An Internet Overview Cyberspace Explorations Class BOLLI - Spring 2005

Origins of the Internet Arpanet/Darpanet (~ 1969) – US Government Sponsored Project. Developed to provide one-to-one electronic messages to be sent between researchers at physically separated laboratories. Developed for transfer of electronic files from one computer to another.

Developed to provide “fail-safe” communications by establishing alternate routes between computers. Internet-connected computers use a “protocol” known as TCP/IP. Individual messages “deconstructed” into small “packets”, sent individually, then reassembled into full message by the recipient. Old Way  New Way  Origins of the Internet (cont’d)

1980  1990 – services gradually extended to businesses and homes. World Wide Web (WWW) introduced in 1991 by Tim Berners-Lee (recently knighted by the Queen of England and now associated with MIT). knighted Berners-Lee’s work (at CERN research center in Geneva, Switzerland) develops software to allow electronic documents (i.e., Web pages) to link to one another.

Origins of the Internet (cont’d) HTTP – Hyper Text Transfer Protocol developed to facilitate transferring pages of mixed graphical and text data from one computer to another. HTML – Hyper Text Markup Language developed to efficiently create pages of mixed graphical and text data for display on a wide variety of different computers – World Wide Web commercialized by release of first Netscape Web browser.

The Internet World Wide Web Instant Messaging (I/M) What is the Internet? VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol)

How Does the Internet Work? – Yesterday

How Does the Internet Work? –Tomorrow MY TELEPHONE

Evolution of the Modern PC 1975 – Bill Gates develops BASIC for first Altair Computer 1977 – First consumer computers released: Apple I/II, Commodore PET, Radio Shack TRS – First IBM PC sold for $3, – First successful “portable” PC from Compaq 1984/5 – Apple introduced “graphical user interface” (GUI) with Lisa and then Macintosh 1986 – Microsoft Windows 1.0 introduced – First “usable” release of Microsoft Windows (version 3.0) 1993  2003 – Seven subsequent versions of Windows released: 3.1, 95, 98 98SE, ME, 2000, XP

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