The day the internet was born. Who Invented the Internet - When Was It Invented? World Wide Web: Shared or Draw

Definition

After analyzing many existing definitions, I tried to give my own (fundamentally not different from the others, but incorporating all the main points of other definitions)

Internet(pronounced [internet]; Internet, short for INTERconnected NETworks - interconnected networks; slang Internet, no) - a global worldwide telecommunications network that provides communication for sending e-mail messages, transferring files, connecting with other computers and gaining access to information that exists in various forms

History of creation

In 1957, after the USSR launched the first artificial earth satellite, the US government decided that in case of war it would be nice to have a reliable data transmission system. The development of such a system was entrusted to several major universities in America. The computer network in the project was called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) and already in 1969 the network connected four universities: California, Stanford, as well as the Universities of California and Santa Barbara. All work received funding from the US Department of Defense. Later, the ARPANET network was used by scientists from different fields of science - the network grew.

First step

In 1969, on October 29 at 9 pm, between the first nodes of this network, located at a distance of 640 kilometers from each other - at the University of California Los Angeles and at Stanford research institute- conducted the first session of communication. Operator Charlie Kline tried to connect remotely to a computer at Stanford. The successful transfer of each entered character was confirmed by his colleague Bill Duvall by phone. At first, only three "LOG" characters were sent, after which the network stopped working. The characters "LOG" were supposed to be the word LOGON (login command). The system was returned to working condition by half past ten in the evening and the next attempt was successful. This date is considered to be the day of the appearance of the Internet.

Historical document ARPANET IMP journal: The first message sent over the ARPANET. 10:30 p.m. October 29, 1969 This passage is kept in Los Angeles.

Stages of development

After the first successful transmission of data on the ARPANET, the next significant step was the development in 1971 of the first program for sending e-mail over the network. This program instantly gained popularity

By 1973, the first overseas organizations from Great Britain and Norway were included in the network via a transatlantic telephone cable. From that moment on, the network began to be considered international.

In the 70s of the last century, the main purpose of the network was to send e-mail. At the same time, the first mailing lists, various bulletin boards and newsgroups. However, in interaction with other networks built on other standards, there were big problems. The rapid development of various data transfer protocols, as well as their subsequent standardization in 82-83 and the transition to a "common", unifying TCP / IP protocol, solved this problem. This transition took place on January 1, 1983. It was in this year that the ARPANET established the term "Internet".

The next stage of development was the development domain name systems(English Domain Name System, DNS), which took place in 1984.

Also this year, a serious competitor to the ARPANET network appears - the inter-university network NSFNet (Eng. National Science Foundation Network). This network was an association of many small networks, had a bandwidth much greater than that of the ARPANET, as well as a high dynamics of connecting new users (about 10 thousand machines a year). The proud title of "Internet" passed to NSFNet.

In 1988, the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) instant messaging protocol was announced, making real-time "live" chatting possible on the Internet.

In 1989, the famous British scientist Tim Berners-Lee proposed the concept of the World Wide Web. He also developed the HTTP protocol, the HTML hypertext markup language, and URIs over the next two years.

In 1990, the ARPANET, having lost in competition NSFNet ceases to exist. Also this year, the first connection to the Internet via a telephone line took place (Dialup access).

1991 was marked by the public accessibility of the World Wide Web on the Internet.

1993 - the introduction of the famous NCSA Mosaic web browser. Rapid growth in the popularity of the Internet.

In 1995, network providers assumed the role of routing all Internet network traffic, and NSFNet supercomputers returned to the role of a research network.

In the same year was formed World Wide Web Consortium(W3C), designed to streamline web standards.

Since 1996, the World Wide Web (WWW) has almost completely replaced the concept of the Internet, and overtakes the FTP file transfer protocol in terms of traffic.

The 1990s witnessed a mass unification of most existing networks under the flag of the Internet (although networks such as Fidonet remained separate). openness technical standards contributed greatly to the rapid growth of the network. By 1997, there were about 10 million computers and over 1 million domain names on the Internet. The Internet is the most popular medium for information exchange.

