The Internet itself is a connection of cables, wires, and cellular connections that connect computers to other computers around the world.  The internet is those connections, and when you are "on the 'net" you are connected to this huge network of computers around the globe.  The internet includes universities, government agencies, companies and corporations, non-profit organizations, elementary and high schools, and YOU. When you are using America On-Line (or any ISP) from home, you are connected to the internet.  You USE the internet to send email, do searches at the library, or dial-up your bank from home.  The internet is the world's network.

A history of the Internet...

In 1957, Sputnik was launched. This cause all kinds of changes in our communications, defense, and educational systems (more focus on science and math in schools for one).   President Dwight D. Eisenhower saw the need for the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) which is where the idea for the internet started.  The organization united some of America's most brilliant people, who developed the United States' first successful satellite in 18 months. Several years later ARPA began to focus on computer networking and communications technology.

In 1962, Dr. J.C.R. Licklider was chosen to head ARPA's research in improving the military's use of computer technology. Licklider was a visionary who sought to make the government's use of computers more interactive. To quickly expand technology, Licklider saw the need to move ARPA's contracts from the private sector to universities and laid the foundations for what would become the ARPANET.

Around Labor Day in 1969, a professor and some students used the defense departments ARPANET to deliver a message.  The Bulletin Board Network (BBN) delivered an Interface Message Processor (IMP) to UCLA that was based on a Honeywell DDP 516, and when they turned it on, it just startedrunning. It was hooked by 50 Kbps circuits to two other sites (SRI and UCSB) in the four-node network: UCLA, Stanford Research Institute (SRI), UC Santa Barbara (UCSB), and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

The plan was unprecedented: Kleinrock, the pioneering computer science professor at UCLA, and his small group of graduate students hoped to log onto the Stanford computer and try to send it some data. They would start by typing "logwin," and seeing if the letters appeared on the far-off monitor.

                    "We set up a telephone connection between us and the guys at SRI...," Kleinrock,  66 in 1998,
                    said in an interview.
                    "We typed the L and we asked on the phone, "Do you see the L?"
                    "Yes, we see the L," came the response.
                    "We typed the O, and we asked, "Do you see the O."
                    "Yes, we see the O."
                    "Then we typed the G, and the system crashed"...

              Yet a revolution had began"...

       In late 1971, Larry Roberts at DARPA decided that people needed serious
       motivation to get things going. In October 1972 there was to be an International
       Conference on Computer Communications, so Larry asked Bob Kahn at BBN to
       organize a public demonstration of the ARPANET.

              It took Bob about a year to get everybody far enough along to demonstrate a bunch of applications
              on the ARPANET. The idea was that we would install a packet switch and a Terminal Interface
              Processor or TIP in the basement of the Washington Hilton Hotel, and actually let the public come
              in and use the ARPANET, running applications all over the U.S ....

       The demo was a roaring success, much to the surprise of the people at AT&T who
       were skeptical about whether it would work.
 
       In the same way that the theory of high energy physics interactions was itself in a chaotic state up until the
       early 1970's, so was the so-called area of "Data Communications" at CERN. The variety of different
       techniques, media and protocols used was staggering; open warfare existed between many manufacturers'
       proprietary systems, various home-made systems (including CERN's own "FOCUS" and "CERNET"), and
       the then rudimentary efforts at defining open or international standards...

       The first time any "Internet Protocol" was used at CERN was during the second phase
       of the STELLA Satellite Communication Project, from 1981-83, when a satellite channel was used to link
       remote segments of two early local area networks (namely "CERNET", running between CERN and Pisa,
       and a Cambridge Ring network running between CERN and Rutherford Laboratory). This was certainly
       inspired by the ARPA IP model, known to the Italian members of the STELLA collaboration (CNUCE,
       Pisa) who had ARPA connections...

       By 1990 CERN had become the largest Internet site in Europe and this fact, as mentioned
       above, positively influenced the acceptance and spread of Internet techniques both in Europe and
       elsewhere...

For more history of the internet, go to The Internet Crossroads.

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