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Happy Birthday, Internet!
NobodyExpects writes "I'd like to wish a happy birthday to the Internet! Today marks its 40th birthday!
In fall 1969, computers sending data between two California universities set the stage for the Internet, which became a household word in the 1990s. On September 2nd 1969, in a lab at the University of California, Los Angeles, two computers passed test data through a 15-foot gray cable. Stanford Research Institute joined the fledgling ARPANET network a month later; UC Santa Barbara and the University of Utah joined by years end, and the internet was born."
Before everyone starts posting stories about how they grew up on their Apple II using a 300 baud modem, let's have a forward looking discussion.
The Internet as we define it today was born 40 years ago when two big computers were hooked up with a cable and exchanged data. Let me ask: what are the milestones that will matter 10, 30 years from now? Some guesses (pick your favorites):
- wires, what wires?: The Internet goes wireless, with the invention of Wifi (circa 1991 - yes, really that old)
- device, what device?: The Internet goes ubiquitous, we don't even have to carry those bulky iPhones around (circa ???)
- telepresence: I see you, you see me, in HD, anytime, wherever you and I are. Maybe we can even shake hands. Definitely coming in the next decade.
- oracle: all knowledge, all questions, answered all the time (that might change the way we think of our education system!)
Who said innovation is slowing down? We are still in the stone age of the Internet.
That's an extremely thick cable...
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
I hear the internet wants a pony.
thx for the porn
Apparently Al Gore had his first child at the age of 21 ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
When did that transition happen? Late 70s?
I've been using the net since 1987 (shortly after Star Trek TNG premiered). It's been a fun ride going from 1.2k bit/s and pure text. There were a few graphical bulletin board services added in 1989, but they were little more than vector-based graphics and took several minutes to load! None of them had music or video like we have today.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
the first spam e-mail was sent.
It's not like people just WONT start using IPV6, the deployment may be extremely low now, but people aren't just going to let the internets run out of room.
With the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses coming in a couple of years, combined with extremly low IPv6 deployment, the Internet expansion will grind to a halt very soon.
Imminent death of Internet predicted. Film at eleven.
= = = =
And for those of you who weren't on it back then: This was a running gag on netnews virtually from its initial deployment. Seems like every week there was a new prediction of some mechanism by which the rapidly-doubling internet would break - yet it still kept going.
As someone who works as an engineer in a big-name company that builds Internet infrastructure boxes: I can tell you that "able to do IPV6 when we get around to turning it on" is one of the major checkboxes for new equipment purchases.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
See the Wikipedia packet radio article as a starting point. There was packet radio using Internet protocols back in the 1970s. The protocol that became "Wifi" was first deployed in 1991, but it was far from the first usable packet radio protocol.
watched over by the Elders of the Internet
Loose lips lose spit.
I've seen similar birthday plans scheduled for October 29th (first hard link) or even December. It's one of those unknowable things, but an entertaining article nevertheless.
because it is the culmination of all the good things that happened to mankind.
now it brings people together, regardless of location, time, situation, condition, race, gender, nation, age, occupation, social status, from all over the world. even if their governments or rulers do not want that.
children around the world growing up together playing same games, growing up in the flourishing new internet culture. when they are grown up, all of them will have much more in common than previous generations. this will remove many barriers and estrangements in between the nations.
internet is very important.
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He never claimed that. It was just political games and a clumsy choice of words.