The Internet Metayoga Pages

(Information and Useful Things)
Internet: past, present amd future


Prelude

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.

  1. Who created the Internet?
  2. Digital Dawn CyberTrends - J. McCann
  3. Articles by George Gilder
  4. Kurzweil Educational Systems, Inc., Publications


The Internet

   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




Go to Top of Metayoga Pages


Go to Home Page


The URL for this document is:
http://graham.main.nc.us/~bhammel/graham/inet.html
Created: April 1997
Last Updated: May 28, 2000
Email me, Bill Hammel at
bhammel@graham.main.nc.us READ WARNING BEFORE SENDING E-MAIL