter of the Internet. He founded the Alexa Internet and the Internet Archive. He also founded WAIS Inc. along with the WAIS system, a document retrieval system and a precursor to search engines. Source: Wikipedia Technologies & Companies statistics |
To be continued