Internet History: Timeline 1941–1970 (Part 3)

Early beginnings of the Internet

(1945

(In 1945, Vannevar Bush wrote an essay titled “As We May Think.” This essay predicted many things that would happen to computer information technology in the future. It was considered visionary and ahead of its time, introducing the “Memex” concept that was intended to be used for storing various data and communication – the computer

Source: Wikipedia

People Vannevar Bush – born 1890 in Everett, Massachusetts. This American engineer was head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development. He is one of the key players who helped found the National Science Foundation. Bush died in 1974. Source: Wikipedia Technologies Memex – Memex is a concept of the first hypertext system. His description led to the development of the first hypertext systems. It evolved into knowledge base systems and led to the beginning of the World Wide Web.

1957

The first space satellite was launched by the USSR in 1957: “Sputnik 1”. It orbited the Earth, transmitting radio communications for 22 days. The Sputnik launch in 1957 and the Atlantic Cable in 1858 were two of the most important events that impacted long-distance communications.

Source: Wikipedia

People Sergei Korolyov – born 1906 in Zhytomyr, Russia. He is called the father of space travel and was one of the best rocket engineers during the space race and the Cold War. He was the main engineer behind the launch of “Laika”, the development of the “R-7 rocket” and the launch of “Sputnik 1”. Source: Wikipedia Technologies Sputnik 1 – Sputnik 1 was the first artificial satellite to be launched into space. It was launched by the USSR. It orbited the Earth for two weeks and its launch marked the beginning of the development of space technology.

1958

In the year Sputnik was launched, the US government founded ARPA – Advanced wResearch Projects Agency – in response to the Soviet success. At the same time, AT&T Corporation released the first commercial computer modem that year.

Source: Wikipedia , Wikipedia

People Dwight D Eisenhower – born 2890 in Denison, Texas. Eisenhower was a soldier, politician and President of the United States. He was directly responsible for founding ARPA and said that America should not allow itself to be beaten by the Russians in space technology. Source: Wikipedia Technologies & Companies The ARPA organization – Founded by Eisenhower in 1958 to respond to the Russian success with Sputnik 1. ARPA’s goal was to provide research and development of various technologies for the military and the general public. It was later renamed DARPA. Source: Wikipedia Bell 101 modem – the very first commercial modem. It was capable of transmitting digital data over telephone lines. The maximum speed was 110 bit/s. Source: Wikipedia

1961

The packet switching concept was developed by Leonard Kleinrock in 1961. In his doctoral thesis at MIT he described packet switching and how it works. His “flow of information in large communication networks” had a great influence on the development of communication technologies.

Source: Time graphics

People Leonard Kleinrock – born 1934 in New York City. This computer scientist made many important contributions to computer science, but the most important discoveries he made are the data transfer theories for computer networks. Source: Wikipedia Technologies Packet switching concept – Packet switching is a well-known concept in telecommunications. This involves stacking data into group units before it is transmitted over the network. Today this is the main technology for data communications and computer networks. Source: Wikipedia

1962

When Joseph Carl Robnett Lickner wrote a series of memos in 1962, he described global interconnectedness as a concept. Licklider spoke about the “Intergalactic Computer Network” and demonstrated his advanced ideas on networks and computer technology.

Source: Internet Hall of Fame

People JCR Licklider – born 1915 in Arlington, Massachusetts. This computer scientist and psychologist is a very important figure in computer history. He expanded concepts of interactive computing, developed various graphical interfaces and founded the ARPANET. Source: Wikipedia Technologies Intergalactic network concept – known as Galactic Network and IGCN. This computer network concept was described by JCR in 1962. It was a similar network to the modern Internet. JCR said this is the main electronic platform where all information and communication can be exchanged between individuals, governments, companies and institutions. Source: Wikipedia

1963

The year 1963 marked the release of the first computer standard – ASCII. The American Standard Code for Information Exchange was established by a joint committee. The aim was to enable communication between computer devices from different manufacturers.

