Slashdot Mirror
Internet Turns 35 Today
shadowspar writes "The CBC is reporting that the Internet turned 35 today. The story talks about the less-than-prophetic beginnings of the net: 'In order to log in to the two-computer network, which was then called ARPANET, programmers at UCLA were to type in 'log', and Stanford would reply 'in'.
The UCLA programmers only got as far as 'lo' before the Stanford machine crashed.'"
1968 was an important year in world history, no doubt about it. In 1998, there was a wave of documentaries, books and essays about that year. The authors focused on yippies trashing democratic convention in Chicago, Warsaw Pact invading Czechoslovakia, student uprising in Paris, Mexico massacre, flower-power, maoism, Vietnam war, Beatles recording white album or Che Guevara in Bolivia.
Almost nobody noticed that 1968 was also the year when Noyce an Moore founded Intel, Douglas Engelbart demoed for the fist time GUI, mouse and word processing, UCLA and Stanford started to build their networking connection. Even today, scholars seem not to notice the relevance of these facts.
Other useful charts are at http://navigators.com/stats.html
A map of global internet connectivity is http://navigators.com/globe16b.gifhere
The real question is - where does the Internet go from here?
I seem to remember that the internet apparently already turned 35. Well heres the link to the slashdot post about it. So who's right, CNN or CBC? http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/29/225625 9&tid=95&tid=1
Katie Hafner wrote a great book entitled "Where Wizards Stay Up Late" thats all about the creation of the arpanet. It is more focused on the work that was going on in Boston and I believe MIT at the time than the specific stanford happenings but has a ton of information on both. This is a very interesting read. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0684 832674/qid=1099089921/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/102-7568 317-3623330?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
...has some interesting comments on his collaboration with Robert Kahn and where the net is headed in his blog.
Just because you're ignorant and choose not to investigate for yourself doesn't make the story fake. It is very true; the Stanford system had a form of auto-complete which attempted to complete the word "login" when it saw "log". The UCLA system wasn't expecting to see any data at that point and it promptly crashed when it recieved "in" back from the Stanford machine.
Considering this monumentous occasion. I suggest everyone head on over to ebaumsworld and check out the 70's/80's video about "Internet" and how great it is!
That was interesting. At one point in the video, I saw a 1992 copyright flash across a screen, so this video must date from circa 1992.
Have you tried going from (example) HP-UX administration to Solaris administration without knowing how to work with the other system's needlessly complex system management interfaces? Although the basic system user interface and command-line tool sets are identical, you might as well be starting out on a completely new system.
I know you're joking, and I do appreciate the humor of Gore's choice of words.
However, it should be noted that Gore's words in a CNN interview, as quoted by Wired News, were as
follows:
"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the
initiative in creating the Internet."
Gore's meaning was fairly obvious: that he was one of the critical political supporters of the Internet. This is absolutely true. Without his support in the Congress, the Internet would have matured less quickly.
He never claimed to have "invented" anything. His efforts did help "create" the Internet though. And it is an accomplishment to be lauded...not mocked.
I wish people would stop misrepresenting this fact.