The internet has been a tremendous transformation in our daily lives. It has literally made the world a global village. For you to use Facebook or any other social media platform out there, you need this interconnection. What about online shopping? Would you make that order had it not been for the internet? I guess not.
In recognition of these amazing possibilities, many people are ever wondering who invented the internet. Well, one thing for sure right now is that no one owns the internet as you would think of Apple or Microsoft. What is owned is the different websites running on it.
The other tip is that no single person can be said to have created the internet. Rather, it was the efforts of different individuals’ including the likes of Dale Heatherington – inventor of the Modem.
Long before the existence of technology, scientists actually used to fantasize about communication systems that would connect the entire world. In the 1900s, Nikola Tesla came up with the idea of a “world wireless system” while visionary thinkers such as Vannevar Bush and Paul Otlet conceived a system that would be used to search for books and media. These ideas hanged around as early as the 1930s but it had it wait until the 1960s to have the first practical schematics for the Internet. Shortly after this, computer scientists came up with the idea of packet switching – a technique that significantly that assists with electronic transmission of data.
The following is a step by step look into the paths that eventually led to the invention of the internet.
The Internet Idea
In his paper entitled “Information Flow in Large Communication Nets” published on May 31, 1961, Leonard Kleinrock expressed the very first vivid idea of the internet.
His notion was supported in 1962 by J.C.R. Licklider – the first Director of IPTO who came up with the idea of a galactic network. These ideas, combined with those from Licklider and Kleinrock would later on be used by Robert Taylor to create a network idea – later known as ARPANET.
The Internet’s first version
The current internet began to be developed in the late 1960s in California. The very first meeting by the Network Working Group (NWG) was held in 1968 under the chairmanship of Elmer Shapiro, at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). A key issue discussed in the meeting was how to make hosts communicate with each other.
SRI, in conjunction with Elmer Shapiro, released a report in 1968 that would be used to create the Interface Message Processor (IMP) specifications.
The general public was then made aware of the internet via a press release on July 3, 1969 by UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles).
The first Internet message was then sent on Friday October 1969 at 10.30 p.m. by computer science Professor Leonard KleinRock. Do you know what the first message was? It was “LO” – an attempt at “LOGIN” by Charley S. Kline to log into the SRI computer from UCLA. Since the SRI system crashed, the message was never delivered. The issue got resolved and he managed to log into the computer.
The internet got connected to the entire world through the invention of the E-mail. The very first network email was sent by Ray Tomlinson in 1971.
