A Brief History
The Internet began in concept in the early 1960s as a plan for an experiment
in preserving national Communications capabilities in the event of a national disaster. By the end of 1969 the idea
took form as the ARPANet (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network),
consisting of four superComputers (about as powerful as a typical stapler by today's standard) linked together
with dedicated data cables. The ARPANet was a success, allowing users to
exchange data and share computing resources at unprecedented speeds and distances.
As a consequency of this success, the Net grew - by the early 1970s, the ARPANet
consisted of dozens of nodes, employed by hundreds of users. This rapid growth
encouraged the standardization and implementation of two protocols - Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP) , together known as Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) . In turn, TCP/IP's ability to run on almost any type of computer accelerated
the network's expansion.
Through the 1970s ARPANet continued to grow, the primary additions being
research facilities of universities and military facilities. As computing resources
became more readily available to a wide range of users in the 1980s, the Net
(by now known as the Internet), continued to grow at an ever increasing rate.
Typically, additions were themselves networks rather than single machines, thus
leading to the common definition of the Internet as a network of networks.
The explosive growth of personal computing (see Personal Computer (PC) ) in the 1990s, combined with the rapid advances and plummeting price of
high-performance hardware, has transformed the Internet from an obscure enclave of
the high technology community into a highly accessible public forum. In contrast
to the military - and academic-driven growth of the 70s, the 90s have seen the
Internet expand to include many commercial users and non-profit organizations.
Today, the Internet is in constant flux. At any given time, the Internet may
consist of millions of computers connected to thousands of networks, serving up
to 20 million people in over 50 countries all over the world. Smaller networks
connect and disconnect continually, so no one can meaningfully map the Internet
or accurately measure its true extent.
How Do People Use the Internet?
Since the Internet's popularity skyrocketed in the early 1990s, people use the
Internet for a seemingly endless variety of purposes. Almost all Internet
tasks fall into one of five broad categories. These categories are discussed
briefly below.
Electronic Mail
The most heavily used Internet capability is almost certainly electronic mail,
or as it is commonly called, email. This is not surprising when you consider
the history of technology - among the technological innovations that have had
the profoundest impact are those involving communications. From the printing
press, to the Telegraph, to Television, society has embraced and at the same time been radically altered by
revolutions in the way we communicate. As the Internet assumes global proportions and
access becomes easier, it promises another revolution in communications.
Electronic notes can travel around the world almost instantaneously, at minimal or no
cost to the sender. Messages can be instantly broadcast to large and
geographically diverse audiences.
News Groups
Usenet (User Network) is a collection of electronic bulletin boards called news groups
dedicated to ongoing discussions of a wide range of topics. Participants use the
Internet to connect to computers called news servers and read the latest messages from other participants (called postings) and reply with postings of their own. News groups are separated into
categories such as Science, Computing, News, Recreation and Sociology.
Electronic File Transfer
The Internet is widely used for transferring files between remote locations.
One way to transfer files is to attach them to email messages. This works well
when one Internet user wishes to send a copy of a file to another user. A
different situation though is one in which the user wishes to retrieve a file from
one of the Internet's many public archives. In this case the user uses the
Internet File Transfer Protocol (FTP) to log onto host machine and retrieve a copy of the desired file.
Remote Computing
One of the original purposes of the ARPANet was to allow users to share
computer resources at remote locations. The tasks mentioned earlier all involve
sending or retrieving information (email or news group messages, files via ftp).
Telnet involves using the Internet host computer you are logged onto to control
another Internet host computer over a network connection. For example, a
scientist in New York, finding himself in need of computing resources currently
available only in California, could use Internet resources to log onto the west
coast computer facility and utilize its resources as if he were actually at the
facility.
Browsing
Popularly known as surfing the Net, browsing is the newest of the five categories of Internet discussed
here. Until the early 1990s, Internet users necessarily logged on with a clear
idea of what they intended to accomplish. Then, in 1991, Gopher, the first
Internet browser, emerged at the University of Minnesota. Prior to Gopher,
Internet users had to remember arcane commands and manually enter addresses of
hosts they wished to access. Gopher represented a major departure in that it
presented the Internet in a series of branching menus. Now users could explore the
Internet simply by selecting successive menu items and seeing where they would
lead. Gopher quickly became very popular. However, Gopher's popularity was
eclipsed in 1994, when the World Wide Web (WWW) became the most popular way to browse the Internet.