A Potted History of Computing and the Internet
The sheer power of a smartphone is hard to comprehend, even for a technical geek like me. I used to repair Cray supercomputers back in the day – five ton behemoths that offered unmatched computing power to the scientists lucky enough to have access to one. They cost between five and twenty five million dollars each. That phone in your hand is far more powerful than a Cray supercomputer, and gives you access to every online innovation since the World Wide Web was created.
I remember when Amazon first started selling books online. I remember when eBay launched and the papers were full of the story of the chap who sold a bucket of water on it. Netflix used to post DVDs to you. A couch-surfing website turned into AirBnB. I used to marvel at how Twitter was used to coordinate revolutions. So many memories – what are yours? Here’s how it all began.
Vannevar Bush publishes “As We May Think” describing “memex” – a hypothetical system allowing readers to create personal indexes and link passages from different documents together.
The Soviet Union launches “Sputnik” into orbit, throwing the American scientific community into turmoil. President Eisenhower authorises setting up the Advanced Research Projects Agency, ARPA.
Benjamin Curley develops the first minicomputer, the PDP-1, at Digital Equipment Corporation.
First commercial modems launched by AT&T. They could transmit data at 300 bits per second (a modern broadband connection transmits data at 300 billion bits per second!).
JCR Licklider proposes a network to enable ARPA researchers and contractors to work together more closely.
Douglas Englebart invents the mouse at the Stanford Research Centre.
IBM announces the System 360, the first family of compatible computers.
Ted Nelson presents a paper proposing how elements in one text could be linked to related elements in other texts. He coins the term hypertext, and in 1967 names his system for linking all the world’s documents Xanadu.
Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce found Integrated Electronics (Intel) Corp.
ARPA sets up ARPANET, relying on two key technologies devised by Paul Baran – a distributed network and packet switching, also independently co-invented by Donald Davies.
Ray Tomlinson writes a basic email send and receive program.
Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn present a paper outlining Transmission Control Protocol, later to become TCP/IP – a key component of the Internet.
Altair 8800 becomes the first mass-selling home computer – as a do-it-yourself kit. Paul Allen and Bill Gates write a BASIC compiler for it.
John Vittel develops the first all-inclusive email program, providing reply, forward and file capabilities.
Seymour Cray designs and installs the first supercomputer, the Cray-1.
HM The Queen sends her first email.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak launch Apple Computer and found the firm of the same name.
3Com founded by Bob Metcalfe, who invented the Ethernet. CompuServe becomes the first service to offer email to personal computer users.
ARPANET halted by an accidental virus.
IBM PC launched, running on Microsoft’s MS-DOS operating system.
Sir Clive Sinclair launches the Sinclair Spectrum, achieving sales of 15,000 units per week in the UK alone, selling millions worldwide.
Microsoft releases Windows, introducing the GUI concept to the mass market. First domain name registered: symbolics.com.
Commercial companies wooed on to the Internet to share the costs.
UUNET founded.
AOL service launched.
Tim Berners-Lee writes a proposal at CERN for sharing files – the World Wide Web.
Mosaic browser released, written by Marc Andreesen and Eric Bina.
Mosaic Communications Corp founded. Later renamed Netscape, they launched their own browser in October 1994. In 1999 they were bought by AOL for $10 billion – a business built on a product given away for free.
David Filo and Jerry Yang start Yahoo! as a hobby whilst at Stanford University.
Arizona law firm Canter & Siegel is the first to spam the Internet – they had their account cancelled.
AOL provides Internet access to its one million customers who, totally ignorant of Internet etiquette, become like a plague. “AOLer” coined as a derogatory term.
Two day seminar to introduce the WWW to journalists – it was completely unknown to the general public at that time.
Mark Griffin started building websites as a business. The rest is history.