Now you can access the Internet through the phone, radio channels, cellular communication, communication satellites, cable television, special fiber-optic lines and even electrical wires. And since January 22, 2010, direct access to the Internet has appeared on the International Space Station.

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Definition. What is the Internet.

The Internet (pronounced [Internet]; English Internet) is a worldwide system of interconnected computer networks built on the use of the IP protocol and the routing of data packets. The Internet forms a global information space, serves as the physical basis for the World Wide Web and many other data transmission systems (protocols). Often referred to as the "World Wide Web" and the "Global Web". In everyday life, they sometimes say "Inet". At present, when the word "Internet" is used in everyday life, most often it refers to the World Wide Web and the information available on it, and not the physical network itself. By mid-2008, the number of users who regularly use the Internet amounted to about 1.5 billion people (about a quarter of the world's population). Together with computers connected to it, the Internet serves as the basis for the development of the "information society"

History of occurrence.

After launch Soviet Union artificial satellite of the Earth in 1957, the US Department of Defense decided that in case of war, America needed a reliable information transmission system. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) proposed to develop a computer network for this. The development of such a network was entrusted to the University of California at Los Angeles, the Stanford Research Center, the University of Utah and the University of California at Santa Barbara. The computer network was called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), and in 1969 the network united four of these scientific institutions as part of the project. All work was funded by the US Department of Defense. Then the ARPANET network began to actively grow and develop, scientists from different fields of science began to use it. The first ARPANET server was installed on September 1, 1969 at the University of California, Los Angeles. The Honeywell DP-516 computer had 24 KB random access memory . October 29, 1969 at 21:00 between the first two nodes of the ARPANET network, located at a distance of 640 km - at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) - held a communication session. Charley Kline tried to connect remotely to a computer in SRI. His colleague Bill Duvall from SRI confirmed the successful transfer of each character entered by his colleague Bill Duvall by phone. The first time, only three "LOG" characters were sent, after which the network ceased to function. LOG should have been the word LOGON (login command). The system was returned to working condition by 22:30 and the next attempt was successful. This date can be considered the birthday of the Internet. By 1971, the first program for sending e-mail over the network had been developed. This program immediately became very popular. In 1973, the first foreign organizations from Great Britain and Norway were connected to the network via a transatlantic telephone cable, and the network became international. In the 1970s, the network was primarily used for sending e-mail, which was also when the first mailing lists, newsgroups, and bulletin boards appeared. However, at that time, the network could not yet easily interoperate with other networks built on other technical standards. By the end of the 1970s, data transfer protocols began to develop rapidly, which were standardized in 1982-83. Jon Postel played an active role in the development and standardization of network protocols. On January 1, 1983, the ARPANET switched from the NCP protocol to TCP / IP, which is still successfully used to combine (or, as they say, “layering”) networks. It was in 1983 that the term "Internet" was assigned to the ARPANET. In 1984, the Domain Name System (DNS) was developed. In 1984, the ARPANET had a serious rival: the US National Science Foundation (NSF) founded the vast inter-university network NSFNet (Eng. National Science Foundation Network), which was composed of smaller networks (including the then famous Usenet and Bitnet networks) and had much more bandwidth than ARPANET. About 10,000 computers connected to this network in a year, the title of "Internet" began to gradually move to NSFNet. In 1988, the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) protocol was developed, making real-time communication (chat) possible on the Internet. In 1989 in Europe, within the walls of the European Council for Nuclear Research (fr. Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire, CERN) the concept of the World Wide Web was born. It was proposed by the famous British scientist Tim Berners-Lee, who within two years developed the HTTP protocol, the HTML language and URIs. In 1990, the ARPANET ceased to exist, completely losing the competition to NSFNet. In the same year, the first connection to the Internet was recorded via a telephone line (the so-called "dialing" - English Dialup access). In 1991, the World Wide Web went public on the Internet, and in 1993, the famous NCSA Mosaic web browser appeared. The World Wide Web has grown in popularity. In 1995, NSFNet returned to its role as a research network, with network providers now routing all Internet traffic rather than National Science Foundation supercomputers. In the same 1995, the World Wide Web became the main provider of information on the Internet, overtaking the FTP file transfer protocol in terms of traffic. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was formed. We can say that the World Wide Web has transformed the Internet and created its modern look. Since 1996, the World Wide Web has almost completely replaced the concept of the Internet. In the 1990s, the Internet united most of the then existing networks (although some, like Fidonet, remained separate). The merger was attractive due to the lack of a unified leadership, as well as the openness of the technical standards of the Internet, which made networks independent of business and individual companies. By 1997, there were already about 10 million computers on the Internet, more than 1 million domain names were registered. The Internet has become a very popular medium for information exchange. Currently, you can connect to the Internet through communication satellites, radio channels, cable TV, telephone, cellular communications, special fiber optic lines or electric wires. The World Wide Web has become an integral part of life in developed and developing countries. Within five years, the Internet reached an audience of over 50 million users. other means mass media it took much longer to achieve such popularity: Information environment Time, years Radio 38 Television 13 Cable TV 10 Internet 5 Since January 22, 2010, the crew of the International Space Station has received direct access to the Internet.

