The Internet is a great place. It’s a place where people can talk with each other from across the globe. It's a place where we can watch the newest television shows. It's a place where we can find the newest items to purchase. But how did we get to the Internet that we know today?
People often think the words “Internet” and “World Wide Web” are the same. However, they have different meanings. If the Internet is a city with lots of roads, then the Web is the nice driver that takes you around the city. If the Internet is the ocean, then the web is a fleet of ships taking people through the ocean. The Internet is a series of computer networks that allows many nodes to communicate.
So how did the Internet get started? Believe it or not, it all began with a satellite. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. It was the first man-made satellite. At the time, the Soviet Union and the Americans were enemies. The Americans were shocked. As a response, the Americans created a group to research computer science technology. They wanted to compete with the Soviets. This group was called the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPRA).
In the 1950’s, computers were huge. They filled entire rooms. The ARPRA began working on ways to network four computer terminals to communicate with one another. They called this network ARPANET. By 1970, engineers began to interconnect ARPANET with other networks. This led to the name Internet. It looked nothing like the Internet we know today, but that was where it began.
Progress came quickly. Thanks to international research initiatives, the International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee created X.25 in 1974. It was based on telephone circuits. It could be used for things like taking card payments and ATMs. It had a higher bandwidth than other technologies of its time. This allowed for data to move quickly from place to place.
Despite this, normal people could still not access the Internet. In 1990, computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee wanted to share information with others around the world, but it was not easy. He wanted to create a central location that linked to other information. As a result, the World Wide Web arose.
The Web was an information system. It became a way to access the big collection of websites on the Internet. It used URLs to link to new pages. Berners-Lee also created the first browser and server. In the same year, the first search engine, Archie, was invented. It made it easier to find what you needed on the internet.
By 1994, many people were using the web for school and business. Today, there are over 56 billion web pages! The Internet is complex. It continues to grow to this day. It connects not only computers and cell phones, but also people from all over the world.
We have come a long way since computers filled entire rooms. In fact, your cell phone now is more powerful than all of NASA's computing power in 1969. In that year, they placed two people on the moon. It's hard to imagine where computing will be in another 50 years.