The History of the Internet

What We Discuss• Internet History• Internet Evolution• Internet Pioneers• Internet Growth• The Future of the Internet• Conclusion

Precursors of the InternetThe Internet could not have existed

without the two major inventions of the 19th Century, electricity and the telegraph system.

To a lesser degree, broadcast media such as radio and television

What is the Internet?Plain and simple:A worldwide system of interconnected

networks and computers.

What is a Network?A computer network is an interconnection of a group of computers.

Evolution of the Internet

ARPANET• Was the world's first operational

network, and the predecessor of the global Internet

ARPANET• ARPANET was developed by the U.S.

Department of Defense. One theory was that it was developed to survive a nuclear attack. That theory is often disputed by scientists.

The Internet was an Accident!• The Internet was a result of an

unsuccessful military and academic research program!

Why is it called the Internet?• Short for “internetworking.”

The World Wide Web

• The original Internet provided screens full of text

• Great for sharing info and accessing the Library of Congress

• Text was all one font and size• BORING!

GUIs(Graphical User Interface)

• GUIs added some color and layout, but still were not very interesting.

The World Wide Web Saved the Internet!

• Hyperlinks were inventedwww.stmsaints.com

• The mouse was invented to click on hyperlinks

• The URL (Uniform Resource Locater) was invented. This allowed sites to be named.

Creation of the World Wide Web• Tim Berners Lee brought all of this

together to form the World Wide Web in 1990.

Mosaic: The First Web Browser• Very slow• Did not handle loading pictures very

well• Modems were very slow• Did not give an indication of the

potential of this medium

1994 – A Big Year for the WWW• Tim Berners Lee in develops the World

Wide Web Consortium to develop standards for the Web

• Netscape is founded

The Explosion of the Internet

1994 -- 2000• The Internet exploded during this

period.• The first commercial site was

Amazon.com.• In 1994 the World Wide Web grew by

an astounding 2300 percent!• Amazon saw that online shopping was

the wave of the future.• The rest is history…

Browser Wars• Netscape was the standard until 1998• It folded and was taken over by AOL• Microsoft Internet Explorer snagged

96% of the browser market• IE has only recently been challenged by

the excellent Mozilla browser

Future of the Internet

Future of the Internet• So many businesses and private

citizens have come online that academic users can't get the high-speed connections they need.

Future of the Internet• Organized as a consortium• Led by over 200 universities• Dedicated network for educational and

research purposes

Thank You :)