Transcription
This episode of Life Noggin was brought to you by Audible.
Hey there, welcome to Life Noggin. Thanks to this wonderful thing called the internet, you are watching this video right now. But how did the internet get to where it is today? There is so much internet history that we couldn't possibly get to everything in this short of a video, so we're definitely going to have to make a second one. Anyway, let's get started.
The internet actually got its start over 50 years ago, and computers back then filled up entire rooms. Scientists and researchers used it for years to communicate during the Cold War. It was useful because if one computer went down, the others wouldn't follow. In 1962, a scientist named J.C.R. Licklider proposed the idea of a network of computers that could talk to one another. In 1969, the first ever message was sent from one computer to another over the ARPANET, the government's computer network at the time. ARPANET stands for Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. One was located in a research lab in UCLA, and the other at Stanford. All the message said was "log in," and it didn't fail to crash the network. Stanford only received the first two letters of the message, but hey, you got to start somewhere. By the end of the year, only four computers were connected to this network.
In 1971, the University of Hawaii's ALOHAnet was added, followed by various networks in London and Norway. Two years later, also happening in 1971, Ray Tomlinson was developing the first system to send mail back and forth between the users of ARPANET. This would eventually be called electronic mail, or email, for short. The @ symbol was used to tell a person's name and the host name apart. With all of the networks floating around, there needed to be a way for all of the computers on them to communicate with other networks. This is where computer scientist Vinton Cerf comes in. He invented a way to introduce computers across the globe to each other in a virtual space. This invention was called Transmission Control Protocol, or TCP, which was followed by Internet Protocol, or IP.
In the 80s, scientists used Cerf's protocol to send data back and forth, but the '90s is where it really all began. In 1991, a computer programmer named Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. This wasn't just a data-sharing space for scientists anymore; this was an entire network of information that was accessible to anyone with an internet connection. You're using a browser right now to watch this video, and some of the popular ones are Firefox, Google Chrome, and Safari. But in 1992, Erwise was created. Erwise was an internet browser and the first to have a graphical interface. A few browsers came before and after, but in 1993, Mosaic was created, and it would popularize surfing the web. Mosaic influenced many of the browsers to follow, including Netscape Navigator. In 1994, this became the most popular web browser at the time, accounting for 90% of the web usage.
In 1995, in the early '90s, companies like AOL and CompuServe were starting to provide dial-up internet access. Dial-up is a method of connecting to the internet via a telephone line. Your telephone line was plugged into a modem, and the other end was plugged into the phone jack. There was a period in history where you couldn't use your telephone and the internet at the same time. Without the internet, we obviously wouldn't have things like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, but way more importantly, we wouldn't be able to access information in seconds. We wouldn't be able to communicate with people from around the world, share ideas, and educate those who might not get a chance elsewhere. Also, without the internet, I'd actually have to talk to someone when I order a pizza, which, by the way, was the first thing ever purchased on the internet.
How would your life be different without the internet? Let us know in the comment section below.
This episode of Life Noggin is brought to you by Audible. Go to audible.com/numberphilelifeNoggin. Check out these other episodes and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Links are below. I'm Bloo. This has been Life Noggin. Don't forget to keep on thinking.