Basic internet services

E-mail (E-mail)

It is one of the oldest Internet services. Currently, any self-respecting businessman, along with contact phone numbers, indicates an email address on a business card.

E-mail allows you to exchange e-mails. Emails- These are text files created in special email programs. Before sending, you can attach any file to the letter: a photo, a file Microsoft Word, archive, etc.

E-mail is based on the POP mail protocol ( post office protocol). The principle of its operation is simple. In an email program, you write a letter and send it to your outgoing mail server. The letter then travels across the Web until it reaches the recipient's incoming mail server. The letter is stored there until the recipient connects to the Internet and downloads it (the letter) into their mail program from the incoming mail server. After that, if the letter interests him, the addressee will write you an answer.

The response is first sent to your recipient's outgoing mail server, then travels across the Web until it reaches your incoming mail server. All you have to do is log on to the Internet and download the response to your computer using your email program.

E-mail is currently the most convenient, cheapest and fastest way to exchange information. Delivery speed can vary from a few seconds to several hours.

File Transfer Protocol (file transfer protocol) is used to download files from networks that support the TCP / IP standard, that is, from the Internet. This means that there are special FTP servers here and there on the Web, which contain useful and interesting programs, drivers and text files (encyclopedias, technical and fiction). Files can be downloaded for money or for free. In principle, there are special programs for working with FTP servers, but the well-known Windows Explorer also easily works with the FTP protocol (see lesson 12, section "Downloading files from FTP servers").

Newsgroups

Newsgroups (teleconferences) are a logical continuation of the idea of ​​e-mail. Only in this case, many users communicate. A teleconference is something like a bulletin board with thematic sections. In a certain section, the user can read the messages (articles) of interest to him and, if desired, join the discussion.

One of the oldest teleconferencing systems, Usenet, was established in 1970 between two American universities to help developers of the UNIX operating system, and the first communication programs were created for this OS. In Windows, you can use the e-mail program to access newsgroups, however, experts say that it is very inconvenient and implements only minimal features.

Instant messaging services

One of the oldest services that allows you to communicate using the Internet in real time is IRC (Internet Relay Chat), or just chat. Communication takes place by exchanging text messages, which are displayed in the window of a special program.

How is a chat different from a teleconference? In the same way that conversation differs from correspondence. I went to the teleconference, read what they write, thought and added something smart. And he jumped into the chat and, as Alla Borisovna sang: “Hello, hello, bye-bye,” - chatter, in a word.

