History of the Internet

Dr Maria Elena Villapol

January 2009

1957
Spuntnik was launched.
Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) in
the Department of Defense (DoD) was formed
as response.

Mid-1960s
Mainframe computers were
standalone computers.

ARPA
Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) in
the Department of Defense (DoD) was
interested in finding a way to connect
computers.
So researchers, they funded could share they
findings.

1959-1967
There was some research
on packet networks:
Lenoard Kleinrock:
Information Flow in Large
Communication Networks,
PhD Thesis, 1961.
Paul Baran, RAND: "On
Distributed Communications
Networks" - Packet-switching
(PS) networks; no single
outage point, 1961.
Larry Roberts/Tom Marill
publish first paper on
network experiments, 1966.

1965
ARPA sponsors study on "cooperative network of
time-sharing computers"
TX-2 at MIT Lincoln Lab and Q-32 at System
Development Corporation (Santa Monica, CA) are
directly linked (without packet switches)
Question
How were they connected?
a)
b)
c)
d)

A satellite link
A dedicated telephone line.
A radio link
TV network

1967
ACM Symposium on Operating Principles:
Larry Roberts presented a plan for a packetswitching network.
Laboratory (NPL) in Middlesex, England develops
NPL Data Network under D. W. Davies.

Donald Davies
Larry Roberts
ARPAs Director

1967
ARPA wants to build a small computer network.
It is called ARPANET later on.
Host computer would be attached to a
specialized computer, called Interface Message
Processor, IMP.
An IMP would be connected to one another.
An IMP had to be able to communicate with:
Attached host
Other IMP

1968
BBN in consulting firm in Cambridge,
Massachusetts wins the contract to build the
subnet and write the software.

1969
Question
How many nodes did the very first ARPANET
have?
a)
b)
c)
d)

2 nodes.
4 nodes.
10 nodes.
100 nodes.

1969
First node at UCLA, Network Measurements Center
[SDS SIGMA 7, SEX] :
Soon after at:
Stanford Research Institute (SRI), NIC
[SDS940/Genie]
UCSB, Culler-Fried Interactive Mathematics [IBM
360/75, OS/MVT]
Univ of Utah, Graphics [DEC PDP-10, Tenex]

1969 IMP

1969
SRI

UCLA

29 Oct 1969
First Message sent on the Internet.
Question
What was the first message ever sent on the
Internet?
a)
b)
c)
d)

What hath God Wrought (Morse, 1844)

Watson, come her, I want you (Bell, 1876)
LO (??)
One Giant Leap for Mankind (Amstrong 1969)

1969

Question
The news of the first message on the
Internet was announced by:
a) Yahoo Today News
b) Nobody noticed
c) Several newspapers, magazines, and radio and
television broadcasters around the world.

November 1969

1969: 4-node ARPANET

The Network Control
Protocol (NCP) provides
communication
between the hosts

1970
ALOHAnet developed by Norman
Abrahamson, Univ of Hawaii.
connected to the ARPANET in 1972

1971
15 nodes (23 hosts): UCLA, SRI, UCSB, Univ of
Utah, BBN, MIT, RAND, SDC, Harvard, Lincoln
Lab, Stanford, UIU(C), CWRU, CMU,
NASA/Ames.

1971

1973-1974
1973: Vinn Cerf and Bob Kahn design TCP.
1974: Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn publish "A
Protocol for Packet Network
Intercommunication" which specified in detail
the design of a Transmission Control Program
(TCP). [IEEE Trans Comm]

1978
TCP splits into TCP and IP.

1982
DCA and ARPA establish 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 definitions of an
"internet" as a connected set of networks,
specifically those using TCP/IP, and "Internet" as
connected TCP/IP internets.
DoD declares TCP/IP suite to be standard for DoD.

1986-1989
1986: Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
and Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) comes
into existence under the IAB. First IETF
meeting held in January at Linkabit in San
Diego.
1987: Number of hosts breaks 10,000
1989: Number of hosts breaks 100,000

1970-1990 Internet Applications

E-mail
News
Remote Login using Telnet, rlogin, ssh
File Transfer using FTP

1991-1993
1991:National Science Fundation (NFS) opens
Internet for commercial use.
1992: World-Wide Web (WWW) released by
CERN; Tim Berners-Lee developer.
1993: March Andreesson Mosaic Browser

1994
First spam on the Internet by two Arizonabased attorneys Lawrence Canter and Martha
Siegel.

References
Leonard Kleinrock . Brief History of the
Internet.
http://www.oid.ucla.edu/webcast/Inet35/.
R. Zakon. Hobbes' Internet Timeline.
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2235.txt.