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1950s 1957
USSR launches Sputnik, first artificial earth satellite. In response, US forms the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), the following year, within the Department of Defense (DoD) to establish US lead in science and technology applicable to the military (:amk:)
1961
Leonard Kleinrock, MIT: "Information Flow in Large Communication Nets" (May 31) First paper on packet-switching (PS) theory
1962
J.C.R. Licklider & W. Clark, MIT: "On-Line Man Computer Communication" (August) Galactic Network concept encompassing distributed social interactions 1964
Paul Baran, RAND: "On Distributed Communications Networks"
Packet-switching networks; no single outage point
1965
ARPA sponsors study on "cooperative network of time-sharing computers" TX-2 at MIT Lincoln Lab and AN/FSQ-32 at System Development Corporation (Santa Monica, CA) are directly linked (without packet switches) via a dedicated 1200bps phone line; Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) computer at ARPA later added to form "The Experimental Network" 1966
Lawrence G. Roberts, MIT: "Towards a Cooperative Network of Time-Shared Computers" (October) First ARPANET plan
1967
ARPANET design discussions held by Larry Roberts at ARPA IPTO PI meeting in Ann Arbor, Michigan (April) ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles in Gatlinburg, Tennessee (October) First design paper on ARPANET published by Larry Roberts: "Multiple Computer Networks and Intercomputer Communication First meeting of the three independent packet network teams (RAND, NPL, ARPA) National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Middlesex, England develops NPL Data Network under Donald Watts Davies who coins the term packet. The NPL network, an experiment in packet-switching, used 768kbps lines 1968
PS-network presented to the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) Request for quotation for ARPANET (29 Jul) sent out in August; responses received in September University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) awarded Network Measurement Center contract in October Network Working Group (NWG), headed by Steve Crocker, loosely organized to develop host level protocols for communication over the ARPANET. (:vgc:) Tymnet built as part of Tymshare service (:vgc:)
1969
Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc. (BBN) awarded Packet Switch contract to build Interface Message Processors (IMPs) in January US Senator Edward Kennedy sends a congratulatory telegram to BBN for its million-dollar ARPA contract to build the "Interfaith" Message Processor, and thanking them for their ecumenical efforts ARPANET commissioned by DoD for research into networking
Nodes are stood up as BBN builds each IMP [Honeywell DDP-516 mini computer with 12K of memory]; AT&T provides lines bundled to 50kbps Node 1: UCLA (30 August, hooked up 2 September)
Function: Network Measurement Center
System,OS: SDS SIGMA 7, SEX
Diagram of the first host to IMP connection
Node 2: Stanford Research Institute (SRI) (1 October)
Network Information Center (NIC)
SDS940/Genie
Doug Engelbart's project on "Augmentation of Human Intellect" Node 3: University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) (1 November) Culler-Fried Interactive Mathematics
IBM 360/75, OS/MVT
Node 4: University of Utah (December)
Graphics
DEC PDP-10, Tenex
Diagram of the 4-node ARPAnet
First Request for Comment (RFC): "Host Software" by Steve Crocker (7 April) RFC 4: Network Timetable
First packets sent by Charley Kline at UCLA as he tried logging into SRI. The first attempt resulted in the system crashing as the letter G of LOGIN was entered. (October 29) [ Log entry ] Univ of Michigan, Michigan State and Wayne State Univ establish X.25-based Merit network for students, faculty, alumni (:sw1:)
1970
First publication of the original ARPANET Host-Host protocol: C.S. Carr, S. Crocker, V.G. Cerf, "HOST-HOST Communication Protocol in the ARPA Network," in AFIPS Proceedings of SJCC (:vgc:) First report on ARPANET at AFIPS: "Computer Network Development to Achieve Resource Sharing" (March) ALOHAnet, the first packet radio network, developed by Norman Abramson, Univ of Hawaii, becomes operational (July) (:sk2:) connected to the ARPANET in 1972
ARPANET hosts start using Network Control Protocol (NCP), first host-to-host protocol First cross-country link installed by AT&T between UCLA and BBN at 56kbps. This line is later replaced by another between BBN and RAND. A second line is added between MIT and Utah 1971
15 nodes (23 hosts): UCLA, SRI, UCSB, Univ of Utah, BBN, MIT, RAND, SDC, Harvard, Lincoln Lab, Stanford, UIU(C), CWRU, CMU, NASA/Ames BBN starts building IMPs using the cheaper Honeywell 316. IMPs however are limited to 4 host connections, and so BBN develops a terminal IMP (TIP) that supports up to 64 terminals (September) Ray Tomlinson of BBN invents email program to send messages across a distributed network. The original program was derived from two others: an intra-machine email program (SENDMSG) and an experimental file transfer program (CPYNET) (:amk:irh:) Project Gutenberg is started by Michael Hart with the purpose of making copyright-free works, including books, electronically available. The first text is the US Declaration of Independence (:dhr,msh:) 1972
Ray Tomlinson (BBN) modifies email program for ARPANET where it becomes a quick hit. The @ sign was chosen from the punctuation keys on Tomlinson's Model 33 Teletype for its "at" meaning (March) Larry Roberts writes first email management program (RD) to list, selectively read, file, forward, and respond to messages (July) International Conference on Computer Communications (ICCC) at the Washington D.C. Hilton with demonstration of ARPANET between 40 machines and the Terminal Interface Processor (TIP) organized by Bob Kahn. (October) First computer-to-computer chat takes place at UCLA, and is repeated during ICCC, as psychotic PARRY (at Stanford) discusses its problems with the Doctor (at BBN). International Network Working Group (INWG) formed in October as a result of a meeting at ICCC identifying the need for a combined effort in advancing networking technologies. Vint Cerf appointed first Chair. By 1974, INWG became IFIP WG 6.1 (:vgc:) Louis Pouzin leads the French effort to build its own ARPANET - CYCLADES RFC 318: Telnet specification
