Aaron J Hudson
CIS 100-3702
Dr. Avis O. Anderson
November 3rd, 2005
1962 was a year of many firsts. The Beetles released their very first album,
Leonard da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was exhibited for the first time in the United States, and
the year gave birth to one of Hollywood’s most famed actors, Tom Cruise. Another birth
that occurred in this year, that was not widely recognized, was the birth of the internet.
Where did the internet come from? What are its origins? And why was the need for such
technology a must in these trying times of unrest? We are going to step back in time and
rediscover the answers to these questions about this vast technology that has become such
a necessity in everyday life.
On October 4th, 1957, the former Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first
artificial satellite to orbit the earth and set the precedence for science and technology. In
reply, the United States forms the Advance Research Projects Agency (ARPA) within the
Department of Defense (DoD) to establish the US lead in science and technology with
regards to the military. ARPA was later named the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency (DARPA).1
The first recorded interaction between computers through networking was memos
by J.C.R. Licklider of MIT in August of 1962. Contained in these memos were his
visions of a “Galactic Network” or “globally interconnected set of computers through
which everyone could quickly access data and programs from any site.” In October of
1962, Licklider became the first head of the computer research program at DARPA.
In the same year, unknown to Licklider, Paul Baran of the RAND Corporation
(another government agency) was commissioned by the United States government to
research ways to maintain control of its bombers and missiles should an attack occur.
The outcome was to be a network that could survive a nuclear strike, should any US
cities be attacked, so that the military could still have control of its nuclear arms for a
counter strike. After accomplishing several ways to complete the task, his final proposal
was a packet network.
"Packet switching is the
breaking down of data
into datagrams or
packets that are labeled
to indicate the origin and
the destination of the
information and the forwarding of these packets from one computer to another
computer until the information arrives at its final destination computer. This was
crucial to the realization of a computer network. If packets are lost at any given point,
the message can be resent by the originator."
Following the belief and vision of Licklider, Lawrence G. Roberts, an MIT
researcher went to DARPA in late 1966 to develop this concept and put together his plan
for the ARPANET. Presenting his paper at this conference, Roberts learned of the work
being done by Paul Baran and his paper on packet switching networks for secure voice
for the military. Both the teams at MIT and RAND Corporation were working in a
parallel pattern with the same goal in mind…..communicating and transferring data
between computers. In August of 1968, after the specifications and overall structure of
the ARPANET were refined, DARPA released a Request For Quote or a (RFQ) for the
development of one of the key components, the packet switches known as Interface
Message Processors (IMP’s). Frank Heart and his group at Bolt, Beranek, and Newman
(BBN) won the RFQ.
Since Leonard Kleinrock at MIT published the first paper on packet switching
theory, his Network Management Center at the University of California at Los Angeles
was selected to be the first node on the ARPANET. In 1969, BBN installed the first IMP
at UCLA and the first host computer was connected. Stanford Research Institute (SRI)
provided a second node. Led by Elizabeth Feinler, SRI supported the Network
Information Center and included functions like maintaining tables of host to name
address mapping as well as a directory of Request For Comments or (RFC’s). One
month later, SRI was the second host computer connected to the ARPANET and the first
host to host message was sent from Kleinrock’s lab at UCLA to Feinler at SRI. Two
more nodes at the University of California at Santa Barbara and the University of Utah
were added to the ARPANET. Glen Culler and Burton Fried at UCSB investigated the
problem with the refresh rate over the net and Robert Taylor and Ivan Sutherland at the
University of Utah dealt with the 3-D representation over the net. After everything was
said and done, four host computers were connected together in the initial ARPANET and
the internet as we know it today was off and running.
The events that followed the birth of the internet only enhanced it to what we
know today and will continue well beyond to what we can only imagine tomorrow.
Initially invented and maintained by the government and for the military, the net has
grown into the most powerful tool of communication the world has known. With the
amazing advancement of internet technology to date, one can only imagine what the
future holds.
References
1) Kristula, Dave. The History of the Internet March 1997.
http://www.davesite.com/webstation/net-history.shtml
2) Barry M. Leiner, Vinton G. Cerf, David D. Clark, Robert E. Kahn, Leonard Kleinrock
Daniel C. Lynch, Jon Postel, Larry G. Roberts, Stephen Wolff A Brief History of the
Internet December 10th, 2003.
http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml
3) Townsend, Mark. Origins of the Internet May 28, 2004.
http://www.ci.st-joseph.mo.us/tcs/internet.cfm
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The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) changed its name to the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA) in 1971. Then back to ARPA in 1993. Then back again to DARPA in 1996.
Though you may read both in this text, they are synonymous.