Internet History and Statistics
The word, Internet, means literally, a network of networks. It is a collection of computers linked by software, telephone lines, fiber optic cable, and satellites. This page provides a brief history and links to more complete timelines as well as sites for statistics on internet use and growth.
1969:
The Internet is a rapidly evolving collection of networked networks that began with The Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) created the beginnings of the Internet in 1969. This network was known as "ARPANet," and it linked four mainframe computers: at Stanford Research Institute, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and the University of Utah.
1970s:
Two years later in 1971 Ray Tomlinson invented email and there were 2 dozen computers on the internet. In 1973 the first international connections were made. By 1976 Wang Laboratories created the first word processor. The purchase price was $30,000.
Early 1980s:
In the early 1980's, BITNet (Because It's Time Network) was developed. It was a network of mostly academic mainframe computers and its purpose was to provide email and data transfer among the faculty at the colleges. In 1980 there were 400 university, government, and military computers connected to the internet. The production of the first IBM PC in 1981 spurred the growth of the internet so that by 1984 there were 1000 host computers and by 1989 100,000 host computers on the internet.
1990:
The Department of Defense linked other networks to ARPANet and in 1986, the National Science Foundation(NSF), set up a network of five supercomputer centers called NSFNet. NSFNet was so successful that it had replaced ARPANet by 1990.
At this point, there was no World Wide Web. It was possible to get information from remote computers by connecting through the Internet, but to do so required knowledge of the correct commands that needed to be typed into the user's computer. The WWW was made possible by HTML, Hypertext Markup Language that was invented in 1991 by Tim Berners-Lee. This programming language made it possible to create pages like this one that allow users to simply click on a link to be instantly whisked to more hypertext files on computers all over the world. By 1992 the internet linked 17 networks, 33 countries, and 1 millions machines. In 1993 Mosaic, the first web browser was created, followed quickly by Netscape and Internet Explorer.
2006:
It is nearly impossible to count all the computers connected to the internet today. In addition, there are huge numbers of electronic devices connecting regularly. Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), cell phones, and tablet PCs are just a couple of examples of the new technology being used to access the internet.
For more detailed histories of the Internet, explore the links below:
Computer History Museum: Timeline from 1945 to 1990
http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/
Hobbes' Internet Timeline
http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/
Web Developer's Internet History
http://www.wdvl.com/Internet/History/
The Computer History Page Sponsored by Virginia Tech
http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/#intro
The Computer Industry History page provided by LinkScan
http://www.elsop.com/wrc/h_comput.htm
PBS provides The Triumph of the Nerds timeline
http://www.pbs.org/nerds/timeline/
Voices from Net History
http://nethistory.dumbentia.com/voices.html
WWW History from the man who created it: Tim Berners-Lee
http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/1996/ppf.html
W3C Web History
http://www.w3.org/History.html
Yahoo's Statistics
http://www.yahoo.com/Computers/Internet/Statistics_and_Demographics
Library of Congress Statistics
http://lcweb.loc.gov/