With the help of special programs (ICQ, MSN Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger) you can exchange instant (that is, very fast) text messages with an arbitrarily remote interlocutor. If your computer is equipped with a sound card, a microphone and speakers or headphones, you can even talk to each other, just like on the phone. And if you also connect a digital camera, then the video phone so colorfully described in science fiction will finally come to your home. But keep in mind that in order to “video chat” normally, the channel through which you connect to the Internet must have good bandwidth.

The generally accepted translation of the phrase Word Wide Web is the World Wide Web. The designations Web (web) and WWW are also used for this service.

The World Wide Web was invented much later than other Internet services, in 1989, and quickly became popular. The emergence of WWW has made a real revolution in the development of the global network. Today, WWW and the Internet are practically synonymous, since using the web interface you can transfer files, work with mail, chat, on forums or in guest rooms (an analogue of newsgroups, only not in a mail program, but in WWW).

NOTE

Forums (electronic bulletin boards) are web pages organized in a certain way, on which, as well as at teleconferences, a large group of users communicate in writing. It works as follows. You go to the page and see a list of topics discussed. By clicking on a topic, you will be taken to a page containing the statements themselves. Usually the first statement is at the top of the list, and subsequent ones are located from the bottom to the top. You can just read (sometimes you can catch useful information) - no one will reproach you for reading other people's messages, since the discussions are specially made public. And you can write a response to the message, if you think that it is appropriate. Usually, for this you need to type text in a special form and click the Submit button, after which your message will appear on the forum.

The World Wide Web is a vast collection of interconnected hyperlinks web pages written in HTML language. It all works thanks to HTTP protocol(Hyper Text Transfer Protocol - hypertext transfer protocol).

Now we need to consider a large number of very important concepts. Let's go in order.

– Webpage - This is a file written in the HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) programming language. Such files have the extension HTML or HTM and are indicated by the icon:

– Hypertext - is a document containing hyperlinks.

– Hyperlink - is a piece of document (letter, word, sentence, paragraph, chapter, picture, etc.) that points to another piece of text or file. Hyperlinks provide a quick transition from one object to another, with their help it is very convenient to surf the Internet.

In practice, it looks like this: you load a page (you will soon learn how to do this), in addition to the content, it may contain hyperlinks to information similar in subject matter. To follow a hyperlink, you just need to click on it with the mouse - and you will be taken to another web page. And it is also full of hyperlinks, as much as eyes run up. You sit and think where to go, where to go? Having chosen, you click again ... And so, in principle, it is possible ad infinitum.

– Web pages with multimedia - these are pages that are richly flavored with graphics (images and drawings), sound and video. It was hyperlinks and multimedia content of web pages that made browsing the Web visual, bright and interesting. That is why the Internet is gradually but steadily turning into the WWW.

Now it is necessary to add a couple more important definitions, so as not to be distracted by trifles later.

– A set of web pages dedicated to the same subject or owned by the same owner is called website, or simply site.

– There are special programs for traveling on the WWW and viewing the contents of sites – browsers. One of these programs, Internet Explorer (Internet browser), is probably installed on your computer, and you will soon get to know it.

Other browsers include Netscape Navigator, Opera, and Mozilla. We won't cover them in this book, but later, when you've learned how to "surf" the Internet a little, try to work with these programs. You may find them more convenient than Internet Explorer.

Browsers have become almost a universal tool for working on the Web. They can work with the FTP protocol, and with mail, and with chats, and with forums.

The Internet, the global network, the World Wide Web - all these are the names of a huge information space that covers the whole world. The history of the emergence and development of this information web is bright and unusual. A decade after its inception, the global network has won a large number of organizations in different countries who began to actively apply it to their work.

The popularity of the global network has grown rapidly. Today, the Internet has become a daily occurrence for us, and we are no longer surprised by it.

But what was Internet history? How did he appear? How, in fact, did it all begin, and how did this fabulous network, containing information about everything, develop? You can read about it further in the article.

