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First book on switching documents idea/theory
Leonard Kleinrock at MIT published the first paper on packet switching theory in July 1961 and the first book on the subject in 1964. Kleinrock convinced Roberts of the theoretical feasibility of communications using packets rather than circuits, which was a major step along the path towards computer networking. The other key step was to make the computers talk together. To explore this, in 1965 working with Thomas Merrill, Roberts connected the TX-2 computer in Mass. to the Q-32 in California w -
Origin of the internet
The first recorded description of the social interactions that could be enabled through networking was a series of memos written by J.C.R. Licklider of MIT in August 1962 discussing his "Galactic Network" concept. He envisioned a globally interconnected set of computers through which everyone could quickly access data and programs from any site -
Computer concept
In late 1966 Roberts went to DARPA to develop the computer network concept and quickly put together his plan for the "ARPANET", publishing it in 1967. At the conference where he presented the paper, there was also a paper on a packet network concept from the UK by Donald Davies and Roger Scantlebury of NPL. Scantlebury told Roberts about the NPL work as well as that of Paul Baran and others at RAND. -
ARPNET turns into something bigger
ARPNET which was a standard closed network now has the capcitiy to turn into a larger and more local network. -
Architecture networking
The idea of open-architecture networking was first introduced by Kahn shortly after having arrived at DARPA in 1972. This work was originally part of the packet radio program, but subsequently became a separate program in its own right. At the time, the program was called "Internetting". Key to making the packet radio system work was a reliable end-end protocol that could maintain effective communication in the face of jamming and other radio interference, or withstand intermittent blackout such -
Lans
Widespread development of LANS, PCs and workstations in the 1980s allowed the nascent Internet to flourish -
Hosts were assigned names for accessibility
A major shift occurred as a result of the increase in scale of the Internet and its associated management issues. To make it easy for people to use the network, hosts were assigned names, so that it was not necessary to remember the numeric addresses -
Rapid growth
A key to the rapid growth of the Internet has been the free and open access to the basic documents, especially the specifications of the protocols -
Commercialization
Commercialization of the Internet involved not only the development of competitive, private network services, but also the development of commercial products implementing the Internet technology -
Internet was born
On October 24, 1995, the FNC unanimously passed a resolution defining the term Internet