Happy Birthday, Internet
| Published 9/17/04

 


Graphic by: Jenny Conner
The internet celebrated its 35th anniversary last week. On September 2, 1969, two computer scientists at UCLA linked two computers using a 15 foot network cable; now, the internet has evolved into a massive cultural entity. In honor of the internet's 35 years of growth, here's a countdown of developments that made the internet what it is today. Happy Birthday, Internet!

1969: Internet is invented.

1970: The UNIX operating system is completed.

1971: Intel releases the 4004, the first "computer on a chip," which begins the microprocessor era.

1972: Email is introduced.

1973: Ethernet is developed.

1974: Ethernet is demonstrated by networking Xerox PARC's new Alto computers.

1975: NASA begins to plan its own network, SPAN.

1976: Queen Elizabeth sends an email.

1977: Steve Wozniak and Jobs announce the popular Apple II computer.

1978: Small computers like Apple II begin connecting via internal modems.

1979: USENET newsgroups are established.

1980: IBM selects DOS, the Disk Operating System developed by Microsoft, to operate its new PCs.

1981: The first "portable" computer, Osborne, is launched. It is about the size of a suitcase and weighs 24 pounds.

1982: "Snipes," the first game intended for play on a network, is written.

1983: Time Magazine announces "The Computer" as Man of the Year.

1984: The term "cyberspace" is coined in William Gibson's novel "Neuromancer."

1985: Electronic Bulletin Boards are released.

1986: TCP/IP is now widely available on workstations and PCs.

1987: The number of hosts passes 10,000.

1988: The Morris WORM, the first worm to infect the internet, burrows into networks.

1989: Network speeds increase to 100Mbps with LAN technology.

1990: ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), a central backbone in the development of the internet which was often called "the first internet," is formally shut down.

1991: "World Wide Web" is invented by Tim Berners-Lee.

1992: Mosaic, the first graphical interface browser, is released.

1993: HTML becomes the standard for creating web documents.

1994: Yahoo! is founded.

1995: Netscape releases Newsreader, the first WYSIWYG editor (i.e. no need to yype code to publish a web page). eBay is founded.

1996: Internet users protest the Communications Decency Act, which threatened to limit free speech on the internet.

1997: The first web logs, or "blogs" are published. Amazon.com goes live, and the first Whim season is published.

1998: The first Open Source browser, Mozilla, is born.

1999: Napster is launched, and millions begin to download media for free.

2000: The Dot.Com industry crashes, and hundreds of new internet companies go belly up.

2001: Apparently, absolutely nothing happened. Stupid Google.

2002: Radford University offers a Web Design concentration in the Media Studies Major.

2003: Apple launches the Safari browser for its Mac OS.

2004: Internet celebrates its 35th anniversary. Woo-hoo!

 

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Comments:
Not to mention it has provided many jobs to people in recent years! Happy Birthday indeed!