First ARPANET packet-switched network

The history of the Internet takes its origins in the late 50s of the 20th century, when the nuclear-missile arms race between the USSR and the USA began. At this time, the USSR had intercontinental missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons to the United States. This fact served as an impetus for the decision by the US military to create a reliable communication and information transmission system in case of war. The ARPA agency, which was responsible for the introduction of new technologies into the American army, proposed using a computer network for this, which would not fail if any of its nodes or several nodes were destroyed. The development of the network was entrusted to four organizations:

• Stanford Research Center
• University of California at Los Angeles
• University of Utah
• California State University

Funded by the development of the US Department of Defense. The network was based on the technology described by the American engineer Leonard Kleinrock in 1961, which allows perform splitting of data streams into packets (some sequences) and their chain transmission through a network where there are alternative routes between two nodes.

The first test of such a network was carried out on October 29, 1969. A connection was made between two computers, which were installed at a distance of 640 km from each other. One computer was located at the University of California, and the second was located at Stanford University. The communication lines were leased from the telephone company AT&T, which provided a connection speed of 56 Kbps. The test was that the first operator (Charlie Kline
from the University of Los Angeles) entered the word LOGIN, and the second (Bill Duvall from the Stanford Institute) had to confirm by phone that he saw it on his screen. At 21:00, the first attempt was made, but only three LOG characters were sent. At 22:30 the connection was repeated and everything worked out. It is this date - October 29, 1969, that is now considered the birthday of the Internet. The network was named ARPANET.

At the end of 1969, the computers of the four above-mentioned scientific institutions were united into a single network.

Thus, as a result of the development of a packet-switched network, a fast and high-quality digital communication network was created, which relied on a well-developed network telephone lines USA. The ARPANET network has become not only an excellent "conductor" of military codegrams and files, but also served as a kind of "springboard" for other networks.

In 1971, Ray Tomlinson develops an e-mail system and writes a program that makes it possible to exchange e-mail messages over the network. He also suggested using the @ sign, which to this day is an integral part of any E-mail address. It is interesting that in the world it is called quite differently: in our country it is a “dog”, in Germany it is a “hanging monkey”, in Denmark it is an “elephant appendage”, and in Greece it is a “little duck”.

In 1972, the first international connections to the ARPANET were made. Cars from England and Norway connected to the network. At the same time, a satellite communication link was launched with the University of Hawaii. In 1977, the number of hosts reached one hundred. Through satellite channels, the network was connected to Western Europe.

ARPANET logic map, March 1977 (click to enlarge)

Internet Protocol TCP/IP

The next significant event in the history of the Internet occurred in 1983, when the ARPANET network changed the NCP data transfer protocol to TCP/IP.

TCP / IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol) is one of the protocols for receiving / transmitting data currently used in computer networks. The name of the protocol consists of two parts:

• TCP - The protocol converts messages into a stream of packets on the transmitting side and reassembles the packets back into messages on the receiving side.
• IP - the protocol controls the addressing of packets, directing them along various routes between network nodes, and allows you to combine different networks.

With the advent of the IP (Internet Protocol) protocol, the word internet began to be used to refer to interconnected networks and internetworking.

In the mid-80s, the NSFNET network was created, uniting a large number of computers installed at various US universities. Other networks are being created in parallel (BITNET, CSNET, etc.). In the mid-1990s, the ARPANET was dismantled, and its servers were connected to new networks.

In Russia, in the early 1980s, for the first time, the Institute of Atomic Energy named after V.I. I.V. Kurchatov (IAE). In 1990, a network of UNIX users, RELCOM, was created in Russia. She established a connection between the IAE and DEMOS. In August of the same year, she joined the European network of UNIX users EUnet. DEMOS was founded in February 1989 to develop software and build local computer networks. DEMOS became the first commercial company in the USSR, which managed to establish information exchange with the system of Western computer networks.

The advent of the WWW (World Wide Web)

Tim Berners-Lee

An important stage in the history of the Internet, of course, is the appearance in 1991 of new service- World Wide Web (WWW or Web, translated as the World Wide Web). This service was based on the use of hypertext.