Although ASCII was a collaborative effort, Bob Bemer was the man most credited with its development. Bemer developed this coding system with the goal of standardizing all controls, punctuation, and letters that all computers would share.

Source: CNN

People Bob Bemer – born in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, in 1920. This American computer scientist is also known as the father of ASCII. His most important contributions to computer science came in the 1950s and 1960s when he worked at IBM. Source: Wikipedia Technologies ASCII – This computer standard inserts numbers, letters and various computer characters in an 8-bit code into 256 slots. The decimal numbers are made up of binary numbers, and the standard has been revised ten times since its inception. Source: Computer Hope

1964

In 1964, Paul Baran began developing the first news blocks. His project was completed in 1967. At the same time, Donald Watts Davies developed packet switching. The two technologies were very similar and both had a major impact on data communications in general.

Source: Rand Corporation

People Paul Baran – born 1926 in Grodno, Belarus. The Polish engineer worked and lived in the USA most of his life. He is one of the pioneers in the development of computer networks and his greatest contribution is message blocking technology, similar to packet switching. Baran died in 2011. Source: Wikipedia Watts Davies – Donald Watts Davis was born in Treorchy, Wales in 1924. He worked as a computer scientist at the British National Physical Laboratory. His greatest invention was packet switching, which is still used worldwide for data communication today. Source: Wikipedia Technologies Packet switching – This type of computer communication was a major breakthrough. In this technique, all individual data streams are divided into smaller packets that can be more easily transmitted and then extracted into original data. Source: Britannica Message Blocks – This system of exchanging information over the computer network was similar to packet switching. But Baran called the shared information “message blocks,” and these blocks would also be reassembled upon reaching the final destination. Source: Rand Corporation

1965

The first wide area network (WAN) was founded in 1965 by Thomas Marill and Lawrence Roberts. They were sponsored by ARPA for this project to create this connection between a computer in California and in Massachusetts. This system confirmed that packet switching was the best model for computer communication. The study was called “Cooperative Network of Time-Sharing Computers.”

Source: HostingCT

People Lawrence Roberts – Lawrence Gilman Roberts was born in Westport, Connecticut in 1937. This computer engineer was one of the key players in the development of the ARPANET. He made an important contribution to the development of the Internet and received a Draper Prize for his achievements. Lawrence died in 2018. Source: Wikipedia Thomas Marill – born 1929 in Massachusetts Marill was a computer scientist whose greatest contribution was the idea of ​​ARPANET. Marill died in 2000. Source: MyHeritage Technologies Wide Area Network (WAN) – a type of telecommunications network used for a wide range of communications in computing. It allows data transfer regardless of location and the entire Internet is built on WAN. Source: Wikipedia

1966

The ARPANET project was founded in 1966 by Robert Taylor. His main goal was to find a method for IPTO contractors to communicate and share valuable data resources. His inspiration was the network idea of ​​Licklider and he chose Larry Roberts to lead the project.

The ARPANET is considered the first network that resembled the Internet as we know it today. Lawrence Roberts used the concepts of the Cooperative Network of Time-Sharing Computers study to develop the plan for ARPANET.

Source: Britannica

People Robert Taylor – born 1932 in Dallas, Texas. He was one of the pioneers of the Internet and headed the Information Processing Technologies Office at ARPA in the 1960s. He was a key leader in various computer departments and projects. Taylor died in 2017. Source: Wikipedia Lawrence Roberts – Lawrence Gilman Roberts was born in Westport, Connecticut in 1937. This computer engineer was one of the key players in the development of the ARPANET. He made an important contribution to the development of the Internet and received a Draper Prize for his achievements. Lawrence died in 2018. Source: Wikipedia Technologies & Companies ARPAnet project – The “Advanced Research Projects Agency Network” project was launched in 1966 and aimed to network remote computers. Robert Taylor was the leader of the project and this network was the first to successfully use TCP/IP and packet switching technologies. These technologies are the foundation of the modern Internet. Source: Wikipedia

1967

In 1967, a year after the launch of the ARPANET project, Lawrence Roberts published the original draft of the project and described it in his paper “Multiple Computer Networks and Inter-Computer Communication.” Interface message processors are used for all major devices to manage the network.

