What follows the selection of links is based on a talk that I gave on the Internet and its structure. It is only an outiline. For links to sites offering more details on the past and projected future of the internet see the listed links.
The purpose of the rest of this page is to look at the current forest
structure without getting too involved with the trees.
The Universe:
"The Matrix" = "World Net" = "Mail Net"
The World wide collection of all computers capable of
communicating with another computer.
Community Size Estimate: 15-30 Million Hosts: 2+ Million (1963)
The practical criterion for memebership: email possibility.
The Internet:
A subset (subgraph) of the World Net consisting of those
computers (nodes of the subgraph) that are "continuously"
connected by TCP/IP (Internetworking Protocol).
Computer Networks:
A network of computers that ultimately makes it possible for any
computer in the network to converse with any other computer needs
to take into account:
Path redundancy Graph node labeling: IP addresses
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Some History:
1950's - The 2 programming Languages: Fortran & Lisp
Early 60's: ALGOrithmicLanguage = "A" Language
[Using Hollerith Cards and batchloading for programs & runs thereof!]
ARPA - DARPA - ARPA Project start Late '60s
(Defense) Advanced Research Projects Agency
Info Packet technologies -> TCP/IP standard
(Transfer Control Protocol/Internetworking Protocol)
1972c - Original net:
Stanford U ----------------------------|
| \ U of Utah
UC Santa Barbara - UCLA
1974c - A short lived "B" language succeeds "A",
Kernighan & Ritchie design and implement "C" language
Criteria: Assembly-Language-Like, small & portable.
Development of "UNIX Operating System" at Bell Labs
by Kernighan & Ritchie writen almost exclusively in C,
but with a "small" machine dependent portion written in
the machine's native assembly language.
UNIX goes to school
TCP/IP implemented at Berkeley on BSD-unix
1979 - Usenet (U. of NC <-> Duke University)
by "uucp" utility of UNIX
1983 - Formal adoption of TCP/IP standard by ARPAnet
01/01/83 - Official birth of the Internet.
Split: ARPAnet -> ARPAnet + Milnet
Other networks:
CSNET (Computer + Science) (1983-1989)
BITNET
CREN (Corporation for Reseach & Educational Networking)
CREN > CSNET->BITNET
1985c - Usenet is spread out over educational institutions and
is a forum for technical discussions of Unix, TCP/IP,
and Inet development.
1987 - NSFnet (Emergence of Supercomputer Backbone of the Inet)
Inet Structure = collection of networks connected by "gateways"
(Software now makes most of these gateways transparent to users.)
1990+ - Usenet is distributed over 7 Continents
Intercommunication of Usenet is now by:
Internet, CD-ROM (Walnut Creek e.g.), Sattelite,
usenet archives (ftp rtfm.mit.edu (primarily FAQs),
ftp pit-manager.mit.edu, et. al.),
Local NNTP.
A Commercial reading & posting: http://dejanews.com/
1992 - Release by CERN of WWW software, making much more
efficient, the interactive interconnections of Inet.
19?? - Reconstruction of BSD-unix from scratch by Linus Torvalds
called Linux (kernel only)
(Linus pronounces: 'Leenoos Torvahlds', ergo 'Leenooks')
Ancillary code from GNU project at the Free Software
Foundation. This makes the otherwise expensive software
underlying the Inet *very* inexpensive.
The Current "Explosion". Estimates of 3-5 Million Host Machines.
Cf. "timeline" file (up to 1993) in /pub/internet at
ftp.farnet.org
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Primary Inet Basis: Node-Node Communications: TCP/IP under unix
Internet:
NSFnet (supercomputer backbone)
NREN - National Reasearch & Educational Network
CREN
BITNET - "An International Education Network"
IP Commercials
| UUnet
CIX | PSInet
| ALTERnet
| CERFnet
^
| Commercial Internet Exchange
Usenet - Integrated BBS's of Internet
Other separate BBS with http &/or telnet access (some are free).
World Wide Web (http: HyperText Transfer Protocol)
with pages in html: Hypertext Markup Language
FTP (File Transfer Protocol) -> Archie (indexing FPT archives)
Gopher (menu driven) -> Veronica (indexing gopher files)
WWW:
Browser software: 'Netscape', 'Mosaic', etc.
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Hard Copy References:
The Matrix: Comuter Networks and Conferencing Systems
Worldwide - John Quartermain "The Big Yellow Book"
Digital Press (1993)
The Internet Guide for New Users - Daniel P. Dern
McGraw Hill (1993)
The Internet Directory (Version 2.0) - Eric Brown
Random House (1996). Also available with web links by
http://www.randomhouse.com
with search facilities. "Free" for the time being.
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On-Line Documentation References: (available by ftp)
"ftp farnet.org" "ftp nic.merit.edu"
cd /pub/internet RFC > FYI
> STD documents
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Internet
Zen of the Internet
Search engines and other resources