Hypertext is text (a Web page) that contains a link to another piece of text in the same document, or even to another document. When such a link is activated, the browser program opens the fragment or the document that corresponds to it.

Internet is considered international system unified computer networks built on IP protocols and their routing. Officially, at the beginning of 2012, the number of registered users on the Internet reached 2.3 billion people. The Internet is used in e-business, communication and mass media. With the help of the Internet, people can watch movies, listen to music, read books, and also communicate with each other. So when did the Internet appear?

Not every one of us knows that such a phenomenon of modern life as the Internet is more than forty years old. The prediction of this means of information transmission was foreseen by many figures of the 19th and 20th centuries. So the Russian writer Odoevsky and the English writer Forster, almost with a century difference, described in their novels the appearance automatic system serving humanity. The same idea was picked up in their works by such science fiction writers as Isaac Aizimov, Sergei Snegov, Boris and Arkady Strugatsky. But few of them imagined that the question of what year the Internet appeared in would have an answer so soon. The development of technology and electronics in the 20th century was so fast that just a couple of decades after the Second World War, humanity made a global leap in its development.

The history of the development of the Internet in the world

So in what year did the Internet appear? Here is a step-by-step chronology of the development of this mass phenomenon:

• 1957 - After the launch of a Soviet satellite, the US Department of Defense commissioned the Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop a single reliable computer network in case of war.
• 1961 - The publication of Leonard Kleinrock's scientific work on packet switching became the basis for DARPA specialists.
• September 2, 1969 - The first ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) server was installed at the University of California, with only 24 KB of RAM.
• October 29, 1969 - The first communication session was successfully launched between the first two ARPANET servers, which were located at a distance of 640 kilometers. The session was moderated by Charlie Kline (University of California) and Bill Duvall (Stanford Institute). At 21:00, the first attempt was made to send the word LOGIN, but only three LOG characters were sent, after which the network was deactivated. At 22:30 the session was restored and completed successfully. This date is considered the birthday of the Internet.
• 1972 - The first e-mail program is launched, which immediately became popular, TELNET and the FTP file transfer protocol appear.
• 1973 - the network received international status due to the connection via a telephone cable with Norway and the UK.
• January 1, 1983 - the ARPANET computer network changed the NCP protocol to TCP / IP, which is successfully used today. In addition, the concept of "Internet", which we all know, was assigned to the ARPANET network.
• 1984 - the emergence of NSFNet (National Science Foundation Network), developed by the US National Science Foundation. This network had a large bandwidth and immediately competed with ARPANET.
• 1988 - The IRC protocol was created, which helped the emergence of real-time communication (chats).
• 1989 - British scientist Tim Berners-Lee proposed his original concept of creating the World Wide Web, developed the HTML language, the HTPP protocol, the URL identifier and the World Wide Web (WWW) visualization program.
• 1990 - ARPANET ceased to exist, replaced by NSFNet.
• 1991 - The World Wide Web became public and immediately became popular thanks to the MOSAIC browser.
• 1995 - The World Wide Web overtook FTP in popularity.
• 1996 - the concept of the World Wide Web is replaced by the concept of the modern Internet.

History of the development of the Internet in Russia

When did the Internet appear in Russia? Usually, the history of the emergence of the Russian-speaking part of the Internet (Runet) is described by the following main milestones:

• August 22, 1990 - the scientific network of the Institute of Atomic Energy and IPK Minavtoprom for the first time connected to the Internet, so this day is considered the day of the birth of the Russian Internet.
• September 19, 1990 - the first domain of the Soviet Union.su was registered in the international database.
• April 7, 1994 - the first domain of the Russian Federation.ru was registered in the international database.

Today, Internet connection both in Russia and around the world is possible through cable television, telephone, radio channels, communication satellites, and cellular communications. Officially in Russia, Internet Day is celebrated on September 30th.

