Exploring the Internet - How it all began
By Emeka Allison
The Power in Our Hands
Even though we all use the internet to meet some of our needs on a day-to-day basis, a lot about the internet is still taken for granted and yet barely even understood. Every day, billions of people come online to perform different interactions on the internet, interactions which would not have been possible without the foresight from future thinking and a dream to create a world where everyone can transfer data freely no matter wherever they may be.
An interconnected world
The internet is a massive blessing because it creates billions of new economies. It provides opportunities to learn, explore and interact in ways never thought possible. Consider Google, for instance, we can get access to any information we want about anything we want to know freely, right from the comforts of our homes. Amazon enables us to buy books from anywhere in the world. Facebook lets us reconnect with past friends and family members. You are able to read this right now because you have access to the internet.
Conception
The story of the internet is one that highlights the importance of ideation, futuristic thinking, and intentional innovation. The internet is a perfect example of how sustained investment and commitment to research and development can birth magnificent solutions that transcend into every area of society and provide solutions that can benefit everyone.
The origin of the internet dates back to the 50s and 60s. The world was just recovering from a world war and a cold war was brewing between two world nuclear powers, the USA and the Soviet Union. Technology was also advancing at a rapid pace during these decades; taking quantum leaps in the bounds of what was once possible as people began to stretch the boundaries of science. The Soviets had launched the first Fearing the possibility of a nuclear strike on US soil, the United States government set up a committee to explore solutions that would make it possible for communication to be made even when the country has been devasted by a nuclear strike. This led to future research towards an ideal, disaster-resilient solution for communication. Even in this period, computer technology was also improving at an unprecedented rate as more and more complex mathematical operations and logic could now be handled by these machines.
In the summer of 1962, on August 2, Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider, nicknamed “Lick,” a computer scientist from MIT, proposed the “galactic network,” a concept in which computers around the world can communicate with each other effectively regardless of distance. This initiative sparked the motivation that would eventually lead to the creation of the ARPANET, a precursor to the internet.
ARPANET - The Internet Precursor
In the late 1960s, the U.S. Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) developed a way for computers to communicate with one another, called the ARPANET. The ARPANET was the first wide-area network to use packet switching, which is the technology that breaks data down into packets and sends them across a network, enabling multiple users to share the same communication channel. The ARPANET was created to allow government researchers to communicate and share information with each other, but it eventually became available to universities and other research institutions as well.
The creation of ARPANET also paved the way for the development of email, with Ray Tomlinson developing the first email program in 1971, allowing users on different computers to send messages to one another for the first time.
By the 1980s, the internet had grown beyond its military origins and was being used by academic institutions and researchers to share information and collaborate on projects.
TCP/IP Protocol
In 1983, the TCP/IP protocol was established as the standard for communicating on the internet. This standardized protocol allowed computers of different types and from different manufacturers to communicate with each other seamlessly. This protocol also introduced the use of IP addresses, which are still used today to identify individual computers on the internet.
The TCP/IP protocol was the result of the collaborative efforts of Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn, who are often referred to as the “fathers of the internet”. They were both researchers at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where they worked on developing a way for different computer networks to communicate with each other. They realized that the existing protocols at that time were incompatible with each other, which made communication between different computer networks impossible.
To solve this problem, Cerf and Kahn developed the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP), which together became the TCP/IP protocol. The TCP protocol was responsible for breaking data into packets and ensuring that they were transmitted correctly, while the IP protocol was responsible for routing the packets to their correct destination.
The TCP/IP protocol revolutionized computer networking, as it allowed for seamless communication between different computer networks, regardless of their hardware or software. With the introduction of IP addresses, each computer on the internet could be uniquely identified, which enabled communication between individual computers.
The World Wide Web (WWW)
The 1990s saw the birth of the World Wide Web, which was invented by Tim Berners-Lee, a British computer scientist. The World Wide Web allowed for the creation and sharing of multimedia content, such as text, images, and videos, through a system of interlinked hypertext documents so that users could navigate through various forms of information, creating a new way of communicating and exchanging information online.
The invention of the World Wide Web revolutionized the way people accessed and shared information. Tim Berners-Lee first proposed the idea of the web in 1989 while working at CERN, a European particle physics laboratory. He envisioned a way to link documents together so that they could be accessed easily and quickly from any computer. Berners-Lee’s concept was based on a system of hypertext, where documents would be linked through clickable text that would take users to related documents. He also developed the first web browser and web server to make the web a reality.
The first web browser was called WorldWideWeb and was released in 1991. It was initially only available on the NeXTSTEP operating system but was later ported to other systems. In 1993, the web became more widely accessible with the release of Mosaic, a web browser developed by Marc Andreessen and his team at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois. Mosaic was the first web browser to display images inline with text, making the web more visually appealing and user-friendly. The success of Mosaic led to the development of Netscape Navigator, which became the dominant web browser in the mid-1990s. The World Wide Web changed the internet forever, making it a platform for sharing and accessing information, commerce, and entertainment on a global scale.
The Internet Today
As the internet continued to evolve, it led to the emergence of the interactive web, which refers to web applications that allow users to interact with content and has played a significant role in the growth of e-commerce and social media. With the development of technologies such as JavaScript and Ajax, web developers were able to create websites and applications that allowed for dynamic user interactions, such as real-time chat and content sharing.
E-commerce, which initially started with basic online shopping, has now expanded into a global market. The interactive web has enabled businesses to create immersive online experiences for customers, providing them with personalized product recommendations, 360-degree product views, and real-time customer support. Online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay have made it easier for small businesses to sell their products globally, while payment gateways like PayPal have facilitated secure online transactions.
Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have transformed how people communicate and share information. These platforms allow users to connect with friends and family, share news and opinions, and consume content from a variety of sources. Social media has also enabled businesses to build brand awareness and engage with customers directly through targeted advertising and influencer marketing.
In addition to e-commerce and social media, the interactive web has also enabled the rise of the gig economy. With the ability to work remotely, individuals can now offer their skills and services to clients from around the world. Freelancing platforms like Upwork and Fiverr have made it easier for freelancers to find work and for businesses to find skilled professionals for their projects.
Overall, the internet has become an integral part of our daily lives, and the evolution of the interactive web has paved the way for new forms of communication, employment, and business opportunities.