IMPs were proposed by Wesley Clark and these devices were the predecessors of modern Internet routers. Packet switching technology for data transmission is adopted from Donald Watts Davis and his work.

At the same time, Danny Cohen is developing innovations for the real-time visual flight simulator and the real-time radar simulator. Together with Ivan Sutherland, Cohen develops line clipping algorithms for computer graphics called “Cohen-Sutherland”.

Source: HostingCT

People Wesley Clark – born 1927 in New Haven, Connecticut. He was a computer scientist and physicist. He was a great innovator in the field of computer technology hardware. Clark designed the TX-0, TX-2 and LINC computers. His IMPs were used to network the ARPANET project. Source: Britannica Danny Cohen – born 1937 in Haifa, Israel. He is one of the greatest Internet pioneers of the 1960s. Cohen used the ARPANET to run the first-ever real-time visual flight simulator. He was also the one who designed the simulator. The American-Israeli scientist died in 2019. Source: Wikipedia Ivan Sutherland – born 1938 in Hastings, Nebraska. As a computer scientist, Sutherland made important contributions to the development of the Internet. More importantly, he is one of the pioneers of modern computer graphics. Source: Wikipedia Technologies Interface Message Processors (IMPs) – The IMP was the packet switching infrastructure for ARPANET. They were connected via telephone lines and a modem. Host computers were connected to IMPs using the Host and IMP protocol. Source: Computer history wiki Visual flight simulator – The first real-time flight simulator. An algorithm was used that assigned 9 regions for 2D space and 27 regions for 3D space. It also selectively chooses the rows to display. In addition to being the first flight simulator, it also introduced many innovations in computer graphics and real-time controlled on-screen instruments. Source: Wired

1968

In 1968, the concepts of collaborative computing and hypertext were first introduced by Douglas Engelbart. In his presentation entitled “Mother of All Demos” at the Fall Joint Computer Conference, Englebart gave a presentation in which he held a live conference with his colleagues who were 30 miles away.

This iconic moment is still called the “mother of all demos.” At the moment it was something no one had seen before. This proved once again how innovative Englebart was, even if most people didn’t understand his work.

Source: Wired

That same year, the BBN – Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Inc. – entered into the contract to build the IMS for the ARPA project. The fact that Edward Kennedy (US Senator) sent a congratulatory telegram to ARPA just shows how important the entire project was.

Source: Wikipedia

At the same time, the Host Level Protocols for ARPANET were developed by UCLA. The UCLA Network Working Group was led by Steve Crocker and supervised throughout the project by Professor Leonard Kleinrock.

This group created the fundamental protocols used on the modern Internet. Key members of the project included Jon Postel and Vint Cerf.

