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
------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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