1973
First international connections to the ARPANET: University College of London (England) via NORSAR (Norway) Bob Metcalfe's Harvard PhD Thesis outlines idea for Ethernet. The concept was tested on Xerox PARC's Alto computers, and the first Ethernet network called the Alto Aloha System (May) (:amk:) Bob Kahn poses Internet problem, starts Internetting research program at ARPA. Vinton Cerf sketches gateway architecture in March on back of envelope in a San Francisco hotel lobby (:vgc:) Cerf and Kahn present basic Internet ideas at INWG in September at Univ of Sussex, Brighton, UK (:vgc:) RFC 454: File Transfer specification
Network Voice Protocol (NVP) specification (RFC 741) and implementation enabling conference calls over ARPAnet. (:bb1:) SRI (NIC) begins publishing ARPANET News in March; number of ARPANET users estimated at 2,000 ARPA study shows email composing 75% of all ARPANET traffic Christmas Day Lockup - Harvard IMP hardware problem leads it to broadcast zero-length hops to any ARPANET destination, causing all other IMPs to send their traffic to Harvard (25 December) RFC 527: ARPAWOCKY
RFC 602: The Stockings Were Hung by the Chimney with Care
1974
Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn publish "A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection" which specified in detail the design of a Transmission Control Program (TCP). [IEEE Trans Comm] (:amk:) BBN opens Telenet, the first public packet data service (a commercial version of ARPANET) (:sk2:) 1975
Operational management of Internet transferred to DCA (now DISA) First ARPANET mailing list, MsgGroup, is created by Steve Walker. Einar Stefferud soon took over as moderator as the list was not automated at first. A science fiction list, SF-Lovers, was to become the most popular unofficial list in the early days John Vittal develops MSG, the first all-inclusive email program providing replying, forwarding, and filing capabilities. Satellite links cross two oceans (to Hawaii and UK) as the first TCP tests are run over them by Stanford, BBN, and UCL "Jargon File", by Raphael Finkel at SAIL, first released (:esr:) Shockwave Rider by John Brunner (:pds:)
1976
Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom sends out an email on 26 March from the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE) in Malvern UUCP (Unix-to-Unix CoPy) developed at AT&T Bell Labs and distributed with UNIX one year later. Multiprocessing Pluribus IMPs are deployed
1977
THEORYNET created by Larry Landweber at Univ of Wisconsin providing electronic mail to over 100 researchers in computer science (using a locally developed email system over TELENET) RFC 733: Mail specification
Tymshare spins out Tymnet under pressure from TELENET. Both go on to develop X.25 protocol standard for virtual circuit style packet switching (:vgc:) First demonstration of ARPANET/SF Bay Packet Radio Net/Atlantic SATNET operation of Internet protocols with BBN-supplied gateways in July (:vgc:) 1978
TCP split into TCP and IP (March)
Possibly the first commercial spam message is sent on 1 May by a DEC marketer advertising an upcoming presentation of its new DECSYSTEM-20 computers RFC 748: TELNET RANDOMLY-LOSE Option
1979
Meeting between Univ of Wisconsin, DARPA, National Science Foundation (NSF), and computer scientists from many universities to establish a Computer Science Department research computer network (organized by Larry Landweber). USENET established using UUCP between Duke and UNC by Tom Truscott, Jim Ellis, and Steve Bellovin. All original groups were under NET.* hierarchy. First MUD, MUD1, by Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw at U of Essex ARPA establishes the Internet Configuration Control Board (ICCB) Packet Radio Network (PRNET) experiment starts with DARPA funding. Most communications take place between mobile vans. ARPANET connection via SRI. On April 12, Kevin MacKenzie emails the MsgGroup a suggestion of adding some emotion back into the dry text medium of email, such as -) for indicating a sentence was tongue-in-cheek. Though flamed by many at the time, emoticons became widely used after Scott Fahlman suggested the use of :-) and :-( in a CMU BBS on 19 September 1982
1980s
1980
ARPANET grinds to a complete halt on 27 October because of an accidentally-propagated status-message virus First C/30-based IMP at BBN
1981
BITNET, the "Because It's Time NETwork"
Started as a cooperative network at the City University of New York, with the first connection to Yale (:feg:) Original acronym stood for 'There' instead of 'Time' in reference to the free NJE protocols provided with the IBM systems Provides electronic mail and listserv servers to distribute information, as well as file transfers CSNET (Computer Science NETwork) built by a collaboration of computer scientists and Univ of Delaware, Purdue Univ, Univ of Wisconsin, RAND Corporation and BBN through seed money granted by NSF to provide networking services (especially email) to university scientists with no access to ARPANET. CSNET later becomes known as the Computer and Science Network. (:amk,lhl:) C/30 IMPs predominate the network; first C/30 TIP at SAC
Minitel (Teletel) is deployed across France by France Telecom. True Names by Vernor Vinge (:pds:)
RFC 801: NCP/TCP Transition Plan
1982
Norway leaves network to become an Internet connection via TCP/IP over SATNET; UCL does the same DCA and ARPA establish the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP), as the protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, for ARPANET. (:vgc:) This leads to one of the first definitions of an "internet" as a connected set of networks, specifically those using TCP/IP, and "Internet" as connected TCP/IP internets. DoD declares TCP/IP suite to be standard for DoD (:vgc:)
EUnet (European UNIX Network) is created by EUUG to provide email and USENET services. (:glg:) original connections between the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and UK Exterior Gateway Protocol (RFC 827) specification. EGP is use...