Source: Columbia University

People Douglas Engelbart – born 1925 in Portland, Oregon. This Internet pioneer, inventor, and engineer is best known for inventing the field of human-computer interaction. He also contributed to the development of graphical interfaces, hypertext, the development of the mouse, and networked computers. Engelbart died in 2013. Source: Wikipedia Leo Beranek – born 1914 in Solon, Iowa. Beranek was the founder of BBN Technologies (formerly Bolt, Beranek and Newman), a professor at MIT and an acoustics expert. Beranek died in 2016. Source: Wikipedia Richard Bolt – born 1911 in Boston, Massachusetts. He was a co-founder of BBN Technologies and an MIT professor. Bolt has also worked extensively in acoustics. He died in 2002. Source: Wikipedia Robert Newman – Robert Bradford Neman was born in Ungkung, China in 1917. He was a founding partner of BBN Technologies and a faculty member at MIT. Newman was a great teacher and acoustic engineer. He died in 1983. Source: Newman Student Award Fund Leonard Kleinrock – born 1934 in New York City. This computer scientist made many important contributions to computer science, but the most important discoveries he made are the data transfer theories for computer networks. Source: Wikipedia Steve Crocker – born 1944 in Pasadena, California. Since his young age, Crocker became an active member of the Internet community. He worked on the development of the ARPANET Internet protocols, was a teacher at UCLA and ICANN chairman. Source: Wikipedia Vint Cerf – born 1943 in New Haven, Connecticut. One of the fathers of the Internet along with Bob Kahn for their invention of TCP/IP. Together they are also founders of the non-profit organization “Internet Society”. Source: Wikipedia 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 Technologies “Mother of all demos” – One of the most iconic moments of the computer demonstration. This live demonstration by Douglas Engelbart and his staff introduced the oN-Line System (NLS), which included software and hardware. They used the system to present all the essential aspects of modern computer science. Source: Wikipedia Host level protocols – The first host-host protocol used in ARPANET. It is designed for packet switching and transferring connections. Source: IETF tools

1969

In 1969 the Interface Message Processor was completed. ARPANET was the first physical node – a network of four different computers. The four hosts were located in:

1. The University of Utah
2. University of California at Santa Barbara
3. Stanford
4. The University of California at Los Angeles

The first data packets were sent on October 29th by a team from UCLA^Th. Charley Kline was in charge of the project while Leonard Kleinrock oversaw the whole thing. However, the first attempt was unsuccessful. The transmission was successful on the second attempt.

In the same year, Howard Frank was commissioned to design the ARPANET network structure.

Source: Wikipedia

People Charley Kline – Charley S. Kline was a computer scientist. Date of birth: unknown. He was the man behind the first login to ARPANET IMP. The first remote host initials in ARPANET were CSK, which were its initials. Source: Wikimedia Commons Howard Frank – born 1941. Frank was an electrical engineer best known as co-author of the ARPANET network structure design. He was also responsible for the topological analysis of the ARPANET. Frank died in 2017. Source: Informed Technologies First network 4 computers – The first Network 4 computers or first four hosts were SDS Sigma 7 at UCL, SDS 940 at Stanford Research Institute, IBM 360/74 at the University of California, Santa Barbara and DEC PDP-10 at the University of Utah School of Computing. These were the first hosts to host an Internet connection on the ARPANET. Source: Wikipedia ARPAnet network structure – The main concept of the ARPA network was that a single user could access another computer on the network and obtain valuable resources. This was achieved by hosts connecting to IMPs and packets were forwarded through nodes. All connections were made via telephone lines with modems. Source: Arpanet

1970

ARPANET has been extended using transatlantic IP connectivity to connect to a European node. The node was located at University College London and run by Professor Peter Kirstein.

Source: Internet Hall of Fame

That same year, Norman Abramson developed ALOHANET at the University of Hawaii. It was the world’s first packet radio network.

Source: Wikipedia

People Peter Kirstein – born 1933 in Berlin, Germany. The British-German computer scientist supervised work on the ARPANET and was the first to explore and expand the ARPANET in Europe. He also helped implement and define TCP/IP with Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf. Many consider him to be the father of the Internet in Europe. Kirstein died in 2020. Source: Wikipedia Norman Abramson – This American computer scientist and engineer was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1932. He created ALOHANET, which enabled long-distance wireless computer communication. Source: Wikipedia Technologies & Companies First European ARPAnet node – The first European computer connected to ARPANET was operated by Professor Peter Kirsten. This is just one result of his many years of academic and industrial collaboration with computer scientists in the USA. Source: Internet Hall of Fame ALOHAnet – The Aloha System or Aloha was one of the first computer network systems. It was deployed in 1970 and first demonstrated wireless packet data transmission in 1971. It used the Marisat satellite network to communicate. Source: Wikipedia

To be continued

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