The Internet has become so tightly integrated into the life of a modern person that it is sometimes even difficult to imagine that it could not exist. It's even harder to imagine how we could ever get by without the Internet today. Indeed, thanks to this invention, any boundaries and distances practically ceased to exist. Everything on the web is at arm's length. This is truly a worldwide phenomenon. Few people think about it or attach importance to it, but the history of the creation and development of this means of communication is quite interesting. And yet, who invented the Internet? What sequence of events led to his appearance that gave rise to such an incredible rise in popularity?

At the beginning

If you try to look at the very origins, the history of the Internet goes back to the very first computer networks that appeared in 1956. Naturally, almost every invention is preceded by a certain need. Even then, there was a need to unite computer science in order to provide simplified data exchange and improve performance.

In 1957, the US Defense Department decided to start developing reliable information and communication systems in case there was any danger from the outside. In DARPA (US Agency for Advanced Research and Development of Defense) it was proposed to use computer networks in this capacity. All this was a great start of the whole information sphere. Of course, the Internet in the form in which we know it will appear much later.

The prototype of the Internet - ARPANET

It cannot be said that the creation of the Internet took place overnight; rather, it was created in stages. The design and development of the network was entrusted to the four largest scientific institutions. These are California State Universities in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, the University of Utah and the Stanford Research Center. In 1969, they were united among themselves in a network called ARPANET.

The development was funded by the US Department of Defense. Subsequently, other research centers and scientific institutions joined the network. Many expressed a desire to take part in the work on building and improving the technology. The installation of the first server took place on September 2, 1969. A computer called the Honeywell DP-516 had an insignificant, by today's standards, amount of RAM - 24 kilobytes.

By the way, there is another person who can be considered the forefather of the Network. This is Joseph Licklider. He was one of the first active promoters of the creation global networks. If you ask yourself who invented the Internet, then part of the credit definitely belongs to him. He published his ideas, very close in meaning to the Internet that we see now, back in 1960 in the article “Man-Computer Symbiosis”.

Birthday

We have come to the main issue. In what year was the Internet invented? So, on October 29, 1969, a momentous event occurred. Charlie Kline, who was in Los Angeles, was trying to establish a remote connection to a computer in Stanford, located at a distance of 640 kilometers. There, the reception of the transmitted characters was controlled by Bill Duvall, confirming the success by phone. It was planned to send the LOGIN command, but on the first attempt only two characters were sent - LO, after which the Network went down. Functioning resumed quickly, and by about 10:30 p.m., the transfer had been successfully completed. We can say that from this date the Internet takes its actual beginning.

Further development

When the performance was tested experimentally new technology, the systematic development of related software began. 1971 is the year of birth of the first mail client. Of course, it was far from the software that is available now, but it quickly gained popularity.

Already in 1973, the Network began to acquire the image of an international one, since organizations from another continent, namely Europe, were attached. The first countries were Great Britain and Norway. The connection was made through the transatlantic telephone trunk.

In general, in the 1970s, the main services that were available and used on the Internet were Email, news, bulletin boards. Even mailing lists appeared even then, although there was no spam then, everything was just on business. Spam appeared a little later.

Network Engineering

To make using the Internet as simple and intuitive as it is now, there was still a lot of work to be done. In particular, at that time there was no interaction with other computer networks that were built according to other standards. The creators, engineers and programmers faced a difficult and interesting task: it was necessary to develop a protocol that would standardize and make it possible for diverse networks to work together.

Jon Postel played a huge role in resolving this issue. It was he who came up with the concept of TCP / IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol), which replaced the previously used NCP. It is with the help of TCP / IP that the association (or merging, overlaying) of networks occurs. The protocol was adopted in 1983 (later, however, it was repeatedly subjected to changes and improvements). So among the names of those who invented the Internet or made a significant contribution to it, his name can definitely stand.

At the same time, the ARPANET was increasingly referred to as the "Internet". By the way, this name itself is an abbreviation for INTERconnected NETworks, which means “interconnected networks”.

