History of the Internet

Introduction

The Internet is ubiquitous in every sense of the word. We use it to guide us through unfamiliar cities, send photos to far-off friends, learn new tasks, for entertainment and to answer a multitude of other needs that come up every day. Although the Internet hasn't been around for that long, our dependence on it will soon run so deep that we will tend to think of its existence as a given – much like another ubiquitous invention: the light bulb.

However, whereas most people can give you a textbook version of the creation of the light bulb and name its inventor (Thomas Edison), the origins of the Internet are a jumbled mess of myth, simultaneous discovery and uncertain time lines. If something does come to mind, it is usually Al Gore’s supposed claim to having invented the Internet. In this tutorial, we’ll look at the origins of the Internet and the people who are really behind its creation.

Table of Contents

1) Introduction
2) What Is the Internet?
3) Better Dead Than Red: The Theory and Motivations for the Internet
4) The Original Networks
5) TCP/IP: One Protocol to Rule Them All
6) Beginnings of the Commercial Internet
7) Stumbling Around the Web - A Few More Languages and Protocols
8) The Browser and the Modern Web