"Where was I," you ask, "while all this was happening?" Well, it's quite simple really: the Space Program. America was so fascinated with sending men into outerspace, hundreds of miles away,
it never saw what was being invented to bring everyone closer together -- eventually.
So, just in case you missed the development of the Internet, I've composed a brief timeline highlighting some of the major occurences over the past 41 years. For more extensive info,
you'll find links to other timelines at the bottom of this page.
| 1958 | President Eisenhower requests funds to create ARPA. Approved as a line item in
Air Force appropriations bill. |
| 1961 | Len Kleinrock, Professor of Computer Science at UCLA, writes first paper on packet switching, "Information
Flow in Large Communications Nets." Paper published in RLE Quarterly Progress Report. |
| 1962 | •J.C.R. Licklider & W. Clark write first paper on Internet Concept, "On-Line Man Computer Communications."
• Len Kleinrock writes Communication Nets, which describes design for packet switching network; used for ARPAnet |
| 1964 | Paul Baran writes, "On Distributed Communications Networks," first paper on using message blocks to send info across a decentralized network topology (Nodes and Links) |
| Oct. 1965 | First Network Experiment: Directed by Larry Roberts at MIT Lincoln Lab, two computers talked to each other using packet-switching technology. |
| Dec. 1966 | ARPA project begins. Larry Roberts is chief scientist. |
| Dec. 1968 | ARPANet contract given to Bolt, Beranek & Newman (BBN) in Cambridge, Mass. |
| Sept. 1, 1969 | First ARPANet node installed at UCLA Network Measurement Center. Kleinrock hooked up the Interface Message Processor to a Sigma 7 Computer. |
| Oct. 1, 1969 | Second node installed at Stanford Research Institute; connected to a SDS 940 computer. The first ARPANet message sent: "lo." Trying to spell log-in, but the system crashed! |
| Nov. 1, 1969 | Third node installed at University of California, Santa Barbara. Connected to an IBM 360/75. |
| Dec. 1, 1969 | Fourth node installed at University of Utah. Connected to a DEC PDP-10. |
| March 1970 | Fifth node installed at BBN, across the country in Cambridge, Mass. |
| July 1970 | Alohanet, first packet radio network, operational at University of Hawaii. |
| March 1972 | First basic e-mail programs written by Ray Tomlinson at BBN for ARPANET: SNDMSG and READMAIL. "@" sign chosen for its "at" meaning. |
| March 1973 | First ARPANET international connections to University College of London (England) and NORSAR (Norway). |
| 1974 | • Intel releases the 8080 processor.
• Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn publish "A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection," which details the design of TCP. |
| 1976 | • Apple Computer founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
•Queen Elizabeth II sends out an e-mail.
•Vint Cerf joins ARPA as program manager. |
| 1978 | TCP split into TCP and IP. |
| 1979 | Bob Metcalfe and others found 3Com (Computer Communication Compatibility). |
| 1980 | Tim Berners-Lee writes program called "Enquire Within," predecessor to the World Wide Web. |
| 1981 | IBM announces its first Personal Computer. Microsoft creates DOS. |
| 1983 | Cisco Systems founded. |
| Nov. 1983 | Domain Name System (DNS) designed by Jon Postel, Paul Mockapetris, and Craig Partridge. .edu, .gov, .com, .mil, .org, .net, and .int created. |
| 1984 | William Gibson writes "Neuromancer." Coins the term "cyberspace". |
| March 15, 1985 | Symbolic.com becomes the first registered domain. |
| 1986 | 5000 hosts on ARPAnet/Internet. |
| 1987 | • 10,000 hosts on the Internet.
• First Cisco router shipped.
• 25 million PCs sold in US. |
| 1989 | • 100,000 hosts on Internet.
• McAfee Associates founded; anti-virus software available for free. Quantum becomes America Online. |
| 1990 | ARPAnet ends. Tim Berners-Lee creates the World Wide Web. |
| 1992 | "Surfing the Internet" is coined by Jean Armour Polly. |
| 1993 | • Mosaic Web browser developed by Marc Andreesen at University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.
• InterNIC created.
• Web grows by 341,000 percent in a year. |
| April 1994 | •Netscape Communications founded.
• Jeff Bezos writes the business plan for Amazon.com.
• Java's first public demonstration. |
| Dec. 1994 | Microsoft licenses technology from Spyglass to create Web browser for Windows 95. |
| May 23, 1995 | Sun Microsystems releases Java. |
| August 24, 1995 | Windows 95 released. |
| 1996 | Domain name tv.com sold to CNET for $15,000. Browser wars begin. Netscape and Microsoft two biggest players. |
| 1997 | business.com sold for $150,000. |
| 1998 | US Depart of Commerce outlines proposal to privatize DNS. ICANN created by Jon Postel to oversee privatization. Jon Postel dies. |
| 1999 | •AOL buys Netscape; Andreesen steps down as full-time employee.
• Browsers wars declared over; Netscape and Microsoft share almost 100% of browser market.
• Microsoft declared a monopoly by US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson. |
| January 10, 2000 | •AOL Merges with Time-Warner. AOL shareholders take 55% stake in newly formed company. |
