Back in the 1950s the only ... to be found were enormous ... ... These massive machines filled entire rooms and cost hundreds of ... of dollars. They were very ... and
Back in the 1950s the only computers to be found were enormous mainframe computers. These massive machines filled entire rooms and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. They were very complicated and difficult to run. There was no such thing as a personal computer for use at home. These early computers could only be found in government buildings, large corporations, and universities.
It took many years and technological evolution to make it possible to create the computer sitting on your desk. Did you know that your personal computer is many more times as powerful as some of the early computers of the 1950s? In those days communication between computers did not exist. Today millions of computers are able to communicate with other computers through a modem attached to the computers.
The Need to Communicate
What was it that happened to make computer communication necessary? In 1957, there was a lot of tension between the USSR (former Soviet Union) and the United States. Although the countries were not at war, people felt that there could be a nuclear war. This period of time was known as the Cold War.
The U.S. government decided that it must keep up with technological developments by connecting major communicating centers around the United States so that they could work together and communicate. These centers were to be set up so that messages could still get through even if one or more of the computers were destroyed in an attack.
During the late 1960s, the Department of Defense and the Advanced Research Projects Agency worked together to create a network that would join together supercomputing centers. ARPANET, the nation's first computer network, linked four West Coast universities: the University of Utah; Stanford Research Center; the University of California, Los Angeles; and the University of California, Santa Barbara.
ARPANET was a success and the United States government now had a way of connecting computing centers to each other and allowing scientists, university professors, and students to communicate and work together.
By 1972, there were about 50 universities connected to the network, yet computers were still not available for people to use in their homes. Computers were still only to be found in major computing centers and the people using them were all highly trained experts.
During the next 10 years other networks began to spring up. Some of these were known as UUC, USENET, CSNET, and BINET. People started wondering about how they could bring these individual networks together by connecting them.
This was not an easy task. Scientists had to discover how to direct the flow of information from one computer to another. They also needed to find out how to get different brands of computers to communicate with each other. They had to discover how to keep the information safe and private. There were many problems to be solved in beginning to shape the future of the Internet.
Full article and Internet Resources:
http://scienceforfamilies.allinfo-about.com/features/internethistory.html
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