1957 - US government forms the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) with the Dept. of Defense (DoD)

1967 - First design paper on ARPANET

1969 - ARPANET Commissioned by DoD - first computer on-line (UCLA, Stanford, UCSB, U of Utah)

1971 - 15 nodes - email program invented

1973 - 1st International connections to ARPANET

1983 - Change over from (Network Control Protocol) NCP to (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol) TCP/IP

1984 - Domain name server introduced

1990 - First commercial provider of Internet dial-up access

1991 - World Wide Web released by CERN

1993 - InterNIC (Network Information Center) created by (National Science Foundation) NSF to provide specific Internet services

1993 - White House comes on-line

1993 - Mosaic (first GUI browser) takes Internet by storm

1993 - WWW proliferates at 341,634% annual growth rate

1994 - ARPANET / Internet celebrates 25th anniversary

1994 - Communities begin to be wired up directly to the Internet

1994 - Shopping malls arrive on the Internet

1994 - "First Virtual" (enables secure commerce on Internet) opens for business



What is the Internet?

The Internet is a community, comprised of thousands of independent networks worldwide, linked via Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). One can think of the Internet as a network of networks.

How to use the Internet

Accessing the Internet is typically accomplished using a computer and modem running appropriate software. This computer can be a mainframe, mini, desktop, or portable computer running UNIX, Win95, Win98, Win3.1, MacOS or other operating system. The computer can be directly connected to the Internet or can connect through an Internet Service Provider (ISP) like Earthlink, or a proprietary service like America OnLine (AOL). The faster and more direct the connection to the Internet, the more responsive the system.

The fastest connection is when the user is directly connected to the Internet, such as xDSL or Cable Modem. However, the most common connection is through an ISP, where one is connected by modem to the Internet. About 8 million people connect to the Internet through AOL, which is a proprietary service which buffers and caches some of the Internet's content, resulting in some pages having adequate response while others are sluggish.

Services on the Internet

FTP - File Transfer Protocol, a protocol that defines how files are copied from one computer to another.

IRC - Internet Relay Chat, a service permitting large numbers of users to communicate in writing via the Internet in real time.

Gopher/WAIS - A menu-based, text-oriented system for exploring the Internet, allowing one to peruse databases that reside on the Internet. Our government has many gopher servers. WAIS (Wide Area Information Search) is another catalog of information which can be searched, both in abstract and full-text versions.

Email - Electronic mail, the capability to send written messages to someone using a computer connected to a computer network. Excellent communication medium for delivering information and keeping in contact with associates and clients. Email can be delivered to a FAX machine. It is possible to have "attachments" to email such as files or documents.

Mailing Lists / Listserv - An electronic discussion on a given topic. A mechanism to send a large number of people the same document while only "posting" it once. People subscribe to a Listserv and mailing lists. Most lists are unmoderated, meaning you will receive everything that is sent to that list. Moderated lists are lists that are checked for content and only what is appropriate is forwarded.

World Wide Web (WWW) - A hypertext-based system to find, display and access Internet resources. Today's WWW allows for interactivity, sound, MIDI, animation, 3D graphics, 3D worlds, and video. Also, today many databases are becoming available through WWW interface. Search engines like Yahoo, Lycos, Alta Vista, give access to a wide base of information. WWW incorporate private or public chat capabilities.

Newsgroups - the place where you can ask questions of experts and get answers and correspond with other people interested in a topic. Anyone can create a newsgroup. Currently there are about 18,000 newsgroups.