7/28/2019 01-A Brief History of the Internet

1/10

Investigating Cyberculture SOCS 316

Cyberspacecybernetics

coined 1948 by U.S. mathematician Norbert Wiener (1894-1964)from Gk. kubernetes "steersman," perhaps based on 1830s Fr.cyberntique "the art of governing." Cyberspacecoined byscience fiction writer William Gibson (best known for"Neuromancer") and used by him in a short story published in1982.

"The future offers very little hope for those who expect that our new mechanical slaves willoffer us a world in which we may rest from thinking. Help us they may, but at the cost ofsupreme demands upon our honesty and our intelligence." [Norbert Weiner, "God andGolem, Inc.," 1964] .

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=cyberneticshttp://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=cyberneticshttp://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=cybernetics

7/28/2019 01-A Brief History of the Internet

2/10

Investigating Cyberculture SOCS 316

Cultureculture

- 1440, "the tilling of land," from L. cultura, from pp.stem ofcolere "tend, guard, cultivate, till" (seecult). Meaning "the intellectual side of civilization"is from 1805; that of "collective customs and

achievements of a people" is from 1867. Cultureshock first recorded 1940.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=culturehttp://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=culthttp://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=culthttp://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=culturehttp://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=culture

7/28/2019 01-A Brief History of the Internet

3/10

A Brief History of the Internet:

The Precursors I

Computers, so to speak, have been around forthousands of years. So have networks (socialnetworks, that is). Its only recently that theyhave come together so forcefully, altering sociallife as we knew it basically overnight.

From the earliest abacus to thejacquard loom

that led to punch card technology, computersthat became permanently networked emerged inthe 1960s. (click here for interactive abacus)

http://www.webcom.com/calc/CalcChron.htmlhttp://www.abacushome.info/history-of-the-abacus/http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~ped/teachadmin/histsci/htmlform/lect4.htmlhttp://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/?category=cmptrhttp://illuminations.nctm.org/ActivityDetail.aspx?ID=8http://illuminations.nctm.org/ActivityDetail.aspx?ID=8http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/?category=cmptrhttp://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~ped/teachadmin/histsci/htmlform/lect4.htmlhttp://www.abacushome.info/history-of-the-abacus/http://www.webcom.com/calc/CalcChron.html

7/28/2019 01-A Brief History of the Internet

4/10

A Brief History of the Internet:

The Precursors IIComputers were an integral part ofWorld War II. Theiradoption as military technology created the first stepsinto computernetworking, creating the first vestiges ofthe Internet in the late 1960s.

Technology development and the dependence oncomputers in both academic and business institutions inthe 1980s increased public awareness and access tocomputers generally, and the networks grew slowlyuntil

1991, when Tim Berners-Lee introduced HTML, theWorld Wide Web (WWW), and Mosaic (which becameNetscape Navigator). The rest is history.

http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/?category=nethttp://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/?category=net

7/28/2019 01-A Brief History of the Internet

5/10

A Brief History of the Internet:

The Timeline

1958: ARPA, theAdvanced Research ProjectsAgency, is created by the U.S. Defense

Department in response to the 1957 Sputnik

launch.

1962: IPTO, the Information processing TechniquesOffice, a branch of ARPA, creates the

ARPANET under the leadership ofJosephLicklider (MIT), a minor program designed to

stimulate research in interactive computing.

7/28/2019 01-A Brief History of the Internet

6/10

A Brief History of the Internet1969: The ARPANET utilizes packet switching

technology developed in part by Paul Baranof the RAND Corporation. The first 4nodes in the network link UCLA, UCSB,Stanford, and Univ. of Utah.

1972-4: The network expands to 15 nodes, andstandardization of communication protocolsensuesTCP, ortransmission controlprotocol, is developed and by 1978 the IP(inter-networking protocol) is added by VintCerfof Stanford, creating the networkstandard used today, TCP/IP. In 1974, theUNIX operating system is released by Belllabs, and used widely at universities. Thisbegins the open source movement.

7/28/2019 01-A Brief History of the Internet

7/10

A Brief History of the Internet

1977-78: U. Chicago students Christensenand Suess create MODEM software,and in 1978 they create the ComputerBulletin Board System (BBS), modeledafter office bulletin boards used for

public messaging.

1981-83: From the first BBS idea sprouted theUSENET, a message system for the

ARPA network, IBMs version,BITNET, used widely on collegecampuses and a private BBS,FIDONET (Tom Jennings), still widelyused today (with 3 million subscribers).

7/28/2019 01-A Brief History of the Internet

8/10

A Brief History of the Internet

1983-88: MILNET, the military branch of theinternet, splits off from ARPA-INTERNET for

security purposes. In 1984, the National

Science Foundation starts NSFNET, and by

1990 it replaces the obsolete ARPANETusing the same backbone infrastructure.

1990: The Internet goes private, with a number ofInternet Service Providers (ISPs) being

created by business enterprises, most

notablyAOL (America Online).

7/28/2019 01-A Brief History of the Internet

9/10

A Brief History of the Internet

1991: Working at CERN, a high-energy physics labin Switzerland, Tim Berners-Leecreatesthe World Wide Web, which utilizes- Hypertext Markup Language (html),- Hypertext Transport Protocol (http), and- URLs (Uniform Resource Locators).

1993- : MOSAIC, the first web browser, is createdat the Univ. of Illinois, which later becomesNetscape Navigator. Microsoft enters the

market late in 1995 with theirInternetExplorerbrowser.

1/1 2000: The Y2k bug destroys all computersworldwide. ?

7/28/2019 01-A Brief History of the Internet

10/10

A Brief History of the Internet:

The CultureCastells points out that the culture of

the Internet has always been libertarian,

prizing freedom over military security and

market control.Even the DoD ARPANET users

originally used their systems forinformal

communication, exchanging messagesabout birthday greetings and using the

network for marijuana procurement.