Precursor Of The Internet
1963 - The First Computer Network is Proposed
J.C.R. Licklider once again begins to move conceptually closer to the modern Internet. In a memo written to a group of colleagues jokingly referred to as the Intergalactic Computer Group, Licklider discusses his desire for all of the involved researchers to be able to use each others work quickly and easily. The incompatibility of the different computer systems, as well as the physical distance between researchers would need to somehow be overcome. Licklider wrote that it was important to develop "the capability for integrated network operation". He felt if his network "could be brought into operation, we could have at least four large computers, perhaps six or eight small computers, and a great assortment of disc files and magnetic tape units-not to mention remote consoles and teletype stations-all churning away" (The Grid).
Larry Roberts, the principle architect of ARPANET said that "None of us can really claim to have seen computer networking before him nor{can} anybody in the world. Lick saw this vision in the early sixties. He didn't have a clue how to build it. He didn't have any idea how to make this happen. But he knew it was important, so he sat down with me and really convinced me that it was important and convinced me into making it happen."
1965 - The First WAN is Built
Lawrence G. Roberts and Thomas Merrill connect a computer in California to a computer in Massachusetts with a dial-up telephone line. Although small, this is the first instance of a Wide Area Network being put to use. The computers worked well together but it was determined that the phone system was not robust enough to allow for the needed bandwidth. Fortunately Leonard Kleinrock's concept of packet switching would help change all that.
Donald Davies proposed the concept of packet switching to the NPL Data Communications Network in 1965. Although NPL was never funded, Davies did develop packet switching which would be adopted by ARPANET four years later.
1966 - ARPANET Proposed
The first interactive network that would bring several computer systems together for the purpose of data and resource sharing was proposed by Robert Taylor to ARPA in February 1966. This proposal initially received $1 million in funding and became what would eventually be called ARPANET.
ARPANET is considered by many to be the first wide area packet switching network, and is what would become the Internet of today. This project was entirely funded by ARPA, but many leading firms were involved in its construction including Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BB&N), Network Analysis Corporation, DECCO, Bell Labs, The RAND Corporation and more. AT&T was invited by Taylor to be a part of the ARPANET project but declined believing that packet switching technology would never work.
The initial focus of ARPANET was computer time sharing. The early mainframe computers were very expensive. So much so that no computer would have a single user or purpose but would often serve an entire department or even many departments. This meant that many users needed access to the valuable processing power a single machine offered. The key to efficient sharing would be the allocation of the idle processing time of these computers between multiple users. ARPANET was to be a network that allowed the sharing of computer resources across great distances, as well as allow the networking of any number of processors. This of course became possible but was only the beginning of the usefulness of ARPANET.
1967 - ARPANET Plan Published
The ARPANET plan is published and presented at a conference by Lawrence G Roberts. It was here that ARPANET came to the attention of Donald Davies and Roger Scantlebury who were presenting a paper on their concept of a packet network.
It was becoming clear that packet switching was being looked at by many groups including the RAND Corporation where Paul Beran was doing important work on the concept.
1968 - The Computer as a Communication Device
In a paper published by J. C. R. Licklider and Robert W. Taylor called The Computer as a Communication Device the authors concluded that "In a few years, men will be able to communicate more effectively through a machine than face to face". While obvious in the Internet age, this idea was looked at with skepticism at the time. The memo outlined the concept of online communities becoming as close as traditional neighborhoods were, and that online systems would provide the most efficient methods for communication. It was the concepts discussed in this paper that helped influence APRANET during its early development.
1969 - ARPANET Adopts Packet Switching
Although Donald Davies developed the packet switching concept in 1965, it wasn't until 1969 that it would be put to practical use.
Packet switching segments digital communications traffic into separate units referred to as packets. These packets are then routed over networks and to their final destination. Packets are segmented and labeled before they are sent, which means if all of the packets happen to take different routes to their destination the message can still be retrieved and reconstructed. This removes the need for a dedicated path for the data to travel, and also allows routers to queue data during high traffic without harming the transmission. This is the key to the Internet.
Leonard Kleinrock was a pioneer in packet switching theory and because of this his lab at UCLA became the first node on ARPANET. The first host computer was installed in September of 1969 by BBN, followed by the Stanford Research Institute and SRI which provided the Network Information Center. In October the first host to host message was sent from UCLA to SRI.
By the end of 1969 the University of Utah and UC Santa Barbara were added to ARPANET giving the network four host computers and the beginnings of the Internet.
1970 - 56K Speed
In 1970 the first cross country link at 56 Kbps speed is made between UCLA and BBN. This line was installed by AT&T, as was a line between BBN and the RAND Corporation. Today's Internet Providers are able to reach speeds in excess of 50 Mbps, which is hundred's of times faster than 56K.
1972 - ARPANET Revealed, Email Introduced
ARPANET was demonstrated at the International Computer Communication Conference (ICCC) for the first time in 1972. This was the first time the public would be exposed to this type of network technology.
ARPANET developers needed an easy method to coordinate their efforts, and Ray Tomlinson at BBN introduced the application Electronic Mail in March of 1972. Roberts increased the utility of the program in July by adding the capability to file, respond, and forward messages. Email quickly became the largest network application in use and remained so for over a decade.