Where Did the Internet Come From...?

Although the Internet has only recently been making headlines, it's been in existence in one form or another for over two decades. The following short history offers a bit of background that will help you understand some of its strengths, weaknesses and idiosyncrasies.
ARPANET:
The Internet began as the ARPANET, back in early 1969. Funded by the U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, hence the name). ARPANET was designed to let researchers communicate and share information with each other. Also high in the design goals was this: The network should be able to survive even if part of it was physically destroyed. This was 1969, remember, and the threat of nuclear attack was still on everyone's mind. Basically, then, the idea was this: Build a network for researchers around the United States to use in their day-to-day activities and, in the process, make sure that blowing up a machine in one location doesn't stop the network from functioning. Four ARPANET sites were established as test locations: the University of Utah, the Stanford Research Institute, and two University of California sites, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. In September 1969, the ARPANET was switched on. Compared with the coverage of Woodstock and the first moon landing only a few weeks before this, the new network didn't get a whole lot of press. Who cared? A few years later, many people did. Over a thousand watched ARPANET'S first public demonstration in the fall of 1972, and that, effectively, is when the whole idea of a national—even international—network began to take hold. Everyone started developing reasons why they needed to be part of it, and what such a network could do for them. This isn't to say, mind you, that ARPANET was ever implemented with this goal in mind. From its beginnings, it was apparently designed to be small, with only a few key research sites participating.
Two Major Technologies: Breaking Up is Easy To Do
If there were two single technical decisions that allowed the network to function at all, it was the development of packet-switching technology and the design of TCP/IP. Packet-switching makes it possible for data from different machines to share common transmission lines. Without it, dedicated lines linking one computer directly to another would be necessary, or at least preferred. With it in place, the network could be built with lines linking node to node (that is, one machine or network to another machine or network), with data routed through the nodes depending on its origin and destination. Essentially, packet-switching technology breaks data down into little packets, each with a code showing its destination and instructions for putting the packets back together again. The packets move individually through the network, joining up again when they all reach the destination. It's a bit like the days when hitchhiking was still considered a safe practice. If four of you were trying to hitchhike somewhere, it wasn't likely you'd get a ride. Instead, you'd split up, each find your own ride, and agree to meet at a specific place. In effect, you were being packet-switched without knowing it. TCP/IP means Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, but it's doubtful you'll ever need to know that. You'll need to remember the initials) though, because any computer that hooks onto the Internet must make use of TCP/IP. This technology) developed in the mid-70s, provides the standard means by which computers can talk to each other. Just like social protocol with its rules that everyone adheres to (you don't tell your boss's husband that his suit would look better on someone who weighed consider- ably less), computer protocol establishes procedures to allow effective communication to take place. TCP/IP became and remains the standard, and it allows the Internet's connectivity to happen.
NSFNET and NREN: A Plot for Breeding Acroiiyins?
The ARPANET lasted until 1990. In the meantime, it had been split into two networks. MILNET handled military affairs, while ARPANET carried data for research into networking and other fields. Universities scrambled to join, and the networks began to attract non-scientists and non-technologists as well. In the mid-80s, the National Science Foundation linked six U.S. supercomputer centers in a network called (not surprisingly) NSFNET, with data speeds increased from 56,000 bits per second (your modem probably runs at 9600 bps or 14.4 kbps, by comparison) to 1.5 mbps. This type of connection, called T-l, remains in place, but in 1990, the T-3 specification was introduced, allowing connection speeds of 45 mbps. (Anyone still working with a 2400 bps modem may wish to stop reading for a few minutes and calmly smash the thing to bits.) In the late '80s, the NSF turned the funding and management of NSFNET over to the a nonprofit group of universities called the Michigan Educational Research Information Triad (MERIT). MERIT worked with MCI and IBM on expanding and improving high-speed national access, and eventually the three organizations formed Advanced Network Services (ANS), created to run NSFNET. This was important: The NSF had established an acceptable-use policy (called AUP, naturally) that allowed no commercial access to NSFNET) but now corporations were beginning to get involved. The look of the network was starting to change. By 1990, NSFNET had taken over from ARPANET, and the latter was discontinued. In 1991, U.S. President George Bush signed the High Performance Computing Act, which essentially established a new network, the National Research and Education Network (NREN). NREN was to use NSFNET as its basis (initials getting to you yet?), and ironically enough has some research goals similar to those of the original ARPANET. Importantly, though, NREN was specifically established to join governmental and commercial organizations, which means that NSFNET's non-commercial policy is, for the most part, gone.
Other Networks: Because It was Time
While all this was going on, there were other organizations interested in global networking. The Computer Science Network (CSNET) was established by the NSF to help universities that couldn't access NSFNET get onto what was slowly coming to be called the Internet. The only tool this new network could use, however, was electronic mail, so it had its limitations. Enter another new network, this one created "because it's time" and therefore called BITNET (really, it's true), offering e-mail, mailing lists, file transfer capabilities, and other options. Unfortunately, BITNET didn't use TCP/IP, so it had to develop another way of sharing information with NSFNET. Eventually, BITNET and CSNET realized they were trying to do much the same thing (that is, connect to NSFNET), so they formed the Corporation for Research and Educational Networking (CREN). As they complete their merge—the technical difficulties are considerable—they also will be working to integrate more completely with NREN. Now, if CREN and NREN ever get together completely, we can only assume they'll change the name to WREN. Then it'll really fly (sorry). Not to be outdone, of course, other parts of the world decided to hook into the emerging network. Canada established CA*NET and NETNORTH, the former corresponding roughly with NSFNET and the latter with BITNET. European networks began to form as well, with EARN and EUNet being the primary examples. With South America, the Middle East, Australia, and the Pacific Rim taking an active interest in the Internet, it's only a matter of time until more nationally- and continentally-based networks join in. The term Internet originally referred to ARPA's experiments in internetworking, but it's quickly becoming the abbreviation for international networking (popularly, at least, if not officially).
Statistics: The Facts.,
The Internet began with four host computers in 1969. Now, it incorporates tens of thousands of sub-networks in over various countries around the world ! ! ! millions of host computers. Interestingly, the number of commercially-based computers has practically overtaken the number of research- and education-based computers on the Net. The future has begun. How many users are on the Internet? Nobody knows !!!! ...........

Compiler: C.K.Mohamed/Tellicherry