The Internet

Internet this and Internet that. Everybody talks about the Internet (approximately 127,498 journalists and their dogs have already done stories on it), but there are still lots of people who aren’t exactly sure what “The Internet” is.

The Internet grew out of ARPAnet (ARPA stands for Advanced Research Projects Agency), a U.S. military project unveiled more than 25 years ago. ARPAnet linked defense companies and universities that were doing military-related research. Non-military corporate and university sites soon came on-line, as well, other countries created similar networks, networks linked to networks, and today we have the Internet, an amorphous network of thousands of interlinked computers.

Its decentralized structure is a result of its birth as a military project. The whole idea of the original ARPAnet was to create a network which could survive a nuclear war. Thanks to the way information is passed around on the Internet (parts of a message may follow a variety of paths to arrive at their destination), the loss of a computer here or a phone line there causes no disruption: information simply routes around it.

The Internet is a little more than a quarter of a century old, but for most of that time it was used almost solely by computer scientists and university professors and students. What has brought it leaping into the forefront of the news is the World Wide Web.

The World Wide Web began in 1993, and suddenly the drab text-based Internet became a multimedia playground. New software and a new way of connecting documents allowed users to go anywhere they wanted on the Inernet, and see and hear pictures, video and audio when they got there, just by pointing and clicking a mouse. Suddenly, the Internet became a “place,” cyberspace, full of fascinating things. The Internet old-timers already knew this, but the World Wide Web suddenly made the Internet of interest to people who didn’t necessarily know a thing about computers (which, by the way, annoyed some of the old-timers no end).

Since 1988, the Internet has doubled in size every year. As of mid-1995, it was estimated it reached nearly five million host computer, each of which could connect several individual users. No one knows for sure, but the population of cyberspace is probably approaching that of Canada, and within a couple of years, it will probably exceed that of all but the largest countries. No other form of communication technology–or any other kind of technology–has ever grown as fast.

The Web is the glossiest and most exciting aspect of the Internet, but the older forms of Internet communication are still there. E-mail is still the most useful of all Internet functions; for a fraction of the cost of “snail-mailing” (as Internet users call the use of the postal service) a letter to someone, you can send them an electronic message that will arrive just moments after you send it.

“Newsgroups” are discussion groups, on every topic under the sun (and a few that seem to have crawled out from under rocks). Messages are all stored in a single site accessible to anyone who subscribes to the newsgroup. “Mailing lists” work a little differently; you subscribe to the list and then any messages sent to the list are placed in your electronic mailbox.

Perhaps the most exciting thing about the Internet is where it might be going. Already you can make a telephone call on the Internet, watch a video, listen to an audio broadcast and shop. Doing most of these things is still a slow, clumsy process, but they weren’t possible at all just a couple of years ago.

As the speed with which information can be passed through the network increases, so will the possibilities. The “information superhighway” is an annoying term that’s been used far too much, and right now it’s more like an information grid road, but just as the first muddy bit of road built in Canada held the promise of the Trans-Canada Highway, so does the Internet of today hold the promise of the true world-wide information and communication network of tomorrow.

That’s why it’s so exciting to be a part of it.

Permanent link to this article: https://edwardwillett.com/1995/03/the-internet/

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