And in 1984, they completed the development and implemented the domain name system. The scientific name is Domain Name Server, DNS. Thanks to this, you now write website addresses in letters. If there were no DNS, I would have to write sets of numbers - IP addresses.

Well-known chats - real-time communication - work on IRC (Internet Relay Chat) technology, which was created in 1988.

Another predecessor

In fact, the history of the Internet is very rich in many faces, factors, backgrounds and coincidences. It's easy to write an entire book. But we will focus on the most basic events. In 1984, the US National Science Foundation launched a large inter-university network - NFCnet, which became a serious competitor for ARPANET. It united several small networks, had more throughput, and in the first year about 10,000 computers connected to it.

The key point was that NFCnet used the principle of "core networks", which provides high stability, speed and reliability. This feature was a major breakthrough, outlining the contours of the technology that we have today.

However, the core networks did not become the final stage of development. In 1993, they were replaced by even more advanced NAPs, or, more simply, access points. This opened up the possibility of interoperability between commercial networks, which further expanded the boundaries of the use of the Internet.

The technical background is, perhaps, a symbiosis of ARPANET and NFCnet.

World Wide Web, or the well-known WWW

Few people know, but the European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN, the one that scared us with the launch of the Large Hadron Collider) played a big role in making the Internet so popular among ordinary users. More specifically, the British scientist Tim Berners-Lee, who worked there. It was he who came up with the concept that later became the World Wide Web.

Over the course of two years, he developed HTTP, the URI system, and HTML. The latter is a programming language using hypertext markup. To make it clear how huge this contribution is, it is worth saying that almost all sites are written in HTML (all other options appeared much later). With HTTP technology, users access the vast majority of Internet resources, and URLs (a subtype of URI) are the names that we see in the address bar of a web browser.

So, what we constantly use when browsing sites is just the Web. And the Internet is a network through which information and servers are accessed. Nowadays, the Internet is identified directly with the Web, although this is not the same thing.

Some more facts

In 1990, the service and operation of the ARPANET network was terminated due to the need for it having disappeared. We can say that the final transition to the Internet has taken place. At the same time, the first connection to the network was made using a telephone line.

The World Wide Web went public in 1991. And the very first web browser called NCSA Mosaic was developed by Mark Anderssen in 1993. Perhaps it was Mosaic, together with HTTP, that ensured such a rapid spread of the Internet and its incredible popularity. The first is due to a clear and thoughtful user interface, and the second is due to the fact that it provided all the necessary communications and made it possible to develop content. Now it was really the Internet information network.

Later, providers began to provide data exchange, instead of university and other supercomputers. The World Wide Web Consortium, W3C, was organized. And already in 1995, WWW overtook all other protocols in terms of the amount of information transmitted.

Rapid growth

In the 1990s, the Internet united almost all disparate networks and grew significantly in all respects. This is technical and software, number of sites and other information, access speed and stability. But the main growth is the number of users. For 5 years of existence, the audience has already amounted to more than 50 million users. For comparison, it took television 13 years to collect the same number. Today, more than two billion people are connected to the network, and this figure is growing steadily.

A wide variety of services have emerged, such as streaming video, cloud storage, social networks, forums, blogs and more. Data transfer takes place on high speeds and on a gigantic scale. Hundreds of petabytes of information pass through the network every day. In general, it is now difficult to imagine the life of a modern person without the World Wide Web. Now access can be obtained via satellite, mobile communications, cable and fiber optic backbones, from virtually anywhere on earth. The Internet has become an integral part of our existence.

Conclusion

There are too many key figures in the history of the creation and development of global networks to give an unambiguous answer to the question of who invented the Internet. This did not happen at once, but many talented specialists worked on it.

The advent of the Internet is not a whim or an experiment, it was due to many factors that made it simply inevitable. One can only give credit to all the above-mentioned people for the fact that we have such an indispensable thing as the Internet at our disposal.