30 years ago the internet was born

by liamssoft | January 3, 2013 at 06:25 am

184 views | 4 Recommendations | 0 comments

Thirty years ago this week the modern internet became operational as the US military flipped the switch on TCP/IP, but the move to the protocol stack was nearly killed at birth.

The deadline was 1 January, 1983: after this, any of the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network's (ARPANET) 400 hosts that were still clinging to the existing, host-to-host Network Control Protocol (NCP) were to be cut off.

The move to packet switching with TCP/IP was simultaneous and co-ordinated with the community in the years before 1983. More than 15 government and university institutions from NASA AMES to Harvard University used NCP on ARPANET.

With so many users, though, there was plenty of disagreement. The deadline was ultimately set because everybody using ARPANET was convinced of the need for wholesale change.

TCP/IP was the co-creation of Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn, who published their paper, A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection (warning: PDF) in 1974....Read more

As NowPublic have disabled comments for members you can send me a message with your comment and I will update the post to include it!

Famous computer quotes

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than one-and-a-half tonnes."
- Popular Mechanics, 1949

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
- Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943

"I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last the year."
- Chief Business Editor, Prentice Hall, 1957

"Yeah, microchips, but what... is it good for?"
- an IBM senior engineer, 1968

"There is no reason anyone in the right state of mind will want a computer in theirhome."
- Ken Olson, President of Digital Equipment Corp, 1977.