The Digital Research Initiative
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Click on graphic for a Quicktime Movie which illustrates the growth of the Internet.


History of Internet Growth

1958
President Eisenhower announces the creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA, as a separate unit existing under the auspices of the Department of Defense. ARPA would go on to become the home of ARPAnet, a network of military computers that was designed to allow communication to continue in the event of a nuclear attack.

1969
The first four nodes, or points of access, to the forerunner of the Internet are established, one at UCLA, on at UC-Berkley, one at Stanford University, and one at the University of Utah. The four sites communicated using Network Control Protocol (NCP), a earlier form of today's TCP/IP system.

1971
ARPAnet expands to 15 nodes and 23 hosts

1972
Ray Tomlinson is credited with sending the first ever electronic mail, or email, message over via the ARPAnet, in 1972. Tomlinson also is credited with being the first to apply the @ symbol to email addresses. From this beginning, email grew rapidly, as the digital networks expanded and more and more people realized the benefits of sending text electronically. Today, email systems have evolved to the point where relatively simple graphics can be attached to email messages. Email is used widely in academic and business settings, allowing people to connect to networks from around the globe. Email has helped spur the recent growth of "telecommuters", people who conduct the bulk of their work over digital networks.

1974
TCP, an Internet protocol, is first explained by Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn. The language, or standards for communicating via the Internet, will be formally adopted by the Internet community in 1983. Also in 1974, the Internet expands to 62 hosts.

1978
The Computerized Bulletin Board System (CBBS) is established in Chicago, marking the first substantial example of this type of Internet service. Now more commonly known as simply Bulletin Board Systems, or BBS, they typically act as resources for archived files, email systems, and allow people to post and respond to messages as part of discussion forum.

1982
The European UNIX network, known as Eunet, is developed in 1982; a similar network, named JUNET, is installed in Japan by 1984.

1983
Internet hosts grows to 235 international sites

1983
TCP/IP replaces NCP as protocol standard on ARPAnet

1986
The National Science Foundation, or NSF, creates its own network of highspeed computers, linking five supercomputing centers from around the country with a backbone speed of 56Kbps. The resulting NSFnet is much quicker than the existing ARPAnet. Number of network hosts increases to 5,000.

1987
Number of network hosts quadruples, reaching 20,000.

1989
Number of Internet hosts exceeds 100,000, and NSFnet backbone upgraded to T1 line (1.544 Mbps)

1990
ARPAnet officially replaced by Internet network. Internet has more than 250,000 hosts and 1,500 networks.

1991
A searching device for the Internet, Gopher was developed at the University of Minnesota. Gopher allows users to "tunnel" through the Internet to find what they are looking for, and to retrieve it via File Transfer Protocol, better known as FTP. A mainly textual program, Gopher uses a series of hierarchical menus to organize information, creating a path along which a user travels. The name "gopher" is said to have a dual meaning, one because it allows a user to "tunnel", the other because a gopher is the mascot at the University of Minnesota. Internet has more than 617,000 hosts by the end of the year.

1992
Number of Internet hosts surpasses 1,000,000 in number. NSFnet installs T3 line on Internet backbone(44.736 Mbps).

1993
National Science Foundation launches InterNIC in January 1993. InterNIC has been referred to as a directory of directories on the Internet. The National Science Foundation, or NSF, in conjunction with Network Solutions, Inc. and AT&T, oversees the issuing of domain names (.com, .net, .org, .edu, .gov), ensuring that Internet addresses do not overlap. Recently, InterNIC announced plans to create seven new Internet domain names, including ".firm" for businesses, ".store" for retailers, ".web" for businesses related to the Web, ".rec" for entities dealing in recreational activities, ".info" for purveyors of information, and ".nom" for users desiring personal nomenclature. With this increase in categories, more companies anticipated to become involved in the process of registering Internet addresses.

Also, Mosaic was released in 1993. Developed by Marc Andreessen, an undergraduate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Mosaic was introduced to the public in April, 1993. It marked the first wide-spread "browsing" program that allowed users to easily access graphical images via the World Wide Web. By employing the HTML language developed by Tim Berners-Lee, Mosaic help popularize the Web among the public at large.

1994
Internet has estimated 3.5 million host computers. Yahoo! was founded.

1996
In October, 1996, over 100 research universities and institutions joined together to form the Internet II initiative. Intended to foster academic research and industry development, Internet II will consist of high-speed network connections that will be free from much of the commercial and personal traffic that threatens to slow the development of the existing Internet structure. Internet II participants are expected to finance a portion of the new broadband infrastructure, and the federal government has pledged support as well. Developers anticipate that the fully-developed network will be in place by the first few years of the 21st century.


Also see:

Internet Timeline - goes to 2001
The Living Internet : Outlines how different Internet technologies work
The Best Computer Ever Made
Using Computers for Research

Nerds 2.0.1 @ PBS
The intrepid Robert X. Cringely leads us on another adventure, this time delving into the history of the Internet. Nerds 2.0.1 is the sequel to his first special, Triumph of the Nerds.
 
Other Cringely Sites

The above information is from Michael Manning's "Internet Timeline," a work for the UNC School of Journalism.
This site made by
eric
This site was created especially for students of the UNC School of Journalism's
JOMC 050 Class, and anyone else who may be interested.
For more information, please contactdaikat@email.unc.edu